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A highly significant portrait of Lord Russell of Killowen, who became the first Catholic to hold the post of Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales since the Reformation, has gone on display in Newry and Mourne Museum. Purchased with grant aid from the Northern Ireland Museums Council as part of its Collecting for the Future initiative, the portrait shows Lord Russell seated in legal dress and wig.
Executed in chalk and charcoal on paper, the portrait was drawn in the 1880s by Pierre (Francois) Verheyden (1843 – 1919), who was one of an international group of artists working in London for Vanity Fair magazine producing caricatures of famous people of the day.
Since the portrait was purchased in 2020, the work has undergone an intensive programme of conservation by Sean Madden of Fine Art Conservation, one of Ireland’s leading paper conservators. During conservation it was noted that the drawing was pasted onto a number of vertical wooden boards. This was very unusual as drawings of this type were normally pasted onto a single board.
Charles Russell was born on 10th November 1832 at 50 Queen Street (now Dominic Street) in Newry. His father, Arthur Russell, owned a brewery in the town. In 1838, the Russell family moved from Newry to ‘Seafield’, a small farm in Killowen, near Rostrevor, where Charles Russell spent his childhood.
After his education in Belfast and Dublin, Russell joined his stepbrother’s legal firm in Newry, Hamill & Denvir, becoming apprenticed as a solicitor in 1849. In 1852 he moved to O’Rourke, McDonald & Tweed in Belfast before setting up his own legal practice in 1854. He subsequently trained as a barrister and was called to the Bar in 1859. In 1872 he became a Queen’s Counsel.
In the following years, Charles Russell pursued a prominent legal career being involved in a number of high-profile cases. He also entered politics as a Liberal and supported the Nationalist cause in Ireland although, at first, he did not directly support Home Rule. Russell believed that Home Rule should be achieved through reform of local government. From 1880 until 1885 Russell was Member of Parliament for Dundalk and was elected to the seat for South Hackney in London when the Liberal Party won the General Election in 1885. Russell held this seat until 1894. Early the following year, Charles Russell received a knighthood and was appointed as Attorney General by William Gladstone. He again became Attorney General when the Liberals returned to power in 1892.
By the late 1880s Sir Charles Russell had become an active advocate for Home Rule in Ireland. He successfully defended Charles Stewart Parnell during the Parnell Commission hearings in 1888 – 1889 and his famous eight-day speech for the defence, caused a sensation at the time.
The Bering Sea Arbitration case in 1893, and Russell’s defence of Britain against the United States in this dispute regarding fishing rights, also captured the public’s imagination. He became a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary and, in May 1894, he was granted a life peerage as Baron Russell of Killowen. In the same year he became Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, the first Catholic to hold this office since the Reformation in the 16th century.
Away from law and politics, Lord Russell was devoted to his family and his love for horse racing. He had married Ellen Mulholland, the daughter of Dr. Mulholland, his close friend in Belfast, in 1858. They had five sons and four daughters and lived at Tadworth Court, near Epsom, in Surrey. Lord Russell died in London on 10th August 1900 after a short illness.
The drawing complements other artefacts in the Museum Collection relating to Sir Charles Russell, particularly the letters patent granting him the title of Baron Russell of Killowen (1894). The drawing is displayed adjacent to the letters patent and, also in the same gallery, is material relating to the 3rd Earl of Kilmorey, a contemporary of Charles Russell, both in the locality and in the political life of Britain and Ireland in the late 19th century.
The Museum is currently offering free tours of the exhibition galleries on Wednesdays and Thursdays at 2.00 pm. These must be booked in advance by calling our Education Officer at 0330 137 4422.
Newry and Mourne Museum is open Tuesday – Saturday 10.00 am – 4.30 pm. Please call 0330 137 4422 or email museums@nmandd.org for further information.
Please visit our website at www.visitmournemountains.co.uk
