Marital History
Frank Russell was twice divorced, and separated permanently from his third and last wife three years after they married. He was also known to have had extramarital affairs.
His first wife was Mary Edith Scott (Mabel). They married in 1890, and Mabel tried to divorce him (and lost) in 1891; she sued for restoration of conjugal rights in 1894. The earl was granted a judicial separation in 1895, but she appealed and it was overturned. His mother-in-law also tried to harass him and was convicted for libel in 1897. Mabel, Countess Russell made her living by singing on the variety stage even while she was married to Frank Russell.
Russell next married Marion Cooke (born c.1857-1858), the divorced wife of George John Somerville, a twice-divorced daughter of an Irish master shoemaker, in the United States in 1900, after establishing domicile in that country and obtaining a divorce in Nevada. The British authorities considered such a divorce invalid, and Lord Russell was arrested and was convicted of bigamy in the House of Lords on 18 July 1901. He was sentenced to only three months in prison, on account of the "extreme torture" he had suffered in his first marriage. The first Countess Russell had already obtained a divorce, and he married Mrs Somerville on 31 October 1901, three days after it became absolute. His second wife divorced him in 1915, after obtaining an annual income for life, suggesting some collusion.
Russell married thirdly the novelist Elizabeth von Arnim (née Mary Annette Beauchamp), widow of Count Henning August von Arnim-Schlagenthin (d. 1910), the next year. Von Arnim, who had a three-year affair with H.G. Wells, ended her relationship with Wells when his other lover Rebecca West became pregnant. She became involved with Russell in 1914, and married Russell on 11 February 1916. The marriage failed quickly and acrimoniously, and the couple separated in 1919, or immediately (according to other sources). However, they never divorced. At the start of the Second World War, Von Arnim moved to the United States where she died in 1941.
Earl Russell had no children, but his second and third marriages brought him several stepchildren. His second wife Marion had one son by her first husband and two sons by her second husband. His third wife Elizabeth had five children by her first husband.
Read more about this topic: Frank Russell, 2nd Earl Russell
Famous quotes containing the words marital and/or history:
“Your children are not here to fill the void left by marital dissatisfaction and disengagement. They are not to be utilized as a substitute for adult-adult intimacy. They are not in this world in order to satisfy a wife’s or a husband’s need for love, closeness or a sense of worth. A child’s task is to fully develop his/her emerging self. When we place our children in the position of satisfying our needs, we rob them of their childhood.”
—Aaron Hess (20th century)
“Humankind has understood history as a series of battles because, to this day, it regards conflict as the central facet of life.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)