Early life and background Bertrand Arthur William Russell was born at
Ravenscroft, a country house in
Trellech, Monmouthshire, on 18 May 1872, into an influential and liberal family of the
British aristocracy. His parents were
Viscount and
Viscountess Amberley. Both were early advocates of
birth control at a time when this was considered scandalous. Lord Amberley consented to his wife's relationship with their children's tutor, the biologist
Douglas Spalding. Lord Amberley, a
deist, asked the philosopher
John Stuart Mill to act as Russell's secular godfather. Mill died the year after Russell's birth, but his writings later influenced Russell's life. Russell's paternal grandfather, Lord John Russell, later
1st Earl Russell, had twice been
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in the 1840s and 1860s. A member of Parliament since the early 1810s, he met
Napoleon in
Elba. The Russells had been prominent in England for several centuries before this, coming to power and the
peerage with the rise of the
Tudor dynasty (see:
Duke of Bedford). They established themselves as one of the leading
Whig families and participated in political events from the
dissolution of the monasteries in 1536–1540 to the
Glorious Revolution in 1688–1689 and the
Great Reform Act in 1832. Lady Amberley was the daughter of
Lord and
Lady Stanley of Alderley. one of the campaigners for
education of women.
Childhood and adolescence , Richmond Park, London Russell had two siblings: brother
Frank (seven years older), and sister Rachel (four years older). In June 1874 Russell's mother died of
diphtheria, followed shortly by Rachel's death. In January 1876, his father died of
bronchitis after a long period of
depression. Frank and Bertrand were placed in the care of paternal grandparents, who lived at
Pembroke Lodge in
Richmond Park. His grandfather, former Prime Minister
Earl Russell, died in 1878, and was remembered by Russell as a kind old man in a wheelchair. His grandmother, the
Countess Russell (née Lady Frances Elliot), was the central family figure for the rest of Russell's childhood and youth. only his wish to know more mathematics kept him from suicide. He was educated at home by a series of tutors. When Russell was eleven, his brother Frank introduced him to the work of
Euclid, which he described in his autobiography as "one of the great events of my life, as dazzling as first love". During these formative years, he also discovered the works of
Percy Bysshe Shelley. Russell wrote: "I spent all my spare time reading him, and learning him by heart, knowing no one to whom I could speak of what I thought or felt, I used to reflect how wonderful it would have been to know Shelley, and to wonder whether I should meet any live human being with whom I should feel so much sympathy." Russell said that beginning at age 15, he spent considerable time thinking about the validity of
Christian religious dogma, which he found unconvincing. At this age, he came to the conclusion that there is no
free will and, two years later, that there is no life after death. Finally, at the age of 18, after reading Mill's
Autobiography, he abandoned the "
First Cause" argument and became an
atheist. He travelled to the continent in 1890 with an American friend,
Edward FitzGerald, and with FitzGerald's family he visited the
Paris Exhibition of 1889 and climbed the
Eiffel Tower soon after it was completed.
Education , in 1893 Russell won a scholarship to read for the
Mathematical Tripos at
Trinity College, Cambridge, and began his studies there in 1890, taking as coach
Robert Rumsey Webb. He became acquainted with the younger
George Edward Moore and came under the influence of
Alfred North Whitehead, who recommended him to the
Cambridge Apostles. He distinguished himself in mathematics and philosophy, graduating as seventh
Wrangler in the former in 1893 and becoming a Fellow in the latter in 1895. During his time at Cambridge, Russell increasingly turned from mathematics toward philosophy, influenced by contemporary debates about idealism and the foundations of geometry. Although initially sympathetic to
British Idealism, he later rejected it, developing the realist approach that would become central to analytic philosophy. His early academic work focused on the logical foundations of mathematics, culminating in his first major publication,
An Essay on the Foundations of Geometry (1897). Russell's election to a Fellowship at Trinity College in 1895 provided him with financial independence and the freedom to pursue research. During these formative years, he began the investigations into logic and set theory that would eventually lead to his work on logicism and his collaboration with Alfred North Whitehead on
Principia Mathematica.
Early career Russell began his published work in 1896 with
German Social Democracy, a study in politics that was an early indication of his interest in political and social theory. In 1896 he taught German social democracy at the
London School of Economics. He was a member of the
Coefficients dining club of social reformers set up in 1902 by the
Fabian campaigners
Sidney and
Beatrice Webb. He now started a study of the
foundations of mathematics at Trinity. In 1897, he wrote
An Essay on the Foundations of Geometry (submitted at the
Fellowship Examination of Trinity College) which discussed the
Cayley–Klein metrics used for
non-Euclidean geometry. He attended the first
International Congress of Philosophy in Paris in 1900 where he met
Giuseppe Peano and
Alessandro Padoa. The Italians had responded to
Georg Cantor, making a science of
set theory; they gave Russell their literature including the
Formulario mathematico. Russell was impressed by the precision of Peano's arguments at the Congress, read the literature upon returning to England, and came upon
Russell's paradox. In 1903 he published
The Principles of Mathematics, a work on the foundations of mathematics. It advanced a thesis of
logicism, that mathematics and logic are one and the same. In February 1901, at the age of 29, Russell underwent what he called a "sort of mystic illumination", after witnessing
Whitehead's wife's suffering in an
angina attack. "I found myself filled with semi-mystical feelings about beauty and with a desire almost as profound as that of the
Buddha to find some philosophy which should make human life endurable", Russell would later recall. "At the end of those five minutes, I had become a completely different person." In 1905, he wrote the essay "
On Denoting", which was published in the philosophical journal
Mind. Russell was elected a
Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1908. In 1910, he became a lecturer at the
University of Cambridge, Trinity College, where he had studied. He was considered for a fellowship, which would give him a vote in the college government and protect him from being fired for his opinions, but was passed over because he was "anti-clerical", because he was agnostic. He was approached by the Austrian engineering student
Ludwig Wittgenstein, who started undergraduate study with him. Russell viewed Wittgenstein as a successor who would continue his work on logic. He spent hours dealing with Wittgenstein's various
phobias and his bouts of despair. This was a drain on Russell's energy, but Russell continued to be fascinated by him and encouraged his academic development, including the publication of Wittgenstein's
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus in 1922. Russell delivered his lectures on
logical atomism, his version of these ideas, in 1918, before the end of
World War I.
First World War , shown here in May 1916 (
back right). During
World War I, Russell was one of the few people to engage in active
pacifist activities. In 1916, due to his absence of allegiance to the war effort, he was dismissed from Trinity College following his conviction under the
Defence of the Realm Act 1914. He later described this, in
Free Thought and Official Propaganda, as an illegitimate means the state used to violate freedom of expression. Russell championed the case of
Eric Chappelow, a poet jailed and abused as a conscientious objector. Russell played a part in the
Leeds Convention in June 1917, a historic event which saw well over a thousand "anti-war socialists" gather; many being delegates from the
Independent Labour Party and the Socialist Party, united in their pacifist beliefs and advocating a peace settlement. The international press reported that Russell appeared with a number of Labour
Members of Parliament (MPs), including
Ramsay MacDonald and
Philip Snowden, as well as former
Liberal MP and anti-conscription campaigner, Professor
Arnold Lupton. After the event, Russell told
Lady Ottoline Morrell that, "to my surprise, when I got up to speak, I was given the greatest ovation that was possible to give anybody". His conviction in 1916 resulted in Russell being fined £100 (), which he refused to pay in the hope that he would be sent to prison, but his books were sold at auction to raise the money. The books were bought by friends; he later treasured his copy of the
King James Bible that was stamped "Confiscated by Cambridge Police". A later conviction for publicly lecturing against inviting the United States to enter the war on the United Kingdom's side resulted in six months' imprisonment in
Brixton Prison (see ''
Bertrand Russell's political views'') in 1918 (he was prosecuted under the
Defence of the Realm Act). He later said of his imprisonment: While he was reading
Strachey's
Eminent Victorians chapter about
Gordon he laughed out loud in his cell prompting the warder to intervene and reminding him that "prison was a place of punishment". Russell was reinstated to Trinity in 1919, resigned in 1920, was Tarner Lecturer in 1926 and became a Fellow again in 1944 until 1949. In 1924, Russell again gained press attention when attending a "banquet" in the
House of Commons with well-known campaigners, including
Arnold Lupton, who had been an
MP and had also endured imprisonment for "passive resistance to military or naval service".
G. H. Hardy on the Trinity controversy In 1941,
G. H. Hardy wrote a 61-page pamphlet titled
Bertrand Russell and Trinity (published later as a book by
Cambridge University Press with a foreword by
C. D. Broad) in which he gave an authoritative account of Russell's 1916 dismissal from Trinity College, explaining that a reconciliation between the college and Russell had later taken place and gave details about Russell's personal life. Hardy writes that Russell's dismissal had created a scandal since the vast majority of the Fellows of the College opposed the decision. The ensuing pressure from the Fellows induced the Council to reinstate Russell. In January 1920, it was announced that Russell had accepted the reinstatement offer from Trinity and would begin lecturing in October. In July 1920, Russell applied for a one-year leave of absence; this was approved. He spent the year giving lectures in China and Japan. In January 1921, it was announced by Trinity that Russell had resigned and his resignation had been accepted. This resignation, Hardy explains, was voluntary and was not the result of another altercation. The reason for the resignation, according to Hardy, was that Russell was going through a tumultuous time in his personal life with a divorce and subsequent remarriage. Russell contemplated asking Trinity for another one-year leave of absence but decided against it since this would have been an "unusual application" and the situation had the potential to snowball into another controversy. Although Russell did the right thing, in Hardy's opinion, the reputation of the College suffered with Russell's resignation since the 'world of learning' knew about Russell's altercation with Trinity but not that the rift had healed. In 1925, Russell was asked by the Council of Trinity College to give the
Tarner Lectures on the Philosophy of the Sciences; these would later be the basis for one of Russell's best-received books according to Hardy:
The Analysis of Matter, published in 1927. In the preface to the Trinity pamphlet, Hardy wrote:
Between the wars In August 1920, Russell travelled to
Soviet Russia as part of an official delegation sent by the British government to investigate the effects of the
Russian Revolution. He wrote a four-part series of articles, titled "Soviet Russia—1920", for the magazine
The Nation. He met
Vladimir Lenin and had an hour-long conversation with him. In his autobiography, he mentions that he found Lenin disappointing, sensing an "impish cruelty" in him and comparing him to "an opinionated professor". He cruised down the
Volga on a steamship. His experiences destroyed his previous tentative support for the revolution. He subsequently wrote a book,
The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism, about his experiences on this trip, and
Kate Russell's lover
Dora Black, a British author,
feminist and socialist campaigner, visited Soviet Russia independently at the same time; in contrast to his reaction, she was enthusiastic about the
Bolshevik revolution. Other scholars present in China at the time included
John Dewey When the couple visited Japan on their return journey, Dora took on the role of spurning the local press by handing out notices reading "Mr. Bertrand Russell, having died according to the Japanese press, is unable to give interviews to Japanese journalists". Apparently they found this harsh and reacted resentfully. Russell supported his family during this time by writing popular books explaining matters of
physics, ethics, and education to the layman. From 1922 to 1927, the Russells divided their time between London and
Cornwall, spending summers in
Porthcurno. In the
1922 and
1923 general elections Russell stood as a
Labour Party candidate in the
Chelsea constituency, but only on the basis that he knew he was unlikely to be elected in such a safe Conservative seat, and he was unsuccessful on both occasions. After the birth of his two children, he became interested in education, especially
early childhood education. He was not satisfied with the old
traditional education and thought that
progressive education also had some flaws; as a result, together with Dora, Russell founded the experimental Beacon Hill School in 1927. The school was run from a succession of different locations, including its original premises at the Russells' residence, Telegraph House, near
Harting, West Sussex. During this time, he published
On Education, Especially in Early Childhood. On 8 July 1930, Dora gave birth to her third child Harriet Ruth. After he left the school in 1932, Dora continued it until 1943. In 1927, Russell met
Barry Fox (later Barry Stevens), who became a known
Gestalt therapist and writer in her later years. They developed an intense relationship, and in Fox's words: "...for three years we were very close." Fox sent her daughter Judith to Beacon Hill School. From 1927 to 1932 Russell wrote 34 letters to Fox. Upon the death of his elder brother Frank, in 1931, Russell became the 3rd
Earl Russell. Russell's marriage to Dora grew tenuous, and it reached a breaking point over her having two children with an American journalist, Griffin Barry. Russell chaired the India League from 1932 to 1939.
Second World War Russell's political views changed over time, mostly about war. He opposed rearmament against
Nazi Germany. In 1937, he wrote in a personal letter: "If the Germans succeed in sending an invading army to England we should do best to treat them as visitors, give them quarters and invite the commander and chief to dine with the prime minister." In 1940, he changed his
appeasement view that avoiding a full-scale world war was more important than defeating Hitler. He concluded that Adolf Hitler taking over all of Europe would be a permanent threat to democracy. In 1943, he adopted a stance toward large-scale warfare called "relative political pacifism": "War was always a great evil, but in some particularly extreme circumstances, it may be the lesser of two evils." Before World War II, Russell taught at the
University of Chicago, later moving on to Los Angeles to lecture at the
UCLA Department of Philosophy. He was appointed professor at the
City College of New York (CCNY) in 1940, but after a public outcry the appointment was annulled by a court judgment that pronounced him "morally unfit" to teach at the college because of his opinions, especially those relating to
sexual morality, detailed in
Marriage and Morals (1929). The matter was taken to the
New York Supreme Court by
Jean Kay who was afraid that her daughter would be harmed by the appointment, though her daughter was not a student at CCNY. Many intellectuals, led by
John Dewey, protested at his treatment.
Albert Einstein's oft-quoted aphorism that "great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds" originated in his open letter, dated 19 March 1940, to
Morris Raphael Cohen, a professor emeritus at CCNY, supporting Russell's appointment. Dewey and
Horace M. Kallen edited a collection of articles on the CCNY affair in
The Bertrand Russell Case. Russell soon joined the
Barnes Foundation, lecturing to a varied audience on the
history of philosophy; these lectures formed the basis of
A History of Western Philosophy. His relationship with the eccentric
Albert C. Barnes soon soured, and he returned to the UK in 1944 to rejoin the faculty of Trinity College.
Later life Russell participated in many broadcasts over the
BBC, particularly
The Brains Trust and for the
Third Programme, on various topical and philosophical subjects. By this time Russell was known outside academic circles, frequently the subject or author of magazine and newspaper articles, and was called upon to offer opinions on a variety of subjects, even mundane ones. En route to one of his lectures in
Trondheim, Russell was one of 24 survivors (out of 43 passengers) of an
aeroplane crash in Hommelvik in October 1948. He said he owed his life to smoking since the people who drowned were in the non-smoking part of the plane.
A History of Western Philosophy (1945) became a best-seller and provided Russell with a steady income for the remainder of his life. In 1942, Russell argued in favour of a moderate
socialism, capable of overcoming its metaphysical principles. In an inquiry on
dialectical materialism, launched by the Austrian artist and philosopher
Wolfgang Paalen in his journal
DYN, Russell said: "I think the metaphysics of both
Hegel and
Marx plain nonsense—Marx's claim to be 'science' is no more justified than
Mary Baker Eddy's. This does not mean that I am opposed to socialism." In 1943, Russell expressed support for
Zionism: "I have come gradually to see that, in a dangerous and largely hostile world, it is essential to Jews to have some country which is theirs, some region where they are not suspected aliens, some state which embodies what is distinctive in their culture". In a speech in 1948, Russell said that if the
USSR's aggression continued, it would be morally worse to go to war after the USSR possessed an
atomic bomb than before it possessed one, because if the USSR had no bomb the West's victory would come more swiftly and with fewer casualties than if there were atomic bombs on both sides. At that time, only the United States possessed an atomic bomb, and the USSR was pursuing an aggressive policy towards the countries in Eastern Europe which were being absorbed into the Soviet Union's
sphere of influence. Many understood Russell's comments to mean that Russell approved of a
first strike in a war with the USSR, including
Nigel Lawson, who was present when Russell spoke of such matters. Others, including
Griffin, who obtained a transcript of the speech, have argued that he was explaining the usefulness of America's atomic arsenal in deterring the USSR from continuing its domination of Eastern Europe. In September 1949, one week after the USSR tested its first A-bomb, but before this became known, Russell wrote that the USSR would be unable to develop nuclear weapons because following Stalin's purges only science based on Marxist principles would be practised in the Soviet Union. After it became known that the USSR had carried out
its nuclear bomb tests, Russell declared his position advocating the total abolition of atomic weapons.—what was to become an annual series of lectures, still broadcast by the BBC. His series of six broadcasts, titled
Authority and the Individual, explored themes such as the role of individual initiative in the development of a community and the role of state control in a progressive society. Russell continued to write about philosophy. He wrote a foreword to
Words and Things by
Ernest Gellner, which was highly critical of the
later thought of
Ludwig Wittgenstein and of
ordinary language philosophy.
Gilbert Ryle refused to have the book reviewed in the philosophical journal
Mind, which caused Russell to respond via
The Times. The result was a month-long correspondence in
The Times between the supporters and detractors of ordinary language philosophy, which was ended when the paper published an editorial critical of both sides but agreeing with the opponents of ordinary language philosophy. In the King's
Birthday Honours of 9 June 1949, Russell was awarded the
Order of Merit, and the following year he was awarded the
Nobel Prize in Literature. Russell merely smiled, but afterwards claimed that the reply "That's right, just like your
brother" immediately came to mind. In 1950, Russell attended the inaugural conference for the
Congress for Cultural Freedom, a
CIA-funded anti-communist organisation committed to the deployment of culture as a weapon during the
Cold War. Russell was one of the known patrons of the Congress until he resigned in 1956. Russell sent this telegram to
President Kennedy: According to historian Peter Knight, after JFK's
assassination, Russell, "prompted by the emerging work of the lawyer
Mark Lane in the US ... rallied support from other noteworthy and left-leaning compatriots to form a 'Who Killed Kennedy committee' in June 1964, members of which included
Michael Foot MP,
Caroline Benn (wife of
Tony Benn MP), the publisher
Victor Gollancz, the writers
John Arden and
J. B. Priestley, and the Oxford history professor
Hugh Trevor-Roper." Russell published a highly critical article in
The Minority of One weeks before the
Warren Commission report was published, setting forth
16 Questions on the Assassination. Russell equated the
Oswald case with the
Dreyfus affair of late 19th-century France, in which the state convicted an innocent man. Russell also criticised the American press for failing to heed any voices critical of the official version.
Political causes Bertrand Russell was opposed to war from a young age; his opposition to World War I was used as grounds for his dismissal from Trinity College at Cambridge. This incident fused two of his controversial causes, as he had failed to be granted fellow status which would have protected him from firing, because he was not willing to either pretend to be a devout Christian, or at least avoid admitting he was agnostic. He later described the resolution of these issues as essential to freedom of thought and expression, citing the incident in
Free Thought and Official Propaganda, where he explained that the expression of any idea, even the most obviously "bad", must be protected not only from direct State intervention but also economic leveraging and other means of being silenced: Russell spent the 1950s and 1960s engaged in political causes primarily related to
nuclear disarmament and opposing the
Vietnam War. The 1955
Russell–Einstein Manifesto was a document calling for nuclear disarmament and was signed by eleven of the most prominent nuclear physicists and intellectuals of the time. In October 1960 "
The Committee of 100" was formed with a declaration by Russell and
Michael Scott, entitled "Act or Perish", which called for a "movement of nonviolent resistance to nuclear war and weapons of mass destruction". In September 1961, at the age of 89, Russell was jailed for seven days in
Brixton Prison for a "breach of the peace" after taking part in
an anti-nuclear demonstration in London. The magistrate offered to exempt him from jail if he pledged himself to "good behaviour", to which Russell replied: "No, I won't." From 1966 to 1967, Russell worked with
Jean-Paul Sartre and many other intellectual figures to form the
Russell Vietnam War Crimes Tribunal to investigate the conduct of the United States in Vietnam. He wrote many letters to world leaders during this period. Early in his life, Russell supported
eugenicist policies. In 1894, he proposed that the state issue certificates of health to prospective parents and withhold public benefits from those considered unfit. In 1929, he wrote that people deemed "mentally defective" and "feebleminded" should be sexually sterilised because they "are apt to have enormous numbers of illegitimate children, all, as a rule, wholly useless to the community." Russell was also an advocate of
population control: On 20 November 1948, in a public speech at
Westminster School, addressing a gathering arranged by the New Commonwealth, Russell shocked some observers by suggesting that a preemptive nuclear strike on the
Soviet Union was justified. Russell argued that war between the United States and the Soviet Union seemed inevitable, so it would be a humanitarian gesture to get it over with quickly and have the United States in the dominant position. Currently, Russell argued, humanity could survive such a war, whereas a full
nuclear war after both sides had manufactured large stockpiles of more destructive weapons was likely to result in the
extinction of the
human race. Russell later relented from this stance, instead arguing for mutual disarmament by the nuclear powers. In 1956, before and during the
Suez Crisis, Russell expressed his opposition to European imperialism in the Middle East. He viewed the crisis as another reminder of the pressing need for an effective mechanism for international governance, and to restrict national sovereignty in places such as the
Suez Canal area "where general interest is involved". At the same time the Suez Crisis was taking place, the world was also captivated by the
Hungarian Revolution and the subsequent crushing of the revolt by intervening Soviet forces. Russell attracted criticism for speaking out fervently against the Suez war while ignoring Soviet repression in Hungary, to which he responded that he did not criticise the Soviets "because there was no need. Most of the so-called Western World was fulminating". Although he later feigned a lack of concern, at the time he was disgusted by the brutal Soviet response, and on 16 November 1956, he expressed approval for a declaration of support for Hungarian scholars which
Michael Polanyi had cabled to the Soviet embassy in London twelve days previously, shortly after Soviet troops had entered
Budapest. In November 1957 Russell wrote an article addressing US President
Dwight D. Eisenhower and Soviet Premier
Nikita Khrushchev, urging a summit to consider "the conditions of co-existence". Khrushchev responded that peace could be served by such a meeting. In January 1958 Russell elaborated his views in
The Observer, proposing a cessation of all nuclear weapons production, with the UK taking the first step by unilaterally suspending its own nuclear weapons programme if necessary, and with Germany "freed from all alien armed forces and pledged to neutrality in any conflict between East and West". US Secretary of State
John Foster Dulles replied for Eisenhower. The exchange of letters was published as
The Vital Letters of Russell, Khrushchev, and Dulles. Russell was asked by
The New Republic, a liberal American magazine, to elaborate his views on world peace. He urged that all nuclear weapons testing and flights by planes armed with nuclear weapons be halted immediately, and negotiations be opened for the destruction of all
hydrogen bombs, with the number of conventional nuclear devices limited to ensure a balance of power. He proposed that Germany be reunified and accept the
Oder-Neisse line as its border, and that a neutral zone be established in Central Europe, consisting at the minimum of Germany, Poland, Hungary, and
Czechoslovakia, with each of these countries being free of foreign troops and influence, and prohibited from forming alliances with countries outside the zone. In the Middle East, Russell suggested that the West avoid opposing
Arab nationalism, and proposed the creation of a United Nations peacekeeping force to guard Israel's frontiers to ensure that Israel was prevented from committing aggression and protected from it. He also suggested Western recognition of the
People's Republic of China, and that it be admitted to the UN with a permanent seat on the
UN Security Council. In 1964, he was one of eleven world figures who issued an appeal to Israel and the
Arab countries to accept an
arms embargo and international supervision of
nuclear plants and rocket weaponry. In October 1965, he tore up his
Labour Party card because he suspected
Harold Wilson's Labour government was going to send troops to support the United States in Vietnam. Russell published his three-volume autobiography in 1967, 1968, and 1969. He made a
cameo appearance playing himself in the anti-war
Hindi film
Aman, by
Mohan Kumar, which was released in India in 1967. This was Russell's only appearance in a feature film. On 23 November 1969, he wrote to
The Times newspaper saying that the preparation for show trials in Czechoslovakia was "highly alarming". The same month, he appealed to Secretary General
U Thant of the United Nations to support an international war crimes commission to investigate alleged torture and genocide by the United States in
South Vietnam during the Vietnam War. The following month, he protested to
Alexei Kosygin over the expulsion of
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn from the
Soviet Union of Writers. On 31 January 1970, Russell issued a statement condemning "Israel's aggression in the Middle East", and in particular, Israeli bombing raids being carried out deep in Egyptian territory as part of the
War of Attrition, which he compared to German bombing raids in the
Battle of Britain and the US bombing of Vietnam. He called for an Israeli withdrawal to the pre-
Six-Day War borders, stating "The aggression committed by Israel must be condemned, not only because no state has the right to annexe foreign territory, but because every expansion is an experiment to discover how much more aggression the world will tolerate." This was Russell's final political statement or act. It was read out at the International Conference of Parliamentarians in
Cairo on 3 February 1970, the day after his death. Russell died of
influenza, just after 8 pm on 2 February 1970 at his home in Penrhyndeudraeth, aged 97. His body was cremated in
Colwyn Bay on 5 February 1970 with five people present. In accordance with his will, there was no religious ceremony but one minute's silence; his ashes were later scattered over the Welsh mountains. Later in 1970, on 23 October, his will was published showing he had left an estate valued at £69,423 (equivalent to £ million in ). In 1980, a memorial to Russell was commissioned by a committee including the philosopher
A. J. Ayer. It consists of a bust of Russell in
Red Lion Square in London sculpted by Marcelle Quinton. Lady Katharine Jane Tait, Russell's daughter, founded the Bertrand Russell Society in 1974 to preserve and understand his work. It publishes the
Bertrand Russell Society Bulletin, holds meetings and awards prizes for scholarship, including the Bertrand Russell Society Award. She also authored several essays about her father; as well as a book,
My Father, Bertrand Russell, which was published in 1975. All members receive
Russell: The Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies. For the
sesquicentennial of his birth, in May 2022,
McMaster University's Bertrand Russell Archive, the university's largest and most heavily used research collection, organised both a physical and virtual exhibition on Russell's anti-nuclear stance in the post-war era,
Scientists for Peace: the Russell-Einstein Manifesto and the Pugwash Conference, which included the earliest version of the
Russell–Einstein Manifesto. The
Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation held a commemoration at
Conway Hall in Red Lion Square, London, on 18 May, the anniversary of his birth. For its part, on the same day,
La Estrella de Panamá published a biographical sketch by Francisco Díaz Montilla, who commented that "[if he] had to characterize Russell's work in one sentence [he] would say: criticism and rejection of dogmatism." Bangladesh's first leader,
Mujibur Rahman, named his youngest son
Sheikh Russel in honour of Bertrand Russell. ==Marriages and issue==