He was born in
Swallowfield Park, near
Reading, in
Berkshire, the son of
Sir George Russell, 4th Baronet and Lady
Constance Charlotte Elisa Lennox. He was educated at
Eton College and studied chemistry at
King's College London. He served in France during
World War I and was invalided home in 1915. He was appointed a
Member of Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 1920 and succeeded as 6th Baronet upon the death of his older brother in 1944. In his lifetime, he amassed a huge collection of minerals. Among the more important were the collections of
Philip Rashleigh (1728–1811),
Lady Elizabeth Coxe Hippisley (1760–1843),
John Hawkins (1761–1841),
John Hamrease (1764–1811),
George Croker Fox (1784–1850),
Edmund Pearse (1788–1856),
Robert Were Fox (1789–1877), The collection of about 12,000 of the finest British minerals is now in the Mineralogical Collection of the
Natural History Museum. He married, in 1904,
Aileen Kerr Pechell (ca. 1879-1920), daughter of Admiral
Mark Robert Pechell. They had two children, including
George Michael Russell who succeeded as baronet. ==Honours and awards==