RUSSEL, Frederick Brett

1813 - 1869

As Frederick Brett Russell (he dropped the final ‘l’ from his name), he was born at Walworth, London on 25 June and baptised at Surrey Chapel, Blackfriars Road, Southwark on 14 December 1813, son of George Russell and his wife Sarah née Olney, who married at Southwark on 19 January 1803. Frederick was apprenticed to architect Henry William Inwood (1794-1843), the architect of St Pancras, London from where he first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1830. Before reaching his majority, an aunt left him an inheritance which enabled him to enjoy a life of leisure, purchasing a small yacht and, with a crew, he sailed round the coasts of England. Around 1840, his wealth gone, he came to live at Ipswich joining architect John Medland Clark (1813-1849) in Upper Brook Street, who designed the Custom House in Quay Street, Ipswich. He married an Ipswich girl, Sarah Ann Stocking (14 October 1812-28 October 1866), and in 1851 was living at 14 Berners Street, Ipswich with his 37-year-old wife Sarah and two Ipswich born children, Frederick Brett (born 1843) and Katherine (born 1845). He had shared his Berners Street studio with Edward Robert Smythe and Russel corroborated with Wat Hagreen and John Wodderspoon, the Ipswich journalist, in the production of 'Picturesque Antiquities of Ipswich' (Ipswich 1845) which had covers in silk from the then Ipswich silk factory. Russel was hon. sec. of Suffolk Fine Arts’ Association & Art Union and exhibited at the Suffolk Fine Arts Association exhibition at the New Lecture Hall of the Ipswich Mechanics' Institution in August 1850, watercolours 'A View in St Mary at the Elms, Ipswich', 'New Place, near Ipswich' and 'A Cottage at Belstead'. He designed an Ale Jug and Salver for the Shakespeare Tercentenary Festival in 1864 which was manufactured by Minton, Hollis & Co., of Stoke on Trent by which time he seems to have wandered from Ipswich as in 1861, an ‘artist painter’ at 5 Henby Street, Luddesdown, a civil parish in the Gravesend district of Kent, with his wife and their two children and where his wife died on 28 October 1866, aged 53 when he returned to Ipswich. Frederick Brett Russel died at Tyler Street, Ipswich on 1 November 1869, aged 57 and buried in the Old Ipswich Cemetery on 5 November where there this a memorial. His son Frederick Brett Russell, jun. married at Gravesend on 10 November 1867, Phoebe Wright where he was employed as a house carpenter living at Milton, Gravesend.

Royal Academy Exhibits
from Mr H. W. Inwood's Office, 5 Southampton Row, Euston Square
1830 1159 Sketch of a design for Public Baths, and idea from the Hippias of Lucien
from 16 Cross Street, Newington, London
1831 1092 Cenotaph to Lord Byron, supposed to be erected near Athens
from Church Street, Camberwell, London
1833 874 Twilight
No address noted
1847 1253 Design for the Restoration of the old Grammar School, Ipswich

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Works by This Artist