1085Bertrand Arthur William Russell was born into a prestigious family in Trelleck,
Wales. His parents, Lord and Lady Amberley, were close friends with John
Stuart Mill, and Russell’s grandfather, Lord John Russell, had been prime minis-
ter to Queen Victoria. Both of Russell’s parents died by the time he was 3, and
so, with his brother, he was sent to live with his grandparents, Lord and Lady
Russell. When his grandfather died a few years later, his grandmother took
responsibility for his education. Unlike most privileged English boys, Russell
did not attend a boarding school—Lady Russell did not approve of them.
Instead, she arranged for a series of Swiss and German governesses, followed by
English tutors, to educate her grandsons. Although Russell thus enjoyed virtually
every privilege, he later reported that his adolescent life seemed so bleak that he
would have committed suicide had he not been “restrained by the desire to know
more mathematics.”
In 1890, Russell entered Cambridge University, where he was finally able to
study his beloved mathematics on his own. His years at the university were the
happiest of his life. He quickly established himself as one of the brightest
students, and he formed several close friendships, including a lifelong one with
G.E. Moore (1873–1958). Following graduation, Russell served briefly with the
British ambassador to France before moving to Berlin to study economics and
political theory. In 1895, Russell was elected a fellow of Trinity College,
Cambridge, and worked extensively on the foundations of mathematics. He pub-
lished Principles of Mathematics(1903) and, together with Alfred North
Whitehead, the epoch-making Principia Mathematica(1910–1913). During this
time, Russell also made the first of three unsuccessful runs for Parliament.
Russell was appointed lecturer in philosophy at Cambridge in 1910—a
position he held until 1916, when he was dismissed for his opposition to theBERTRAND RUSSELL
1872–1970