John Russell was born on 18 August 1792 in Mayfair, then part of the fashionable western districts of London, in an England still governed under the constitutional arrangements of the Kingdom of Great Britain. He was educated at Westminster School before proceeding to the University of Edinburgh, and he worked throughout his life in the English language as a politician and public figure in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

Russell's career in politics reached its highest office on two separate occasions. He served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1846 to 1852 and again from 1865 to 1866, making him one of the few individuals to hold that office in two distinct periods. Known during much of his public life as Lord John Russell, he assumed that style until 1861. Among the honors he received were election as a Fellow of the Royal Society, appointment as a Knight of the Garter, and appointment as Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George.

Russell died on 28 May 1878 at Pembroke Lodge, the residence associated with his later years. His two terms as Prime Minister and the constellation of honors he accumulated across a long career mark the outer boundaries of what the surviving record confirms about his public life.