Laura Russell and the Tavistock Town Hall portraits
The next time you visit Tavistock Town Hall take a closer look at the impressive collection of oil paintings that line the walls.
In no particular order, the nineteen portraits feature men and the occasional woman who were connected with Tavistock at some point from the 15th to the early 20th century. The portraits include local luminaries, members of parliament and several key members of the Russell family, including three Dukes of Bedford. Perhaps even more impressive is that ten of the portraits were painted by the same amateur artist, the aristocratic Lady Laura Russell, wife of Lord Arthur Russell and sister in law to Francis Russell, who would become the 9th Duke of Bedford. Lady Laura was certainly a remarkable lady and a rather beautiful portrait of her also graces the Town Hall wall, by the society portrait painter Jane Hawkins, painted not long after her marriage.
Laura was born in Brussels, her mother was English and her father a French nobleman, the Vicomte de Peyronnet. She studied art in Paris and in 1865 at the age of 29, she married 40-year-old Lord Arthur Russell, former private secretary to his uncle, the Liberal Prime Minister Lord John Russell. The Russells were not an easy family to marry into. Arthur and his younger brother Odo, who would become British ambassador at Berlin under Bismarck, had been educated abroad and spent much of their early life travelling around Europe with their glamourous mother Elizabeth Anne Rawdon, a beautiful but notorious socialite. Lord Byron praised her in his poem Beppo: A Venetian Story as "[one] whose bloom could, after dancing, dare the dawn". However, Lady Elizabeth’s outspoken Tory sympathies won her few friends among her husband's Liberal circle. The former Lord Chancellor Henry Brougham described her as ‘that accursed woman’.
Arthur’s cousin William had become the 8th Duke of Bedford in 1861. A depressed hypochondriac who never married, William died in 1872 passing Woburn and the dukedom onto Arthur’s older brother Francis who would become the 9th Duke. Laura and Arthur made occasional visits to the family seat and perhaps to pass the time Laura became fascinated by the Bedfords’ extensive art collection. She was particularly interested in the large number of portraits of Russells of every generation and decided she would copy many of the paintings.
By this point Arthur, following in the footsteps of many members of the Russell family, had become MP for Tavistock. Not long after getting married, Lady Laura decided to accompany Arthur on constituency business to Tavistock, where Arthur ended up speaking to his constituents in the newly built town hall. Designed by local architect Edward Rundle and built using the local green Hurdwick stone, the town hall had been the vision of Francis the 7th Duke of Bedford. The new town hall had been officially opened on 2nd February 1864 with a grand ball which went on until 4:00am as reported by the Tavistock Gazette of the day. This was followed with a programme of celebrations over three days, featuring in particular, an ‘Exhibition of rare and Valuable Works of Science and Art etc’. By the time Arthur and his wife arrived at the new hall, the works of science and art had been removed and the cavernous interior, with its Tudor-style beams and minstrels’ gallery, was looking rather bare. As Arthur addressed his constituents, Laura glanced around the empty walls and decided on a way to brighten up the building. She would donate eight of her portraits copied from the Woburn collection and two original portraits of Tavistock MPs. The MPs were Sir John Salusbury Trelawny who had been one of the two Tavistock MPs between 1843 and 1852 and from 1857 to 1865, and The Right Honourable George Henry Charles Byng, 3rd Earl of Strafford and Viscount Enfield who had been MP between 1852 and 1857. The Woburn copies include John Pym, Sir Francis Drake and six members of the Russell family: William Lord Russell, 4th Duke John Russell, 7th Duke Francis Russell, Marchioness of Tavistock Elizabeth Keppell, 6th Duke John Russell, and Colonel John Russell who, together with Laura herself, still peer down from the walls of the Town Hall over 150 years later.
Laura and Arthur appear to have had a good marriage. He was MP for Tavistock between 1857 and 1885 and made occasional trips down from London to meet his constituents. They had six children and their daughter Flora Russell inherited her mother’s artistic talent. She was a great friend of the traveller, spy and archaeologist Gertrude Bell, and Flora’s portrait of Bell now hangs in the National Portrait Gallery, an accolade Laura never managed to achieve. Flora’s niece Elizabeth Russell, was a crime novelist and together with her husband Richard Plunket Greene, a racing motorist and jazz musician, was part of the so-called Bright Young Things, a group of bohemian young aristocrats and socialites in 1920s London, immortalized by their friend Evelyn Waugh in his book Vile Bodies. Their son and Laura’s great grandson was Alexander Plunket Greene who would himself become famous as the husband and business partner of the 1960s fashion icon Mary Quant. By a strange twist of fate, the Mary Quant offices are to this day in Tavistock Square in London built in the 1820s by Arthur Russell’s great uncle, Francis the 5th Duke of Bedford.
Dr Geri Parlby
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For more information on the history and heritage of Tavistock please visit the Tavistock Heritage Trust website www.heritageintavistock.org.