Mary Russell, Duchess of Bedford

For other people named Mary Russell, see Mary Russell (disambiguation).

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The Duchess of Bedford

Dame Mary Russell, Duchess of Bedford, DBE, RRC, FLS (26 September 1865 – ca. 22 March 1937) was an English aviator and ornithologist.

Early and personal life

Born as Mary Du Caurroy Tribe at Stockbridge, Hampshire, she was the daughter of Walter Harry Tribe, Anglican Archdeacon of Lahore. On 31 January 1888, she married Lord Herbrand Russell at Barrackpore, India. When Lord Herbrand inherited his childless brother's titles in 1893, she was styled as the Duchess of Bedford. Her only child, Hastings, was born on 21 December 1888.

Work and activism

A major area of organisation and work for the duchess was in founding four hospitals in Woburn and in the grounds of Woburn Abbey. The principal establishment was the Abbey Hospital that she financed and built in 1914, and where she worked as a nurse and radiographer through to the 1930s.

The duchess was a collector and watcher of birds, and took an interest in bird migration. Between 1909 and 1914 she spent much time on Fair Isle, often in the company of William Eagle Clarke. Her journal, A Bird-watcher's Diary, was privately published in 1938 after her death.

She was a member of the Women's Tax Resistance League, a group associated with the Women’s Social and Political Union that used tax resistance to protest the disenfranchisement of women during the British women's suffrage movement

Honours

She was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1928. She was also Dame of Grace of the Order of Saint John (DGStJ) and a Fellow of the Linnean Society of the Imperial College (FLS).

Aviation

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Late in life at age 63, the duchess became interested in aviation, that she claimed gave her some relief from her constant tinnitus, although she eventually became totally deaf. On 2 August 1929, she departed on a record-breaking flight of 10,000 miles from Lympne Airport to Karachi (then in India) and return to Croydon Airport in eight days. She was accompanied in her single-engined Fokker F.VII (G-EBTS, Princess Xenia, which she renamed "The Spider" for its tenacity) by her personal pilot Captain C. D. Barnard and mechanic Robert (Bob) Little. On 8 April 1930 she made her first solo flight, in her DH.60G Moth (G-AAAO). On 10 April 1930 she embarked on a record-breaking flight from Lympne Airport to Cape Town, in the "The Spider", flying 9,000 miles in 100 flying hours over 10 days, with her pilot Captain C. D. Barnard.

Death

The duchess died aged 71, in March 1937, three months before Amelia Earhart's death, after leaving Woburn Abbey in a DH.60GIII Moth Major (G-ACUR), that crashed into the North Sea off Great Yarmouth; her body was never recovered.

See also

• List of suffragists and suffragettes

References

• Bedford, John Duke of. The Flying Duchess. MacDonald. 1968. ASIN B000RY7R0U
• Buxton, Meriel. The High-Flying Duchess. Woodperry. 2008. ISBN 978-0-9558925-0-9
• Jackson, A.J. British Civil Aircraft since 1919: Vol 2. Putnam. 1973. ISBN 0-370-10010-7