The Late Mr Russel of Blackbraes.— We deeply regret that it is our melancholy duty to notice the death of this gentleman, whose loss will be felt in Fife as in other counties. Mr Russel was the principal partner of the Lochgelly Iron and Coal Company, and the numerous workmen there employed respected him, as well as the other gentlemen associated with him in the management of that large concern, so highly, that during all the strikes or threatened strikes in the West of Fife of late years, the miners of Lochgelly were never found taking active part in these movements.
The Scotsman in speaking of the deceased, says :—" In our obituary the lst inst., we announced the death at Arnotdale, near Falkirk, of Mr Russel of Blackbraes, gentleman whose loss will, we are sure, be long felt and deeply lamented. Indeed, since the death of his father, in February 1858, no similar occurrence has, in the county of Stirling, given rise to a greater amount of individual and general grief. He was born in April 1817, and was thus only in his fortyfourth year. Inheriting his father's great ability and firmness of character, and possessing the same kindly and benevolent disposition, he was, like him, liberal and extensive employer of labour. He was also a munificent patron of art, and remarkable for all those cultivated tastes and refined habits which his means enabled him fully to gratify. Mr Russel was originally educated for the legal profession and the session 1886 took the first prize in the Scotch Law Class the University of Edinburgh but his talents were afterwards directed into other channels. As lessee, with his father, of the well-known Torbanehill and Boghead mineral fields and with him the founder of the Almond Iron-Works and as one of the principal proprietors of the Lochgelly Coal and Iron Works, he gave employment to a very large number of persons in Stirlingshire, Linlithgowshire, and Fife, in whose moral and religious welfare he took a deep interest. His charities were wide and unobtrusive, and his loss will, we are sure, he felt by many of our most valuable institutions, to which he was a large contributor. Mr Russel's death will cause a void in the district in which he lived, which it will be most difficult to fill.
Fife Herald, 15th November 1860
