[1] During the Second World War, Russell was commissioned into the Royal Artillery, and flew into France on D-Day by glider.

Wounded in action, he was mentioned in dispatches and received the French Croix de Guerre.

Returning to the bar after the war, he took silk in 1948 at the age of forty, like his father and grandfather.

[1] In 1960 he pleaded guilty to a charge of drunk driving, which was thought to have delayed his promotion.

Nevertheless, on 30 September 1975, he was appointed Lord of Appeal in Ordinary and was made a life peer with the title Baron Russell of Killowen, of Killowen in the County Down, the same title that his grandfather and father had held.