It was created on 30 July 1861 for the prominent Liberal politician Lord John Russell.

He was one of the first peers to join the Labour Party and he held office under Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald as Under-Secretary of State for India from 1929 to 1931.

He was childless and was succeeded in 1931 by his younger brother, the third Earl, the famous philosopher and Nobel Prize winner universally known as Bertrand Russell.

As of 2018[update] the titles are held by his youngest son, the seventh Earl, who succeeded his brother in 2014.

As descendants of the sixth Duke of Bedford, the Earls Russell are also in remainder to that peerage and its subsidiary titles.