George William Erskine Russell PC (3 February 1853 – 17 March 1919) was a British biographer, memoirist and Liberal politician.

[4] He was appointed by William Ewart Gladstone as Parliamentary Secretary to the Local Government Board from 1883 to 1885 and as Under-Secretary of State for India from 1892 to 1894.

He was appointed a Privy Counsellor in 1907, and held the honorary degree of LLD from St Andrews University.

[5] Russell was a journalist by profession, and a close ally of the Grand Old Man, a home ruler, when Gladstone presented the bill to the Commons for the second time on 13 February 1893.

[6] Russell died, unmarried, at 18 Wilton Street, London, on 17 March 1919, aged 66.