James Alexander Russell

[1] He was born in the manse at Kilmodan the eldest of the eight children of Madeline Munro and her husband, Rev Alexander Fraser Russell (1814–1892), a Free Church of Scotland minister.

He then attended the University of Edinburgh, studying medicine and graduating with MB CM in 1868.

In 1877 he made a strange change in career in began lecturing in the Theory of Plumbing at what was then Heriot-Watt College in Edinburgh.

He was knighted by Queen Victoria in 1894 and received an honorary doctorate (LLD) from the University of Edinburgh in the same year.

In 1897, he married a widow, Mrs Mary Ruth MacKenzie (née Prior).