John Russell (colonial administrator)
John Russell (14 October 1670 – 5 December 1735) was an administrator of the English East India Company. Life. The posthumous third son of Sir John Russell, 3rd Baronet and Frances Cromwell, he was on his mother's side a grandson of Oliver Cromwell. He was elected a factor of the East India Company in 1693, and went to Bengal in 1694. Russell served as President of Bengal, succeeding Anthony Weltden in the post in 1711. Family. On 17 December 1697, Russell married Mary Eyre, sister of Sir Charles Eyre. They had one son and three daughters : On 7 September 1715, after returning from India, he married Joanna, the daughter and heiress of John Thurbane, of Chequers, and widow of Col. Edmund Revett, who had inherited Chequers, now the British Prime Minister's country residence, from her father. They had one daughter, Anne, who died an infant. Chequers passed to his eldest son Charles.