Bertrand Russell and his godless Parents

Abstract

Bertrand Russell and his godless Parents Had Bertrand Russell had the choice of his own godparents, he might well have chosen John Stuart Mill, one of the great empirical philosophers, and Mill's stepdaughter, Helen Taylor, one of the earliest suffragists; they were amongst the most advanced rational ist radicals of their time. As it was, his parents chose them for him. In the Russell Archives there are over 100 letters written by Helen Taylor to Kate Amberley; the other half of the correspondence (not complete, of course - one's luck is never perfect) is in the Mill-Taylor Collection at the London School of Economics. These letters cover the years from 1865 (just after the birth of the Amb~rleys' first child, Frank) to 1874 (the year of Kate Amberley's death, when Bertie was two). During these years there developed a very close and intimate friendship between Kate Amberley and Helen Taylor; they shared ideas and activities in the many radical movements, especially the Women's Movement, of those years. Their affection became so great that despite the reI igious views of all concerned, the Amberleys asked Helen Taylor and John Stuart Mill to stand in loco parentis-dei. The friendship was anchored in mutual need. Although both the Russell and Stanley families had radical tendencies, they did.not give unqualified support to the young couple and it was of great importance to both Amberleys to have the approval of the most respected philosopher and radical of their time. In a letter to Kate Amberley dated 22 April 1865, Helen Taylor, whose approval always signified Mill's too, wrote congratulating Lord Amberley on his speeches at Leeds in April 1865, and assuring him that a man is always most misunderstood by his peers (she never punned) when he is criticizing them, and that no man has been great in maturity who has not held advanced ideas in his youth. In other letters, for example, she approved Amberley's bold stand on reI igious I iberty and expressed del ight that the Amberleys "go all lengths with us in our revolutionary excesses about Ireland" (letters of 15 July 1865 and 4 March 1868). Their support of Kate Amberley must have been particularly valuable to a well-to-do, aristocratic, Victorian lady who was expected to remain mentally and physically idle and not to draw public notice upon herself. Although the ladies in her family were not idle (Lady Stanley of Alderley's work in the cause of women's education was wellknown ), Kate's enthusiasms were considered extreme by nearly all her acquaintances but Hele~ Taylor. She expressed an interest in Kate Amberley's work with the factory girls (letter of 21 June 1865), encouraged her determination to read and study and her "love of solitude" (22 Janurary 1867), introduced her to women working in the Movement, such as El izabeth Garret (Anderson) (14 June 1866 and 19 May 1868), and emphatically urged her to continue trying to write (11 September 1869). When Kate Amberley began to speak in public for the women's suffrage campaign she needed all the encouragement that Helen Taylor and John Stuart Mi 11 could and did give her (12 Apri 1 1870). Her first speech at Stroud in May 1870, which Helen Taylor had persuaded her to give,l outraged her family.2 In her letter of 26 May 1870 to Helen Taylor describing the meeting, Lady Amberley wrote: Remember me to Mr Mill I hope he will be pleased at my having made the effort and taken my share of ridicule whch faUs to the lot of women who advocate this cause - I heard I was made great fun of at the Carlton and we had had insulting anonymous letters but one must make up ones mind to some disagreeableness for the sake of one's opinions. Helen Taylor's three prompt congratulatory and laudatory letters (dated 29 and 30 May, 9 June 1870) helped to counterbalance for the Amberleys the "great fun" at the Carlton Club, the Duchess of C~mbridge's publ ic rudeness and a humiliating tea-party at the Gladstones~ But perhaps the greatest bond between Kate Amberley...