Henry Stuart Russell was an explorer and pastoralist, best known for establishing the Cecil Plains Station

Cecil Plains, Queensland

Cecil Plains is a town in the Darling Downs region of Queensland, Australia.The town is located in the Toowoomba Region, 217 kilometres west of the state capital, Brisbane. At the 2006 census, Cecil Plains had a population of 236...

 around the Condamine River

Condamine River

The Condamine River, part of the Murray-Darling Basin, drains the northern portion of the Darling Downs, an area of sub-coastal southern Queensland, Australia...

 area.

Early life

Russell was born on 16 March 1818 in Halliford, Middlesex

Middlesex

Middlesex is one of the historic counties of England and the second smallest by area. The low-lying county contained the wealthy and politically independent City of London on its southern boundary and was dominated by it from a very early time...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, the son of an East India Company

East India Company

The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...

 officer. He was educated at Harrow

Harrow School

Harrow School, commonly known simply as "Harrow", is an English independent school for boys situated in the town of Harrow, in north-west London.. The school is of worldwide renown. There is some evidence that there has been a school on the site since 1243 but the Harrow School we know today was...

 and Oxford

University of Oxford

The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...

. He migrated to Sydney

Sydney

Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

 in 1840, where he stayed at a New England station belonging to Arthur Hodgson

Arthur Hodgson

Sir Arthur Hodgson KCMG was an Australian pioneer and politician.-Early life:Hodgson was born in Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, England; the second son of the Rev. Edward Hodgson and his third wife Charlotte, daughter of Francis William Pemberton of Bombay, India...

, his second cousins.

Career

In May 1842, Russell joined an exploration party in search of sheep country in Wide Bay. The party discovered the river, later named Mary

Maryborough, Queensland

Maryborough is a city located on the Mary River in South East Queensland, Australia, approximately north of the state capital, Brisbane. The city is serviced by the Bruce Highway, and has a population of approximately 22,000 . It is closely tied to its neighbour city Hervey Bay which is...

. They also found and brought back two escaped convicts from the penal settlement. Russell made a subsequent journey in November 1842, where he discovered and named Boyne River

Boyne River

Boyne River may refer to:* River Boyne in Ireland* Boyne River , a tribuatry of the Hérault* Boyne River , in Manitoba, Canada* Boyne River , in Michigan, United States...

. This expedition resulted in Russell taking up Burrandowan station.

Russell sold Burrandowan in 1847 to Philip Friell. His pastoral career ended in 1849. In 1853, he was elected to the Legislative Council of New South Wales. In 1859, his interest in Cecil Plains was sold to James Taylor. He returned to Sydney, living at Mosman Bay for the following seven years. Suffering financial setbacks, he sailed for England in 1888. Also in 1888, he published a book, The Genesis of Queensland, detailing the early settlement and the growth of the pastoral industry in the area. He died at Ottery St. Mary, Devon

Devon

Devon is a large county in southwestern England. The county is sometimes referred to as Devonshire, although the term is rarely used inside the county itself as the county has never been officially "shired", it often indicates a traditional or historical context.The county shares borders with...

, on 5 March 1889.

Personal life

Russell was married twice. His first marriage was in 1851 to Charlotte, sister of Philip Pinnock, a senior police magistrate and sheriff of Queensland

Queensland

Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...

. In 1874, he married Selina Oakes, whom survived him with five sons from the first marriage, and a daughter from the second.