John Bucknell Russell 1820-1893

My great-grandfather John Russell, grew up in Aberdeen Scotland to become a decorator of Catholic churches. He was the son of Joseph Russell and Jean Fraser. The 1841 census shows John Russell as a painter and his uncle was the sculptor George Russell. He began as a house painter, but by his early twenties, John was working as an artist who also carved in wood and worked in lithograph. Russell did not use Bucknell in his name until the 1871 census. The Buck comes from the Fraser Crest and the Nell signifies that his mother was a Fraser.

The earliest known painting, in oils, is dated 1841 and signed "J. Russell " : his later work was always signed "John Russell" (not "J. B. Russell" , as some suggest; that was his son James). James (1867 - 1956 ) also painted the fish carvings before he left Fochabers. Thereafter, James painted on the flat. A locally produced book speaks of "the great John Russell whose salmon paintings now fetch many thousands of pounds at auction."

He moved about a lot on painting contracts- astride a big white horse, according to Jeannie his youngest daughter. At various times he worked at Aberdeen, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Inverness, Port Glasgow, Buckie, and Fochabers.

John Russell married Margaret Bennet in 1850, and they had two children - John and Charles. Unfortunately Margaret died in 1855 due to tuberculosis. In 1861 John married Isabella Craigen, and they had six children - Helen, Isabella(Dhuie), Joseph, James, William, and Jane(Jeannie). After the death of John's wife Isabella in 1872 due to smallpox , John took the children to an island in the Forth to escape the plague.

Some time after this, John received a lucrative commission from the Duke of Richmond and Gordon to go to Fochabers to make wooden carvings of- and paint- fish which had been caught in the River Spey, over a certain weight. The family moved to Spey Cottage, Fochabers, and the work was done in a studio at 16 West Street. Assisted by three of the children who followed their father as artists ( Charles, Dhuie and James ), Russell produced a large number of painted fish, although many were destroyed during a renovation at Gordon Castle.

In the 1861 census, John Russell was described as a widower (40) and artist. It is a mystery where John trained as an artist, although he later said that an assistant had "served his time in the same shop as myself". Born in 1820, Russell died at Fochabers of an ulcer on May 4, 1893.