William Clark Russell, British novelist and journalist, was the son of Henry Russell, an English musician and popular song writer, and his first wife, Isabella Lloyd of Birmingham. He developed a taste for literature from his mother, a relative of William Wordsworth (q.v.). He was educated at private schools in Winchester and Boulogne, counting a son of Charles Dickens (q.v.) as a friend and schoolmate. In 1858 he was sent to sea as an apprentice in the British merchant service. In his eight years on board he made several voyages to Australia and India but the privations of a maritime life permanently damaged his health.
Shortly after retiring from the merchant service in 1866, Russell wrote a tragedy in blank verse, 'Fra Angelo', produced at the Haymarket Theatre, London. It was a commercial failure and he soon turned to journalism, becoming editor of The Leader in 1868. Russell made his name as a writer of maritime tales of adventure with the publication of John Holdsworth, Chief Mate (1875) and the even more popular Wreck of the Grosvenor (1877). He sold the copyright for one of these works for fifty pounds and it subsequently sold 50,000 copies. In over thirty years Russell produced some fifty-seven novels, sometimes under the pseudonyms Sydney Mostyn and Eliza Rhyl Davies. His novel, Jack's Courtship: a Sailor's Yarn of Love and Shipwreck (1884), tells of the wreck of a ship bound for Australia.
Clark's voluminous press contributions helped bring about the reform of the merchant service through legislation. From 1872 to1889 he was a regular contributor to the Daily Telegraph under the pseudonym of A Seafarer. His press articles were republished in book form and he wrote naval biographies of Nelson (1890), Dampier (1889) and Collingwood (1891). His poems and naval ballads were collected into The Turnpike Sailor, or, Rhymes on the Road (1907). English writer, Sir Edwin Arnold described Russell as 'the prose Homer of the great ocean' and Algernon Swinburne (q.v.) referred to him as 'the greatest master of the sea, living or dead.' Herman Melville (q.v.) also apparently admired his work; An Ocean Tragedy (1893) is dedicated to him. Woods and Basu comment that 'While his descriptive powers were considerable, his characterization was not so successful.'
Russell was a chronic invalid with rheumatoid arthritis. He married and had three children.
AustLit lists only his works with an Australian connection.
(Source: Adapted from 'Mr. William Clark Russell', The Times, (9 November 1911): 11 ; G. S. Woods, 'Russell, William Clark (1844-1911)', rev. Sayoni Basu, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press)
