Captain Fred Russell – the servants’ hero or a villain?

Fred Russell was born about 1882 in Bromley Kent and for some years like his father, he worked as a bricklayer. Then in 1900 Fred joined the Royal Engineers and rose through the ranks. He received his commission as Second Lieutenant in 1917, for meritorious service on the field of battle. Russell said he commanded the first wireless signal park in Baghdad. He was promoted to Captain and commanded 3,000 Turkish troops in 1919. He spoke several languages including Arabic and Hindustani and retired as a Captain from the Army in 1921. 

Newspaper photo of Captain Fred Russell in 1934

We don’t know why or exactly when Russell became a domestic servant employment agent. In 1929 he advertised ‘The Home for Maids’ at ‘Holmdale Lodge’, No.18 Holmdale Road West Hampstead and an employment agency for domestic servants at 122 Kilburn High Road, above Alexander The Tailors, near the corner with Quex Road. Russell also offered, in return for a fee, training to operate an employment agency. 

 

Kilburn High Road showing Alexander The Tailor on the corner of Quex Road, abt 1904

Since January 1908, anyone running such an agency needed a license to operate. In June 1929 the Public Control Committee of the LCC revoked Russell’s license because he had recommended three female servants who had previously been dismissed for dishonesty. But he successfully appealed and got his license back in August. The following year he was living at 41 Dyne Road in Kilburn. Russell changed his addresses frequently: by February 1934 he was in Abinger Road Chiswick, moving to Tunbridge Wells that September. 

A busy servants registry office in 1900

In November 1933 Russell applied to the LCC for licenses to operate five employment agencies, including one in Harrow Road, but they were all refused.

In July 1934, probably to gain publicity, he decided to stand as an Independent candidate in the Rushcliffe Nottingham by-election, saying he wanted to be the first MP to fight for the rights of domestic servants. But he withdrew before the election was held. Mary Hanson, described as a London nurse, supported him during the campaign. She lived in Crouch End and had worked at his Harrow Road agency.

Later that July, the LLC committee again refused Russell a license for his agency at 370 Harrow Road. He went to court several times to appeal against the ruling. In September 1935 he told the magistrate at the Marylebone Police Court that people who responded to his advertisements to run an agency for domestic servants paid him a premium of £30. This had recently been increased to £50, and a few had invested £150. He said it was a profit-sharing scheme and he wanted to open 50 centres across the country. He had started agencies, but they’d had to close because he couldn’t get a license. So far, he had money from over a dozen people, but they would all lose their investments if he did not get the license back. Russell’s military record had praised his good conduct and now he produced witnesses to say he was an honest and suitable man to hold a license. The hearings dragged on and on until finally the magistrate said he agreed with the LLC committee decision and Russell was ordered to pay 20 gns costs.

Undeterred, on 6 March 1935 Fred held a rally in the Albert Hall for 2,000 servants. At the meeting he called himself ‘The Servants’ Champion’ and set up the ‘British Domestic Servants’ Protective Society’, as a registered trade union. He spoke for over two hours with several breaks for community singing and the taking of collections by young women stewards dressed in white caps, aprons, and black frocks. They only raised about £30. Russell said there were about four million servants in the country. Calling for shorter hours and better pay, Russell suggested that each employer should be taxed £1 per year and the money be used to improve working conditions. The minimum wage for a domestic servant should be no less than 10 shillings a week or two shillings and six pence a day.

Later that month to promote his ideas he spoke at a series of meetings in London, including one at the Foresters’ Hall in Kilburn High Road (today the site of The Tricycle/Kiln theatre).

The LCC consistently refused to give Russell a license saying he was ‘an unsuitable person’ to run a servant registry. Each time he appealed and argued with the Committee. In court he claimed that a woman member of the LCC had been bribed to give false evidence against him. But the magistrate dismissed his case. Russell decided enough was enough, and in October 1935 he moved to Culverden Grange, No.6 St John’s Road Tunbridge Wells in Kent where he set up an agency outside the remit of the LCC. He also ran what he called a ‘Servant Club’ at his house.

In April 1937 he sued Odhams Press for libel because of an article called ‘The servant problem solved – perhaps’, which was published in the John Bull magazine on 16 December 1933. It was critical of his plans to set up 50 registry offices across the country. The jury found the article was not libelous, so Russell lost the case and had to pay costs.

In September 1937 Russell applied for a license to run an agency in Brighton, but this was refused. Despite this, he continued to advertise in newspapers for people who wanted to run a domestic employment agency.

In November 1938 Russell, Mary Hanson and Kathleen Martin, appeared in Tunbridge Wells Police Court charged with fraud over three years by taking money from people supposedly to train them as managers of a domestic registry. A stream of witnesses said they gave money to either Captain Russell or Miss Hanson so that they could open an employment agency after they had received training in Tunbridge Wells. Russell also had premises in Eastbourne, Hastings and Hove which were run by Hanson and Martin. When Russell was arrested, his worldly goods consisted of just 1s and three pawn tickets for his clothes. The magistrates decided that the case would proceed to the Central Criminal Court.

In January 1939, Russell, Hanson and Martin were tried at the Old Bailey. Detective Inspector Hawkyard of Scotland Yard in charge of the case, said that since 1929 Russell had received about £3,600 (today worth about £220,000), as a result of his fraudulent schemes. Mary Hanson aged about 42, had been born in Philadelphia and come to London as a child. She became a nurse but was removed from the midwife register because of non-payment of her fees. She had met Russell in 1934 and although she had lost £500 in his schemes, she still had faith in him. Kathleen Martin was about 28 and born in Tunbridge Wells.

In court Russell launched a tirade against the police, the press and the judge. He shouted out that the jury were a bunch of ninnies and accused the judge of misleading them. He said, ‘I am the better man of we two, you should be ashamed of yourself, my Lord.’ Russell was sentenced to four years imprisonment and Hanson received eighteen months. Martin was bound over for three years. It was said that she was completely over-awed by Russell and seemed to have the mind of a child. 

Of course, Russell appealed, but at the end of March 1939 this was turned down by the Appeal Court and he was told in Wormwood Scrubs prison that he would have to serve his four years. 

We have not been able to find out what happened to Fred Russell after he finished his sentence.