Dora Russell

Born Dora Black in 1894, she studied at Girton College, Cambridge, and became known as a writer and public thinker with strong views on feminism, socialism, pacifism, and education. She is often remembered as Bertrand Russell’s second wife, but her own career stretched far beyond that connection.

Russell wrote books and essays on women, society, and schooling, and she helped found Beacon Hill School, an experiment in progressive education. Across her long public life, she remained active in campaigns for peace and for women’s rights, speaking and writing with unusual directness about marriage, sexuality, and the freedoms she believed modern society should allow.

She died in 1986, leaving behind a body of work shaped by independence, moral courage, and a determination to challenge convention. Today she is remembered as an important voice in twentieth-century British feminist and humanist thought.