A chemist and historian of science born at 72 Pendennis Road, Streatham. On 1 September 1954 he married Shirley Pickering Sinclair (b. 1929), a schoolteacher, in the parish church of Immanuel, Streatham.
With his colleagues Russell produced three major interdisciplinary courses at the Open University, 'Science and the Rise of Technology', 'Science and Belief: From Copernicus to Darwin', both in 1973, and 'The Rise of Scientific Europe' in 1992.