JOHN RUSSELL, 4th duke of Bedford (1710-1771), second son of Wriothesley Russell, 2nd duke of Bedford, by his wife, Eliza beth, daughter and heiress of John Howland, of Streatham, Surrey, was born on Sept. 3o, 171o, and succeeded his brother Wriothesley (1708-32), 3rd duke of Bedford. The new duke joined the oppo sition to Sir Robert Walpole, and in Nov. 1744 became first lord of the admiralty in the administration of Henry Pelham. He was subsequently lord-lieutenant of Ireland 1756-57, and lord privy seal in the Bute cabinet of 1761. In 1762 he was sent to France to treat for peace, and signed the Peace of Paris in I 763. He was lord president of the council in the Grenville cabinet in the same year. When the ministry fell in July 1765, the duke of Bedford became the leader of a political party known as the "Bedford party," or the "Bloomsbury gang." He himself did not return to office, but his friends joined the Grafton ministry in Dec. 1767, a proceeding which provoked "Junius" to write his "Letter to the duke of Bedford." The duke died at Woburn on Jan. 15, 1771.
See J. H. Wiffen, Historical Memoirs of the House of Russell (1833) ; Correspondence of John, 4th Duke of Bedford, ed. Lord John Russell ; Horace Walpole, Memoirs of the Reign of George II. (1847) ; W. E. H. Lecky, History of England, vol. iii. (1892) ; and Memoirs of the Reign of George III., ed. G. F. R. Barker (1894)•