Edith Finch Russell

Who was Edith Finch Russell?

Edith Finch, Countess Russell was an author born to Edward Bronson Finch, a physician, and his wife, Delia, in New York City. She studied at Bryn Mawr College and St Hilda's College, Oxford where she was awarded degrees in 1925 and 1926. She was employed as an instructor of English literature at Bryn Mawr, but did not hold a permanent position on the faculty.

Finch traveled extensively in Europe in the 1930s and 1940s, while continuing to write and lecture. She published biographies of Wilfred Scawen Blunt in 1938 and M. Carey Thomas, a president of Bryn Mawr, in 1947.

Finch was Bertrand Russell's fourth and last wife. She first met Russell in the 1930s through her close friend and housemate Lucy Martin Donnelly, who was a friend of Russell's first wife, Alys. Finch moved to England in 1950 and married Russell in December 1952. By all accounts it was a very happy marriage. The couple settled in Wales, where Bertrand died in 1970. Edith died in 1978.