Russell, William Clark
RUSSELL, WILLIAM CLARK (1844- ), British author, was born at the Carlton House Hotel, New York, on the 24th of February 1844, the son of Henry Russell, author of " Cheer, Boys, Cheer," and other popular songs. He went to school at Winchester, and then at Boulogne, joining the merchant service at thirteen, and serving for eight years. This apprenticeship to a seafaring life was turned to account in a series of stories which have fascinated two generations of boy readers. John Holdsworth, Chief Mate (1874), immediately made his reputation. Other successful stories were: The Wreck of the Grosvenor (1875), in which he pleaded for better food for English seamen; The Frozen Pirate (1877), An Ocean Tragedy (1881), The Emigrant Ship (1894), The Ship, Her Story (1894), The Convict Ship (1895), What Cheer! (1895), The Two Captains (1897), The Romance of a Midshipman (1898), The Ship's XXIII. 28 Adventure (1899), Overdue (1903), Abandoned (1904), His Island Princess (1905). He joined the staff of the Newcastle Daily Chronicle, and afterwards became a leader writer on the Daily Telegraph, but the double labour of journalism and novelwriting threatened his health, and he resigned in 1887. Many of the papers which he contributed to the Daily Telegraph were collected in volume form in Round the Galley Fire and other volumes. He also wrote a Life of Lord Collingwood (1891), and, with W. H. Jacques, Nelson and the Naval Supremacy of England (New York, 1890).
Note - this article incorporates content from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, (1910-1911)
