Agriculture and the House of Russell. 
133 
early age of thirty-six. Charles James Fox, in moving the new 
writ for the borough of Tavistock, said of him that '• to con- 
tribute to the welfare of his fellow-citizens was the constant, 
unremitted pursuit of his life ; by his example and his beneficence 
to render them better, wiser and happier " ; and contemporary 
literature is full of regrets at his " untimely decease." ' The 
Board of Agriculture were not slow to bear testimony to the 
sincerity with which they, in common with every friend to the 
improvement of the country," lamented the death of " the most 
judicious and munificent promoter of the national agriculture in 
all its branches." The Board resolved that a medal should be 
struck in memorunn, and should be presented in gold to their 
Majesties the King and Queen, H.R.H. the Prince of AVales, 
and the Duke of 13edford ; and decided to apply to his Grace 
for permission to have a bust of his deceased bfother for their 
Board-room.2 In the following year (1803) no difficulty was 
experienced in raising upwards of 3,000/., the Prince of Wales 
heading the list with 100 guineas, in order to erect a statue in 
his honour ; and, the work having been entrusted to Westmacott, 
the bronze statue in Russell Square was the result. It was erected 
in 1809, and represents the Duke holding some wheat-ears in 
one hand, whilst the other rests on a plough, with accessory 
figures, at the base and on the pedestal, of agi-icultural stock 
and implements. 
But perhaps the most conclusive testimony to his merits is 
borne by the man who, of all others, was best qualified to 
appreciate and least likely to exaggerate them — Arthur Young, 
whose well-known initials are appended to a notice in the 
Annals of Agriculture,^ from which the following passages are 
taken : — 
The agricultural world never, perhaps, sustained a greater iiidividualloss 
than the husbandry of this empire has sutiered by the death of the Duke of 
Bedford. The late Ihike came to the maaagement of his vast property 
in 1787, and gave very early signs of that regulated altentiou to business 
and order in the enlightened management of landed property which ensured 
' In a delightfully quaint little Ilistori/ of Wohurn, published in 1818, a 
copy of which was kindly lent me by Mr. Charles Howard, is a long panegyric 
of Duke Francis, accompanied by a series of stanzas, "the spontaneous 
effusion of an Inhabitant of Woburn," in honour of him and of the house of 
Russell generally. 
This bust is doubtless that by J. NoUekens, R. A., figured in the frontispiece 
to the General View of the Agriculture of the County of Bedford, \>uh\iir,\mdi 
by the Board of Agriculture in 1808. It is also figured in the engraving of 
the " Wobuin Sheep Shearing " referred to oa page 136, amongst the art objects 
surrounding Mr. Garrard. 
. ^ Vol, XXXVm. (1803), p. 369. 
