Russell born in 1363 at Kingston Russell. Henry Russell married NN. Godfrey in 1389 and their son John Russell (born in 1390) was the grandfather of a later John Russell, the first Earl of Bedford. Modern times Early modern period At some point possibly around the 1640s, part of the manor, including the house, came into the possession of the Michel family, who partly rebuilt the seventeenth century Kingston Russell House as it still stands today at the end of a long driveway. The Michel family also owned Dewlish House in Dewlish, Dorset and removed there sometime during the 1760s when the house was then let. Admiral Sir Thomas Hardy, 1st Baronet, Nelson's flag captain, was born at Kingston Russell on 5 April 1769, his mother being the daughter of Thomas Masterman of this place. Victorian and Edwardian eras At some time before 1861 the Dukes of Bedford bought Kingston Russell for a second time, and when Lord John Russell (1792–1878) the prominent Liberal statesman, 3rd son of the 6th Duke of Bedford, was raised to the peerage as an earl on 30 July 1861, he chose the title Earl Russell of Kingston Russell, which title is still extant (the famous philosopher Bertrand Russell was the third earl of this title). In 1877, the famous American historian, John Lothrop Motley, author of 'The Rise of the Dutch Republic', died at Kingston Russell. By the turn of the twentieth century however, the house was in a dilapidated condition and the estate was sold in 1913 to George Gribble. He and his wife Norah Royds had previously renovated Henlow Grange. The new owners - with architect Philip Tilden, who later worked for Winston Churchill - demolished a stub wing from the older Tudor building, extended the Carolean/Georgian wing by the addition of two small three-storey wings at either end of the original two-storey structure, and laid out the gardens. Their son Julian Royds Gribble won the Victoria Cross in the First World War, but died in a prisoner of war camp in 1918; the village hall was constructed as a gift to the village, in memory of him. The Gribble family moved away in the 1920s. Present day Since then, the house has had a number of different owners. Since 1984 it has been owned by Dr H. H. J. Carter & Miss T. Silkstone, who are the longest continuous owner-occupiers of