William Clark Russell (24 February 18448 November 1911) was an English writer best known for his nautical novels. At the age of 13 Russell joined the United Kingdom's Merchant Navy, serving for eight years. The hardships of life at sea damaged his health permanently, but provided him with material for a career as a writer. He wrote short stories, press articles, historical essays, biographies and a book of verse, but was known best for his novels, most of which were about life at sea. He maintained a simultaneous career as a journalist, principally as a columnist on nautical subjects for The Daily Telegraph. Russell campaigned for better conditions for merchant seamen, and his work influenced reforms approved by Parliament to prevent unscrupulous ship-owners from exploiting their crews. His influence in this respect was acknowledged by the future King George V. Among Russell's contemporary admirers were Herman Melville, Algernon Swinburne and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Life Early years William Clark Russell was born in New York in the Carlton House Hotel, Broadway, one of four sons of the English composer Henry Russell and his first wife, Isabella Lloyd (1811?–1887). It was from Isabella, "who was a relative of the poet William Wordsworth" and writer herself, that Russell inherited his love for literature and talent as a wordsmith. Additionally, he was the half-brother of the impresario Henry Russell and the conductor Sir Landon Ronald. A letter in the collection of Robert Lee Wolff provides a scalding condemnation of Russell's father, stemming from his father's abandonment of his family.If you know who my father is, I shall feel obliged by your not saying so. Enough if I hint at the degradation of a second marriage, at the imposition of a ready-made family of active and talkative youth to explain why I wish that you will be absolutely silent on the subject of my paternal parentageWilliam Russell was never able to forgive his father for his second marriage and his abandonment of his initial family to raise a new one with his second wife. Russell continued this long held resentment against his father and his new family until his father's death in 1900. Not only did he avoid attending the funeral, but he also never acknowledged his half brothers. He was educated at private schools in Britain (Winchester) and France (Boulogne). At the latter, together with a school friend, a son of Charles Dickens,