Editing John Russell, 1st Earl Russell (section)

=== The Aberdeen coalition: 1852–1855 ===
{{Further|Aberdeen ministry}}
[[File:John Russell, 1st Earl Russell by Sir Francis Grant detail.jpg|thumb|upright|left|alt=John Russell, 1st Earl Russell, by Sir Francis Grant|Detail of Russell's portrait by [[Francis Grant (artist)|Francis Grant]], 1853]]
Russell, as the leader of the Whigs, agreed to bring his party into a coalition with the Peelites, headed by Aberdeen. As the leader of the largest party in the coalition, Russell was reluctant to serve under Aberdeen in a subordinate position, but agreed to take on the role of Foreign Secretary on a temporary basis, to lend stability to the fledgling government. He resigned the role in February 1853 in favour of [[George Villiers, 4th Earl of Clarendon|Clarendon]], but continued to lead for the government in the Commons and attended cabinet without ministerial responsibilities. Russell was unhappy that half of Aberdeen's cabinet was made up of Peelites, despite the fact that the Whigs contributed hundreds of MPs to the Government's support in the Commons, and the Peelites only around 40. However, he came to admire some of his Peelite colleagues, particularly the Chancellor of the Exchequer [[William Ewart Gladstone|William Gladstone]], who would go on to become an important political ally in later years.{{sfn|Scherer|1999|pp=199-204}}

With Aberdeen's agreement, Russell used his position as [[Leader of the House of Commons]] to push for a new Reform Act. Although Russell had promoted the [[Reform Act 1832]] as a one-off measure to re-balance the constitution, after twenty years he had become convinced of the need for further electoral reform. In February 1854 Russell introduced his bill to the House. The property qualification was to be reduced from £10 to £6 in boroughs, and from £50 to £10 in the counties. Additionally 66 seats would be removed from undersized constituencies and redistributed.{{sfn|Scherer|1999|pp=204-206}} The second reading of the bill was set for March 1854, but the prospect of imminent war with Russia led to it being postponed until April. After the outbreak of war on 28 March Russell came under pressure from the cabinet to withdraw the bill entirely. Russell threatened to resign if the cabinet abandoned the reform bill, but he was convinced to stay on by Aberdeen, who promised that he would support the reform bill if Russell reintroduced it in a future session.{{sfn|Reid|1895|pp=240-243}}{{sfn|Scherer|1999|p=208}} However, with the fall of the Aberdeen government the following year, it would be 12 years before Russell had another chance to introduce a reform bill.

Together with Palmerston, Russell supported the government taking a hard line against Russian territorial ambitions in the [[Ottoman Empire]], a policy that ultimately resulted in Britain's entry into the [[Crimean War]] in March 1854, an outcome that the more cautious Aberdeen had hoped to avoid. In the following months Russell grew frustrated by what he saw as a lack of effective war leadership by Aberdeen and the [[Secretary of State for War]], the [[Henry Pelham-Clinton, 5th Duke of Newcastle|Duke of Newcastle]]. Dispatches from the front reported that the army was suffering from supply shortages and a lack of adequate accommodation and medical facilities. In November 1854 Russell urged Aberdeen to replace Newcastle with Palmerston, who he believed would get a firmer grip on the organisation of the war, but these suggestions came to nothing. In January 1855, after a series of military setbacks, a Commons motion was brought by the radical MP [[John Arthur Roebuck|John Roebuck]] to appoint a select committee to investigate the management of the war. Russell, not wishing to vote against an inquiry he believed was badly needed, resigned from the cabinet in order to abstain. Aberdeen viewed the Roebuck motion as a vote of no confidence in his leadership and, accordingly, when it passed by 305–148, he resigned.{{sfn|Scherer|1999|pp=225-229}}{{sfn|Prest|2009}}

In the eyes of many, including the Queen and Aberdeen, Russell's temperamental behaviour and personal ambition had undermined the stability of the coalition.{{sfn|Martin|1923|pp=107–112}} On visiting [[Windsor Castle]] to resign, Aberdeen told the Queen "Had it not been for the incessant attempts of Lord John Russell to keep up party differences, it must be acknowledged that the experiment of a coalition had succeeded admirably," an assessment with which the Queen agreed.<ref>''Queen Victoria's Journals, Tuesday 30 January 1855, Windsor Castle, Princess Beatrice's copies'', Volume:39 (1 January 1855 – 30 June 1855), pp. 47–48, [http://www.queenvictoriasjournals.org/search/displayItem.do?FormatType=fulltextimgsrc&QueryType=articles&ResultsID=2738818125973&filterSequence=1&PageNumber=1&ItemNumber=7&ItemID=qvj08067&volumeType=PSBEA Online from the Bodleian Library]</ref> Russell accepted an invitation from the Queen to form a new government but found that he could not assemble the necessary support, with many of his colleagues having been angered by his abandonment of Aberdeen over the Roebuck motion.{{sfn|Scherer|1999|pp=229-230}} Palmerston became prime minister, and Russell reluctantly accepted the role of Colonial Secretary in his cabinet. Russell was sent to Vienna to negotiate peace terms with Russia, but his proposals were rejected and he resigned from the cabinet and returned to the backbenches in July 1855.{{sfn|Vincent|1981|pp=37–49}}{{sfn|Arnold|2002|p=121}}