The Russell Family and its Association with Kenly Green and Parkhill, Fifeshire

Andrew W. Russell was a gentleman of the truest character and was a well-known and respected Fife agriculturalist. He assumed the tenancy of Parkhill in Abdie Parish beginning in the late 1840s until 1878 when he relocated to City Park and Kenly Green near St. Andrews. In conducting the farm of Parkhill, he drew around him many friends, not less by his affable manners and ready wit than by his public spirit. He was one of the first officers of the Newburgh Rifle Volunteer Corps and retired with the rank of Captain of the 9th Fifeshire Rifle Volunteers; was a long-standing board member of the Fife Commissioners of Supply and a trustee of the National Savings Bank. Russell was widely read and would give his agricultural labourers newspapers and books, believing in education through reading. A generous man, Russell would also entertain his labourers and servants with an annual "Harvest Home" dinner and dancing at Parkhill. He was invariably hailed as a welcome speaker and spoke on many subjects and issues of his time including the land tenancy laws of 1872 in the Scottish Chamber of Agriculture meeting held that year at Perth. He was considered a skilled debater and an educated man of means. Two generations of the family farmed the lands of Kenly Green near St. Andrews. Alexander and his nephew, Andrew, were agriculturalists of their times and both were admired for their dedication to agriculture. Alexander and Andrew Walker Russell are warmly commemorated here in grateful esteem and recognition by their distant cousin, Michael T. Tracy. This work is dedicated to the Memories of Alexander and Andrew Walker Russell.