W. M. S. Russell

Professor W. M. S. Russell, aka Bill Russell, (1925–2006) was best known for writing, along with R. L. Burch (1926-1996) The Principles of Humane Experimental Technique (1959), a landmark in the humane use of animals in research, education and testing. Russell and Burch introduced the concept of the Three Rs (replacement, reduction and refinement) in the scientific community and provided a blueprint for combining animal welfare considerations and quality of research.

Bill Russell was born in 1925 in Plymouth, UK. His father, Sir Frederick Stratten Russell, was the Director of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom. At the age of seventeen Bill started to study Classics at Oxford, but one year later he joined the army. In the autumn of 1944 his battalion was sent to Northwest Europe. Places he served included the area of Druten, the Netherlands.

After the war Bill continued to study Classics and English Literature at Oxford but switched later on to Zoology, with Peter Medawar (later Sir Peter Medawar, Noble Prize Winner Physiology, 1960) as tutor. In 1952 he defended his thesis on endocrinology and behaviour of the South African clawed frog, Xenopus laevis. As part of his thesis study he developed, together with Richard Murray, a more humane method of killing this species and introduced, for the first time in ethology, Sir Ronald Fisher’s method of experimental design and statistical analysis. He also studied psychology and worked for some time as an agricultural research fellow at Oxford.

From 1954 to 1959 he worked, together with Rex Burch, on a project funded by UFAW (Universities Federation for Animal Welfare). The founder of UFAW, Charles Hume, described Bill Russell as “a brilliant young zoologist who happens to be also [a] psychologist and a classical scholar”. As the result of this project the Principles of Humane Experimental Technique was published in 1959. In the UK the Fund for the Replacement of Animals in Medical Experiments (FRAME), established in 1969, was among the first to recognize the importance of the Three Rs concept. In the years thereafter, recognition of the concept increased, first gradually but later on exponentially, when centres on animal alternatives were established in several parts of the world and also a series of World Congresses on Alternatives and Animal Use in the Life Sciences was started.

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