William G. Russell was the son of Thomas and Mary Ann (Goodwin) Russell, and was born in Plymouth, November 18, 1821. After attending the public schools he was fitted for college by Hon. John A. Shaw of Bridgewater, and graduated at Harvard in 1840. After teaching in a private school in Plymouth a short time, and in the Dracut Academy a year, he studied law in the office of his brother-in-law, Wm. Whiting, and at the Harvard Law School, receiving from the latter the degree of LL. B. in 1845, and being admitted to the Suffolk bar July 25, 1848. He was at once associated with Mr. Whiting as a partner, and while the latter was holding the position of solicitor of the War Department from 1862 to 1865, the business of the firm devolved on him. After the death of Mr. Whiting in 1873, George Putnam joined him as a partner, and at a later period, Jabez Fox was added to the firm. After the death of Sydney Bartlett he was universally recognized as the leader of the Suffolk bar, and was offered a seat on the bench of the Supreme Judicial Court, both as associate and chief justice. He was a member of the Massachusetts Historical Society, and at various times held the positions of President of the Union Club, the social library association, and the Suffolk bar association; vice president of the Pilgrim Society, director of the Mount Vernon National Bank, and the Massachusetts Hospital Life Insurance Co., and Harvard overseer from 1869 to 1881, and from 1882 to 1894. He married October 6, 1847, Mary Ellen, daughter of Thomas and Lydia Coffin Hedge of Plymouth, and died in Boston, February 6, 1896.