His father, Reverend Benjamin Winston, was the rector of the parish of Farningham in Kent, and his mother, Helen, was the daughter of Sir Thomas Reid, Baronet.
Russell was born at Farningham, Kent, England, the youngest son of James Russell, a farmer, and his wife Ellen, née Phillips.
However, on 14 December 1970, he was involved in a fatal car crash near Farningham, Kent, apparently while racing another driver at high speed in his Jaguar XJ on a dangerous stretch of road near Brands Hatch.
Hyde was born at Wardour, in Wiltshire, a son of Lawrence Hyde (d.1590) of West Hatch, Wiltshire, MP for Heytesbury in 1584, by his second wife Anne Sibell, daughter of Nicholas Sibell of Farningham, Kent, and widow of Matthew Colthurst of Claverton, Somerset.