Russell Bartlett

1942-1946

After an illustrious career as a physics professor at Yale and Phillips Exeter Academy, Russell Sturgis Bartlett came to The Gunnery in 1942 from the Newark College of Engineering, where he had worked on the revision of the College Boards, which resulted in the institution of the SATs. 

Bartlett studied at Taft and Yale, Class of 1917, graduating Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude. He joined the U.S. Navy and served as lieutenant j.g. in command of submarines during World War I. 

Having received his Ph.D. from Yale in 1924, he returned to England, where he studied with Nobel Prize winner and discoverer of the electron, Sir J.J. Thomson, at Cavendish Laboratories and Trinity College at the University of Cambridge. Dr. Bartlett was a member of the British Royal Scientific Society and studied at the King’s College, London.

He and his wife, Emilie Jeannette Daggett, had three children: Beatrice "Betsy" Sturgis Bartlett, William Mayhew Bartlett ’48, and Susan Leigh Bartlett Bull. 

He led the school through World War II, arranging for accelerated graduation by instituting a six-day week and a summer session to accommodate students directly affected by the new draft law. He also introduced courses in meteorology, navigation, gasoline engines, semaphore and Morse code, and cartography to prepare the students for war service. He taught some of the science classes, including navigation, when some of the science faculty left to serve in the war. He also marshaled the students to help replace men from Washington in the military, creating a volunteer firefighting unit and helping local farms with their plantings and harvests.

Sadly, Bartlett fell ill in 1944 and died a year later. He left his scientific library to The Gunnery as a precious legacy.