William "Bill" Russell, who has died aged 81, was a funny and erudite polymath who wrote science fiction novels, introduced the concept of replacement, refinement and reduction - the 3Rs - into animal research, and had successful careers as a psychoanalyst, zoologist, agronomist and sociologist.

His wide ranging knowledge and capacity to set almost anything he was going to say to a Gilbert and Sullivan tune made him immensely popular and earned him a place on BBC Radio's Round Britain Quiz for several years.

He was born in Plymouth, son of the zoologist director of the Plymouth marine biological laboratory, Sir Frederick Stratton Russell. From time to time his parents went abroad on long expeditions, leaving him in the care of grandparents. Later he was sent to Marlborough college, where he developed a fascination for the classics and which, he said, toughened him up for the army. He won a scholarship to study classics at New College, Oxford, in 1942.

A year later he joined the army and, being very leftwing, refused a commission and served as a rifleman in the 12th battalion of the King's Royal Rifle Corps. When the war ended, he returned to his classical studies at Oxford but later switched to zoology, earning a first class honours degree in 1948.