The article in 'The Florists' Exchange' of 6th March 1915 on page 535 provides Alexander W. Montgomery's own account of his breeding of 'Mrs. Charles Russell' which amounts to a cross between 'General MacArthur' and a seedling of his own development. If his explanation uses the standard conventions, then the pedigree should be 'General MacArthur' x [Climbing Mrs. W. J. Grant x {Mme Caroline Testout x (Mme. Abel Chatenay x Marquise Litta)}] to my reckoning. It's interesting that he uses the climbing form of 'Mrs. W. J. Grant' something which isn't mentioned in the other references.
Thank you! I see where the number of descendants of 'Climbing Mrs. W. J. Grant' has now jumped up from "5 unique descendants" to 14,632. :-)
I'm hoping that Montgomery was also asked about the breeding of 'Hadley' as I suspect a similar breeding was behind this rose rather than the somewhat ambiguous one often cited.
