Odo Russell, 1st Baron Ampthill

Odo Russel, graphic by Anton von Werner (1880)

Odo Russell, 1st Baron Ampthill by Leslie Ward , 1877.

Odo William Leopold Russell, 1st Baron Ampthill GCB GCMG (born February 20, 1829 in Florence , † August 25, 1884 in Potsdam ) was a British nobleman and diplomat .

Origin, upbringing and family

Odo (l.) And Arthur Russell, lithograph by Josef Kriehuber , 1842

Odo Russell was born in 1829, the youngest son of Major General William Russell, into one of the leading Whig / Liberal families of British nobility. His grandfather was John Russell, 6th Duke of Bedford , his uncle the Prime Minister John Russell .

He had been married to Emily Theresa Villiers since 1868, with whom he had six children. His eldest son Arthur inherited his title.

Diplomatic career

Odo Russell started his diplomatic career as early as 1849 as attaché to the British embassy in Vienna. In 1850 returned to England, he worked for two years in the Foreign Office, was then successively at the embassies in Paris , Vienna , Konstantin Opel and Washington, D. C. operates. Russel was appointed attaché to the British legation in Florence in 1858 with the instruction to represent the United Kingdom in an officious position at the papal curia , with which the British government had no official relations.

He stayed in Rome after being promoted to envoy to the Kingdom of Naples in 1860 . In 1870 he became Undersecretary of State in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office , then went to the German headquarters in Versailles as representative of England for a few months in order to have a mitigating effect on the peace negotiations with France, which was unsuccessful. In 1871 he was appointed ambassador to the Berlin court.

In 1872 he became a member of the Privy Council , but remained in his post in Berlin and represented Great Britain as the third authorized representative at the Berlin Congress of 1878. a. for the Bulgarian people oppressed in the Ottoman Empire. In 1881, it was based on merit, which he had acquired in his long diplomatic career, peerage bestowed with the title Baron Ampthill . Russell died in Potsdam on August 25, 1884.

He was very popular at the Berlin court and worked successfully to maintain friendly relations between the German Empire and England.

In the vicinity of Karlsbad he had the St. Leonhard's Chapel built next to a Romanesque church ruin during the St. Leonhard Restoration .

literature

• Lord Ampthill . In: Deutsche Revue , 13th year, Breslau 1888, 2nd volume, pp. 55–61
• Karina Urbach : Bismarck's favorite Englishman: Lord Odo Russell's mission to Berlin . Tauris, London 1999, ISBN 1-86064-438-4
• Ampthill, Odo William Leopold Russell, 1st Baron . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . 11th edition. tape 1 : A-Androphagi . London 1910, p. 893 (English, full text [ Wikisource ]).

Web links

Commons : Odo Russell  - Collection of Images

predecessor	Office	successor
Richard Lyons	British envoy to Rome 1860–1870	Henry Clarke Jervoise
Office newly created see also: List of British envoys to the German Confederation (until 1866)	British ambassador in Berlin 1871–1884	Edward Malet
New title created	Baron Ampthill 1881-1884	Arthur Russell