able influence on the movement during the following years. Believing that the most advantageous policy for the working classes was the combination of trade-unionism with political action, he endeavoured to induce the council to adopt it. Under his influence the council organised a popular welcome to Garibaldi, and a great meeting in St. James's Hall in 1862 in support of the Northern States of America in their struggle against slavery, at which John Bright was the principal speaker. He became a member of the National Reform League; and, in conjunction with Applegarth, Allan, and Coulson, persuaded the trades council to take a leading part in the agitation for the extension of the franchise in 1866 and subsequent years. He made five unsuccessful attempts to get into parliament as an independent labour candidate—at Chelsea in 1868, at Stafford in 1869, at Bristol in 1870, where he retired rather than divide the liberal vote, and at Southwark in 1870 and 1874. At the Southwark election in 1870 he polled 4,382 votes, while the liberal candidate, Sir Sydney Waterlow, polled only 2,966. Odger became president of the general council of the famous international association of working men in 1870. In 1872 he was made the subject of a series of attacks in the London ‘Figaro,’ and he brought an action for libel against the publisher. The case was tried on 14 Feb. 1873, and resulted in a verdict for the defendant. Odger died in 1877. His funeral, which was attended by Herbert Spencer, Professor Fawcett, and Sir Charles Dilke, was made the occasion of a great demonstration by the London working men, who regarded him as their leader.
[Life and Labours of George Odger; Odger's Reply to the Attorney-General [1873]; McCarthy's History of our own Time, iii. 228, iv. 95, 179; Sidney and Beatrice Webb's History of Trade Unionism, pp. 215, 217, 218, 220, 221, 228, 230, 231, 271, 273, 275, 282, 309, 347, 382.]
ODINGSELLS, GABRIEL (1690–1734), playwright, son of Gabriel Odingsells of London, was born in 1690, and matriculated from Pembroke College, Oxford, on 23 April 1706. He left Oxford without a degree, and essayed to obtain the reputation of a wit in London. In 1725 appeared his first comedy, ‘The Bath Unmasked’ (London, 4to), in which he attempted with indifferent success to describe the humours of the city of Bath. It was acted on 27 Feb. and on six subsequent occasions at Lincoln's Inn Fields. It was followed, at the same theatre, on 8 Dec. by ‘The Capricious Lovers’ (London, 1726, 4to), a poor comedy, relieved, however, by one humorous character, Mrs. Mince-Mode, who ‘grows sick at the sight of a man, and refines upon the significancy of phrases till she resolves common conversation into obscenity.’ In March 1730 his third and last piece, ‘Bays' Opera’ (London, 1730, 4to), was acted three times, twice more than it deserved, at Drury Lane. Odingsells shortly afterwards developed symptoms of lunacy, and on 10 Feb. 1734 he hanged himself in his house in Thatched Court, Westminster. In 1742 was published, posthumously, ‘Monumental Inscriptions; or a Curious Collection of Near Five Hundred of the most Remarkable Epitaphs, serious and humourous. Collected by the late ingenious Gabriel Odinsells [sic],’ London, 4to. The copy of this rare work in the British Museum Library is imperfect, many of the coarser epitaphs having been effaced.
[Baker's Biographia Dramatica, i. 547; Genest's History of the Stage, iii. 167, 177; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1500–1714; Doran's Annals of the Stage; Rawlinson MSS. in Bodleian Library, vi. 35, xxi. 50; Odingsells's Works in the British Museum Library.]
ODINGTON, WALTER, or Walter of Evesham (fl. 1240), Benedictine writer. [See Walter.]
ODO, or ODA (d. 959), archbishop of Canterbury, called ‘the Good,’ is said to have been the son of a Dane, one of the army of Inguar, or Ivar, that conquered the north of England in 867, though this is not quite so certain as is generally believed (‘dicunt quidam,’ see the contemporary Vita S. Oswaldi, Historians of York, i. 404). He was early in life converted to Christianity, and is said to have been punished severely by his father for persisting in attending church (Eadmer). One of Ælfred's nobles, named Æthelhelm, or Athelm, adopted him, caused him to be baptised, and provided a teacher for him, under whose care he learnt Latin, and, it is said, Greek also (ib.) Having received the tonsure, he made such progress in divine things that he was soon admitted to the priesthood. Nevertheless he is said to have in his younger days served Eadward the elder as a soldier, and to have been persuaded to take orders by his adoptive father, whom he accompanied on a journey to Rome. On the way Æthelhelm fell sick, and his recovery was attributed to a draught of wine which Odo blessed by making the sign of the cross over it (Vita S. Oswaldi, u.s.) William of Malmesbury says that he did not become a clerk until after this journey, but seems to have altered the order of events so as not to represent Odo as taking part in war after his ordination; for it is clear from the
