Odo Russell, 1st Baron Ampthill

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

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

He entered in 1849 as Attaché to the British Embassy in Vienna 's diplomatic career. In 1850 returned to England, he worked for two years in the Foreign Office, then worked successively at the embassies in Paris, Vienna, Constantinople Opel and Washington, DC. Russel was in 1858 appointed Minister in Florence with the instruction to represent the United Kingdom in semiofficial position in the papal curia, with which the British government has had no official relations.

In Rome he remained, after he had been promoted in 1860 to Minister at Naples. In 1870 he was Under Secretary of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, then went for a few months as British representative to the German headquarters at Versailles, to act in mitigation to the peace negotiations with France, which was of course unsuccessful. In 1871 he was appointed ambassador at the Berlin court.

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

He was at the Berlin court very popular and worked with success for the maintenance of friendly relations between Germany and England.

In the near Carlsbad he built the St. Leonhard chapel at the St. Leonhard restoration alongside a Romanesque church ruin.