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ODO RUSSELL

Odo William Leopold Russell (Baron Ampthill) was a British diplomat. He was born in 1829 at Florence and died in 1884. Privately educated, he acquired fluency in Italian, German and French and later began his diplomatic career in 1849 working as attache at Vienna. After working at the foreign office from 1850 until 1852, he filled various diplomatic posts until 1870 in Paris, Vienna, Constantinople, Washington and Rome. From 1858 until 1870 he was the unofficial minister at the Vatican. In 1870 he became assistant under-secretary for foreign affairs, and in October 1871 was appointed ambassador at Berlin. In 1872 he was made a privy councillor and in 1881 raised to the peerage as the first Baron Ampthill.
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