Odger, George

Odger, George 

Born 1813 in Roborough, Devonshire; died Mar. 4, 1877, in London. Figure in the English workers’ movement.

A shoemaker by trade, Odger in 1860 became a member of the London Council of Trade Unions, serving as secretary from 1862 to 1872. He helped organize the meeting of the International Workingmen’s Association in London on Sept. 28, 1864, at which the First International was founded. He was a member and, until the fall of 1867, chairman of the General Council of the First International. At the same time, he worked in a number of organizations controlled by bourgeois radicals. Odger’s labor movement activities were characterized by compromise and reformism typical of liberal trade unionism. He opposed K. Marx’s revolutionary positions, including the one on the Irish question. On June 27, 1871, Odger was in effect expelled from the General Council.

REFERENCES

Marx, K., and F. Engels. Soch., 2nd ed., vol. 17. (See Index of Names.)
General’nyi Sovet Pervogo Internatsionala (1864–72). Protokoly [vols. 1–5]. Moscow, 1961–65. (See Index of Names.)