Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Odell, Thomas
ODELL, THOMAS (1691–1749), playwright, born in 1691, the son of a Buckinghamshire squire, came up to London about 1714 with good introductions to some of the whig leaders, and a strong desire to try his hand at lampooning. He obtained a pension of 200l. through the influence of Lord Wharton and the Earl of Sunderland, and put his pen at Walpole's disposal. It is not possible to trace any of his political writings, but he is stated by Oldys to have written a number of satires upon Pope, and to have been deterred from printing them only by Walpole's fear lest such a step might estrange Lord Chesterfield and others of Pope's admirers among his adherents. In 1721 Odell's first comedy, ‘The Chimera,’ a satirical piece aimed at the speculators in Change Alley, was produced at the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields, but met with small success on the boards, though when printed it ran to a second edition before the close of the year. In October 1729 Odell himself erected a theatre in Leman Street, Goodman's Fields, and engaged a company, with Henry Giffard as its leading actor. He produced there in the course of his first season ‘The Recruiting Officer,’ ‘The Orphan,’ and two successful original comedies, Fielding's ‘Temple Beau’ and Mottley's ‘Widow Bewitched.’ In 1730, however, the lord mayor and aldermen petitioned the king to suppress the superfluous playhouse in Goodman's Fields. Odell tried to avert hostile criticism by shutting up the house for a time, but this so impaired its prospects that he had to dispose of it early in 1731 to his friend Giffard. In 1737 the London playhouses were restricted by statute to Covent Garden and Drury Lane, but this did not prevent the occasional presentation of plays at the unlicensed houses, and it was at the ‘late theatre in Goodman's Fields,’ in a ‘gratuitous’ performance of ‘Richard III’ between two parts of a concert, that David Garrick made his first appearance in London in 1741. This historic performance, however, was probably not given at Odell's theatre, but at another small playhouse built by Giffard in the adjoining Ayliffe Street. Odell's old theatre was nevertheless utilised as late as 1745, when Ford's ‘Perkin Warbeck’ was produced à propos of the '45 rebellion.
Chetwood attributes Odell's failure to his ignorance of the way to manage a company. He had lost his pension upon the death of the fourth Earl of Sunderland, his plays met with no success, and he seems to have been for some years reduced to great straits for a living. In February 1738, however, when William Chetwynd was sworn in as first licenser of the stage, with a salary of 400l., Odell retained enough influence to obtain the office of deputy licenser, with a salary of 200l. He retained this post until his death, which took place at his house in Chapel Street, Westminster, on 24 May 1749. He left a widow, who was well known and esteemed by William Oldys the antiquary. The latter wrote of Odell: ‘He was a great observator of everything curious in the conversation of his acquaintance; and his own conversation was a living chronicle of the remarkable intrigues, adventures, sayings, stories, writings, &c. of many of the Quality, Poets and other Authors, Players, Booksellers who flourished especially in the present century. … He was a popular man at elections, but latterly was forced to live reserved and retired by reason of his debts.’
In addition to ‘The Chimera,’ Odell wrote: 1. ‘The Smugglers, a Farce,’ 1729, performed with some success at the little theatre in the Haymarket, and reissued in the same year as ‘The Smugglers: a Comedy,’ dedicated to George Doddington, esq. Appended to the second edition is ‘The Art of Dancing,’ in three cantos and in heroic verse: a somewhat licentious poem, in which the fabled origin of the order of the Garter is versified. 2. ‘The Patron; or the Statesman's Opera of two Acts … to which is added the Musick to each Song.’ Dedicated to Charles Spencer, fifth earl of Sunderland [1722?]. This was produced at the Haymarket in 1730. 3. ‘The Prodigal; or Recruits for the Queen of Hungary,’ 1744, 4to; adapted from the ‘Woman Captain of Shadwell,’ and dedicated to Lionel Cranfield Sackville, earl of Middlesex. It owed a small temporary success to the popularity of Maria Teresa in London at this moment. It is noticeable that none of these pieces were produced at Odell's own theatre. He is said by Oldys to have been engaged at the time of his death upon ‘an History of the characters he had observed and conferences with many eminent persons he had known in his time,’ and the antiquary also saw in manuscript ‘A History of the Play House in Goodman's Fields’ by Odell. Neither of these is extant.
[Baker's Biographia Dramatica; Yeowell's Memoir of William Oldys, together with his Diary and choice notes from his Adversaria, 1862, pp. 30, 31; Whincop's Compleat List of English Dramatic Poets, 1747, p. 270; Thespian Dictionary, 1805; Disraeli's Curiosities, vi. 385; Genest's History of the Stage, iii. 274, 320, 398, 522, iv. 196; Chetwood's History of the Stage; Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. xi. 161; Daily Advertiser, 2 June, 1731; Doran's Annals of the Stage, i. 367.]