About a year after the General Election the appointment of Mr Layard as ambassador at Madrid created a vacancy at Southwark, and a number of working men electors immediately asked Mr Bradlaugh to become a candidate for that borough. Meetings were summoned for the purpose of proposing his name, and a committee was formed with a view of promoting his election, and a very active committee it proved to be. At a crowded meeting, convened by forty of the "chiefs of the Liberal Party," held in the middle of November, six names of possible representatives were brought forward--Mr Milner Gibson, Sir Francis Lycett, Sir Sydney Waterlow, Sir John Thwaites, and Mr Odger. The "forty chiefs" did not propose Mr Bradlaugh, whose name was however received with great cheering, when it was proposed by way of amendment by Mr Hearn, a Southwark Radical. A week later a meeting was held to decide upon a candidate to be supported by the working-class electors of the borough, and this meeting both Mr Odger and Mr Bradlaugh were invited to attend. The room engaged for the purpose was soon full to overflowing, and at length the speakers adjourned to the balcony in front of the house and addressed the crowd of three thousand people congregated in the road below. Mr Odger was unable to come, and after Mr Bradlaugh had addressed the meeting a resolution in his favour was passed by "an overwhelming majority."[125] He said that although he was there at the earnest invitation of several working men, he was not to be regarded as a candidate until he had issued his address. If Mr Odger came definitely before the constituency and was pledged to go to the poll, he should not contest the borough himself. He wished to see Mr George Odger in Parliament, and he believed that he would be an admirable representative. [Footnote 125: _Daily News._]