William Ogilvie of Pittensear facts for kids

William Ogilvie of Pittensear FRSE FSA(Scot) (1736–1819), known as the Rebel Professor and described by his biographer as the ''Euclid of Land law Reform', was a Scottish classicist, numismatist and author of an influential historic land reform treatise. Published in London in 1781, An Essay on the Right of Property in Land was issued anonymously, necessarily it seems in a revolutionary age.

As with John Locke, John Stuart Mill, Thomas Paine, Adam Smith and others—Ogilvie is seen as a leading proto-Georgist thinker. His masterwork was republished in 1838, then in 1891 (reprinted 1970) as the heart and subject of a much larger new work titled Birthright in Land, and in more recent years has been republished twice in modern, further expanded editions, using that same title. Ogilvie is cited as an influence by reformers internationally.

Life

Born in 1736, William Ogilvie was the only son of James Ogilvie of Pittensear, Morayshire, and of Marjory Steuart of Tannachy in the neighbouring county of Banff. "A born and bred patrician", he was lineally descended from Gillecrist, the last Maor Mor of Angus, one of the seven provinces of Pictish Scotland. "By birth and lineage an anti-Whig, and, as a man, he must have despised the wirepulling Scotch Whigs of his time as 'but a pack o' traitor louns'".

There is no authentic account of Ogilvie's boyhood, according to his biographer, who assumes that until he left home for College he was brought up in the diminutive mansion-house of Pittensear and attended the Grammar School in Elgin, the county town and cathedral city five miles (8 km) away.

In 1755, at the age of nineteen, Ogilvie entered King's College, Aberdeen. On graduating in 1759 he was appointed Master of the Grammar School at Cullen, Morayshire—remaining there a year. He then attended Glasgow University in the winter session of 1760–61 and Edinburgh University the following winter. While he was at Glasgow, studying under Dr. Joseph Black, the engineer inventor James Watt was demonstrating his scientific discoveries at the University and Adam Smith occupied the Chair of Moral Philosophy.

MacDonald says that between 1759 and 1762 Ogilvie was travelling tutor and companion to Alexander, 4th Duke of Gordon—"during which time he probably found himself in the company of Adam Smith as travelling tutor and companion to Henry Scott, 3rd Duke of Buccleuch."

In 1761 Ogilvie was appointed Assistant Professor of Philosophy in King's College, Aberdeen, and Regent in 1764. The following year he exchanged offices with the Professor of Humanity, which class he taught until he retired in 1817. Ogilvie appears to have lived a somewhat reclusive life, remaining unmarried and childless. He is buried in the south transept of St Machar's Cathedral in Old Aberdeen, adjacent to his college: a discreet stone in the wall describes him as "William Ogilvie, Esquire of Pittensear, in the County of Moray, and Professor of Humanity in the University and King’s College, Aberdeen, who died on the 14th February 1819, aged 83 years". His Times obituary called him "one of the most accomplished scholars of the age".

The Book of Ogilvie—Birthright in Land

The declared object of An Essay on the Right of Property in Land, according to its original title and introduction, is to show how "property in land might be rendered more beneficial to the lower ranks of mankind". Due to what MacDonald calls the 'boycotting' of Ogilvie and his masterwork by the establishment, "the lower ranks of mankind in England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, and the British Colonies never heard that such a man lived, far less that he left them such a legacy".

In his Essay Ogilvie claims the birthright of every citizen to an equal share in the value of property in land, and outlines the practical policy means by which this would progressively be achieved. He asserts "land values as having three parts, the original, the improved, and the improvable values; the first and third of these [belong] to the community and only the second to the landholder". Fillebrown provides a considered critical analysis of Ogilvie's proposal: "The crux of the land problem, according to Ogilvie's analysis, lies in the reconciliation" of the conflict between "the claims to an equal share of land, involving right of occupancy, and the claim to more than an equal share, based on labour.... 'Rude nations have adhered to the first of these maxims, neglecting the second. Nations advanced in industry and arts have adhered to the second, neglecting the first.'"Ogilvie set out a prototype of the economic policy known as land value taxation, or, as his modern editors style it, community ground rent.

MacDonald describes Ogilvie's Essay as "a pastoral prose poem, through which we can realise this beautiful world, with its ample provision for satisfying man's instinctive and rational faculties of enjoyment." Ogilvie wrote his revolutionary masterwork between 1776 (the US declaration of independence) and 1781—eight years before the storming of the Bastille. He presented the work as a warning to the "friends of mankind", he being "well aware that great changes suddenly accomplished are always pregnant with danger".

Despite his so-called 'boycotting', Ogilvie and his work does appear to have had contemporary influence. A copy of his Essay, marked "with the author's compliments", was found in the repositories of the modernising Frederick the Great; and Ogilvie was involved in the land tenure reforms carried out by Lord Cornwallis in lower Bengal in 1793.

Ogilvie's work was praised by Fillebrown as "a notable contribution to economic literature, a product of original and independent thinking". The ideas it contains were to be taken up and developed a hundred years later by the American social reformer Henry George and definitively presented in own masterpiece, the economics best-seller Progress and Poverty. Thus would Ogilvie's Enlightenment insights be turned into a significant 19th century social and political movement, and become a philosophy that would in turn inspire and inform the modern land reform. and Green movements.

Friend of Robert Burns

Ogilvie’s biographer makes a sustained and compelling argument—presenting circumstantial but no concrete evidence—that Ogilvie was personally acquainted with his compatriot Robert Burns.

Landowner

Ogilvie came from a family of agricultural improvers. A gentleman farmer and landlord, he managed in-hand a good portion of his inherited lands of Pittensear until 1772, when, apparently for family reasons, he sold the property to the Earl of Fife (reserving a lease on the mansion house and manor farm, which he retained "to the last parting pang").

In 1773 Ogilvie purchased the property of Oldfold and Stonegavel, on Deeside, about six miles (10 km) outside Aberdeen. In 1808, after thirty-five years of agricultural improvement, having borrowed £2000 from the Duke of Gordon for draining, trenching, blasting and legal fees, he sold it again.Although an academic intellectual, Ogilvie appears to have been a practical man: his management of his landed property benefited from his profound theoretical insights; while his theoretical knowledge was bolstered by his hands-on practical experience on the land.

Antiquarian and collector

Ritchie says "Ogilvie enthralled his students with the outstanding quality of his translations of classical writers, especially Virgil and Horace, although these were never published", and that "his scholarship extended to natural history and the fine arts". Ogilvie was a keen antiquary, medallist, numismatist and collector—of natural specimens and of rare prints, mainly portraits. His collection developed into the Aberdeen University Zoology Museum, one of the oldest in the country.

Educational reformer

During his tenure at Aberdeen Ogilvie was an active educational reformer, helping to sweep aside "a gavelkind system of distributing University honours". "Ogilvie's clarity of thought, freedom from preconceptions, and disinterested motives inevitably brought him into conflict with colleagues in King's College". Professor Ogilvie held the modern view that Universities were public institutions, and professors public servants (with regard to teaching) and trustees for the public (with regard to endowments, buildings, libraries, etc). The 18th century Masters of King’s College collectively were of a different view.

A contemporary printed paper titled 'Outlines of a Plan for Uniting the King’s and Marischal Universities of Aberdeen, With a View to Render the System of Education More Complete' is believed to have been authored by Ogilvie. Its reform proposals were rejected by his own College, with seven out of Ogilvie’s ten Professor colleagues opposing it—the "seven wise Masters" as they became known. It was not until 1860 finally that the 1786 plans were implemented.

In 1764 Ogilvie’s name is connected with a scheme for a Public Library in Aberdeen. This, like educational reform, was another grand public project that would remain unrealised in his lifetime (but since achieved). His greatest, radical yet practical proposition for the public good—the equitable sharing of nature's bounty among all citizens—remains unfulfilled.