William Ogilvie of Pittensear

The principal authority and main published source of information[16] on William Ogilvie and his life is his 19th-century biographer DC MacDonald, who says:The facts known about Ogilvie's life are exceedingly scanty, and would of themselves be of little importance; but when considered along with the conception we form of the man as displayed on every page of his book, the smallest scrap of authentic information will in these days be of some interest, not only to "men of enlarged and inquisitive minds", but also to readers in general.

[18] 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.

One dramatic incident in his childhood may have been defining: When the so-called Royal Army was passing through Morayshire in 1746 'Butcher' Cumberland's government troops on their way to the Battle of Culloden, a short halt was made at Pittensear House, and three cannon shots were fired at it.

We have it on the authority of old people still living near Pittensear, that his mother, who happened to be in childbed at the time, never recovered the shock of that day's proceedings, and that shortly thereafter she was laid in a premature grave.

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.

"[17] But Ritchie points out that the period of travel "coincided with the commencement of Ogilvie's teaching duties and [Gordon] is known to have taken another tutor"[19] Ogilvie on 'Grand Tour' would have had good opportunity to survey the broad continent of Europe and witness the condition of its people: his reformer eye would not have missed those circumstances and conditions that were to lead to the French Revolution: The widow is gathering nettles for her children's dinner; a perfumed seigneur, delicately lounging in the Œil de Bœuf, hath an alchemy whereby he will extract from her the third nettle, and call it rent.

[17] 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".

[24] 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.

'"[25]To establish a just combination of these two maxims, at the original foundation of states, so as to render it a fundamental part of their frame and constitution, or to introduce it afterwards, with as little violence as may be, to the actual possessions and supposed rights and interests of various orders of men, ought to be the object of all agrarian laws; and this object being once distinctly conceived, if wise and benevolent men will turn their attention towards it, no doubt need be entertained that very practicable methods of carrying it into execution will in time be discovered, by comparison of projects, or from the result of trials.

[26]Ogilvie set out a prototype of the economic policy known as land value taxation, or, as his modern editors style it, community ground rent.

[27] However his analysis and proposal are incomplete, says Fillebrown:"His enumeration of the moral benefits to accrue to mankind from a realisation of his fiscal ideal is a brilliant prognostication that no later and greater economic light has sufficed to dim.

[28]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."

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.

[30] 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.

[35][36] MacDonald delivers a closing paean on Ogilvie's work: His Essay on the Right of Property in Land, in every line of it, says: suffer little children to come unto me, and I shall teach them that God is no respecter of persons; that all the children of men are entitled indiscriminately to an equal share in the soil, in all wild animals, game, fish, and the whole products of nature, necessary for man's subsistence or enjoyment; and that anything contrary to this doctrine is a gross and blasphemous slander on the Creator, as well as a most iniquitous fraud on the bulk of mankind.

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").

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".

[37] Commencing around 1772, Professor Ogilvie beganof his own accord to put together a collection of specimens for a museum of natural history in the King's College, and has now fitted up, and furnished three apartments for their accommodation.

[He procured]...an assortment of specimens of fossils, and in the various branches of zoology as might serve to excite the liberal curiosity of youth, and make them, in some measure, acquainted the immense variety of the works of nature.... One is astonished to find so large a collection of birds, fishes, marbles, spars etc., accumulated in so short a space.

[41]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.