William Ogilvie of Pittensear—the ‘rebel professor’—was the 18th century Scottish

Scottish people

The Scottish people , or Scots, are a nation and ethnic group native to Scotland. Historically they emerged from an amalgamation of the Picts and Gaels, incorporating neighbouring Britons to the south as well as invading Germanic peoples such as the Anglo-Saxons and the Norse.In modern use,...

 author of an influential historic land reform

Land reform

[Image:Jakarta farmers protest23.jpg|300px|thumb|right|Farmers protesting for Land Reform in Indonesia]Land reform involves the changing of laws, regulations or customs regarding land ownership. Land reform may consist of a government-initiated or government-backed property redistribution,...

 treatise. Published in London in 1782, An Essay on the Right of Property in Land was issued anonymously, necessarily it seems in a revolution

Revolution

A revolution is a fundamental change in power or organizational structures that takes place in a relatively short period of time.Aristotle described two types of political revolution:...

ary age.

Along with John Locke

John Locke

John Locke FRS , widely known as the Father of Liberalism, was an English philosopher and physician regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers. Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Francis Bacon, he is equally important to social...

, John Stuart Mill

John Stuart Mill

John Stuart Mill was a British philosopher, economist and civil servant. An influential contributor to social theory, political theory, and political economy, his conception of liberty justified the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state control. He was a proponent of...

, Thomas Paine

Thomas Paine

Thomas "Tom" Paine was an English author, pamphleteer, radical, inventor, intellectual, revolutionary, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States...

, Adam Smith

Adam Smith

Adam Smith was a Scottish social philosopher and a pioneer of political economy. One of the key figures of the Scottish Enlightenment, Smith is the author of The Theory of Moral Sentiments and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations...

 and others—Ogilvie is seen as a leading proto-Georgist

Georgism

Georgism is an economic philosophy and ideology that holds that people own what they create, but that things found in nature, most importantly land, belong equally to all...

 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.

Ogilvie’s life

The principal authority and main published source of information 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. It is in the book, however, and in the book alone, that we meet face to face with the author. Ogilvie instilled his soul into it, and he left us evidence that it was the chief aim of his life. We, therefore, should as soon think of separating the man Isaiah from the Book of Isaiah, as we should of separating the man Ogilvie from the book of Ogilvie.

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 Pict

PICT

PICT is a graphics file format introduced on the original Apple Macintosh computer as its standard metafile format. It allows the interchange of graphics , and some limited text support, between Mac applications, and was the native graphics format of QuickDraw.The original version, PICT 1, was...

ish 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

Elgin, Moray

Elgin is a former cathedral city and Royal Burgh in Moray, Scotland. It is the administrative and commercial centre for Moray. The town originated to the south of the River Lossie on the higher ground above the flood plain. Elgin is first documented in the Cartulary of Moray in 1190...

, the county town and cathedral city five miles 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

Battle of Culloden

The Battle of Culloden was the final confrontation of the 1745 Jacobite Rising. Taking place on 16 April 1746, the battle pitted the Jacobite forces of Charles Edward Stuart against an army commanded by William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, loyal to the British government...

, a short halt was made at Pittensear House, and three cannon shots were fired at it. One of these shots struck the front wall close to the dining-room window, and, we need not say, caused the inmates much alarm. William Ogilvie, then about ten years of age, in all probability witnessed that scene—a sad example of what even a Whig Government may do at the head of a mercenary army. He, without any doubt, surveyed the wreck after the storm had passed. 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. And a few years later, when his disconsolate and broken-hearted father had quitted life’s stage, he was left alone, in place of both father and mother, as guardian to four orphan girls. Here we may trace the way in which, what we may call a motherly feeling towards all the children of men, was developed in his breast.

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

Joseph Black

Joseph Black FRSE FRCPE FPSG was a Scottish physician and chemist, known for his discoveries of latent heat, specific heat, and carbon dioxide. He was professor of Medicine at University of Glasgow . James Watt, who was appointed as philosophical instrument maker at the same university...

, the engineer inventor James Watt

James Watt

James Watt, FRS, FRSE was a Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer whose improvements to the Newcomen steam engine were fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both his native Great Britain and the rest of the world.While working as an instrument maker at the...

 was demonstrating his scientific discoveries at the University and Adam Smith

Adam Smith

Adam Smith was a Scottish social philosopher and a pioneer of political economy. One of the key figures of the Scottish Enlightenment, Smith is the author of The Theory of Moral Sentiments and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations...

 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

Alexander Gordon, 4th Duke of Gordon

Alexander Gordon, 4th Duke of Gordon KT , styled Marquess of Huntly until 1752, was a Scottish nobleman, described by Kaimes as the "greatest subject in Britain", and was also known as the Cock o' the North, the traditional epithet attached to the chief of the Gordon clan.-Early life:Alexander...

—"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

Henry Scott, 3rd Duke of Buccleuch

Henry Scott, 3rd Duke of Buccleuch and 5th Duke of Queensberry KG KT FRSE was a Scottish nobleman and long-time friend of the notable Sir Walter Scott...

." 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" Ogilvie on ‘Grand Tour

Grand Tour

The Grand Tour was the traditional trip of Europe undertaken by mainly upper-class European young men of means. The custom flourished from about 1660 until the advent of large-scale rail transit in the 1840s, and was associated with a standard itinerary. It served as an educational rite of passage...

’ 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

French Revolution

The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...

:

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.

In 1761 Ogilvie was appointed Assistant Professor of Philosophy in King’s College

King's College, Aberdeen

King's College in Old Aberdeen, Scotland is a formerly independent university founded in 1495 and an integral part of the University of Aberdeen...

, 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

St. Machar's Cathedral

St Machar's Cathedral is a Church of Scotland church in Aberdeen, Scotland. It is located to the north of the city centre, in the former burgh of Old Aberdeen...

 in Old Aberdeen

Old Aberdeen

Old Aberdeen is part of the city of Aberdeen in Scotland. Old Aberdeen was originally a separate burgh, which was erected into a burgh of barony on 26 December 1489. It was incorporated into adjacent Aberdeen by Act of Parliament in 1891...

, 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 preface to the 1891 edition of Ogilvie’s book, DC MacDonald elucidates Ogilvie’s core message:

When a child is born, we recognise that it has a natural right to its mother’s milk, and no one can deny that it has the same right to mother-earth. It is really its mother-earth, plus the dew and sunshine from heaven and a little labour, that supplies the milk and everything else required for its subsistence. The monster that would deprive a babe of its mother’s milk, or would monopolise the breasts of several mothers, to the exclusion of several children, is not more deserving of being destroyed than the monster who seizes absolute possession of more than his share of the common mother of mankind, to the exclusion of his fellow-creatures.

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.'"

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.

Ogilvie set out a prototype of the economic policy known as land value taxation, or, as his modern editors style it, community ground rent. 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. But Ogilvie's failure to grasp the full significance of economic rent, especially urban rent, as a social product, and the stress laid by him on his proposed agrarian law, a plan devoted to a now admittedly impossible mechanical allotment of land; are responsible for his being relegated from the Authorities to the Appendix [ie. by Fillebrown from the body of his book to its appendix].

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

United States Declaration of Independence

The Declaration of Independence was a statement adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, which announced that the thirteen American colonies then at war with Great Britain regarded themselves as independent states, and no longer a part of the British Empire. John Adams put forth a...

) 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

Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis

Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis KG , styled Viscount Brome between 1753 and 1762 and known as The Earl Cornwallis between 1762 and 1792, was a British Army officer and colonial administrator...

 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

Henry George

Henry George was an American writer, politician and political economist, who was the most influential proponent of the land value tax, also known as the "single tax" on land...

 and definitively presented in own masterpiece, the economics bestseller Progress and Poverty

Progress and Poverty

Progress and Poverty: An Inquiry into the Cause of Industrial Depressions and of Increase of Want with Increase of Wealth: The Remedy was written by Henry George in 1879...

. Thus would Ogilvie’s Enlightenment

Scottish Enlightenment

The Scottish Enlightenment was the period in 18th century Scotland characterised by an outpouring of intellectual and scientific accomplishments. By 1750, Scots were among the most literate citizens of Europe, with an estimated 75% level of literacy...

 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

Ecological economics

Image:Sustainable development.svg|right|The three pillars of sustainability. Clickable.|275px|thumbpoly 138 194 148 219 164 240 182 257 219 277 263 291 261 311 264 331 272 351 283 366 300 383 316 394 287 408 261 417 224 424 182 426 154 423 119 415 87 403 58 385 40 368 24 347 17 328 13 309 16 286 26...

.

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.

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

Robert Burns

Robert Burns was a Scottish poet and a lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland, and is celebrated worldwide...

. He appealingly places the two men side by side:

Both were lovers of mankind, and there was a very strong mental affinity between them. Ogilvie was known as “the gentleman an’ scholar”, but never (except within a very limited circle) as a Land Law Reformer. This is a regretful circumstance. It is equally regretful that Burns is more known as “a rhyming, ranting, roving billie” than as a pioneer and great thinker, in regard to reforms for the benefit of mankind…. Ogilvie and Burns saw eye to eye; but while Burns roused up his fellow-men from the gutter of serfdom, Ogilvie reasoned with them as to the causes which brought them to such a low condition, and also as to the means of reclaiming their natural rights. Ogilvie considered the whole question from a magnanimous, impartial, and truly scientific point of view. He pleaded for “free inquiry”; he sought after truth; he was not one of those rough-and-ready reformers who would simply say, “Abolish landlordism and all evils will vanish”. No. He looked upon modern landlordism not as a cause but as an effect. The primary and fundamental cause of all the evils under which humanity suffers is traced by him to man’s want of knowledge; and landlordism, with all its consequent evils, under which humanity groans, according to him, is directly owing to man’s ignorance of his natural rights. It is this ignorance which begets slavish submission and breeds oppression. Ogilvie considered the situation logically. In his view ignorant humanity must neglect its rights, and without its rights cannot perform its duties. Rights and duties are co-relative. Ogilvie recognised this very old maxim of Natural Law.

Landowner

Ogilvie came from a family of agricultural improvers

British Agricultural Revolution

British Agricultural Revolution describes a period of development in Britain between the 17th century and the end of the 19th century, which saw an epoch-making increase in agricultural productivity and net output. This in turn supported unprecedented population growth, freeing up a significant...

. A gentleman farmer and landlord

Landlord

A landlord is the owner of a house, apartment, condominium, or real estate which is rented or leased to an individual or business, who is called a tenant . When a juristic person is in this position, the term landlord is used. Other terms include lessor and owner...

, 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

Earl of Fife

The Earl of Fife or Mormaer of Fife referred to the Gaelic comital lordship of Fife which existed in Scotland until the early 15th century....

 (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 outside Aberdeen

Aberdeen

Aberdeen is Scotland's third most populous city, one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas and the United Kingdom's 25th most populous city, with an official population estimate of ....

. 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.

“In the year 1802 we find him carrying through a Process in the Court of Teinds, by which he saved the property from being plundered by increased tithes on the increased value arising from his improvements. He got the tithes valued according to the old rental.”

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

Virgil

Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English , was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid...

 and Horace

Horace

Quintus Horatius Flaccus , known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus.-Life:...

, 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. Commencing around 1772, Professor Ogilvie began

of his own accord to put together a collection of specimens for a museum of natural history in the King's College

King's College, Aberdeen

King's College in Old Aberdeen, Scotland is a formerly independent university founded in 1495 and an integral part of the University of Aberdeen...

, 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

Zoology

Zoology |zoölogy]]), is the branch of biology that relates to the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinct...

 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.

His collection developed into the Aberdeen University Zoology Museum

University of Aberdeen

The University of Aberdeen, an ancient university founded in 1495, in Aberdeen, Scotland, is a British university. It is the third oldest university in Scotland, and the fifth oldest in the United Kingdom and wider English-speaking world...

, 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.

MacDonald records that during Ogilvie’s time as a member of King’s College

his colleagues not only alienated some of the lands belonging to the College, but they misapplied and ‘misappropriated’ College funds. They also disposed of the patronage of no less than fifteen churches, and, worse still, the right of presentation to twenty bursaries. The great landlords were the purchasers of these saleable commodities, and in this way they became the private owners of rights and duties which, until then, were held by the Professors in trust for the public. The money received for Church patronage has been accounted for, but the price of the other articles of commerce was appropriated by the Masters as their own private property. It became 'money in their purse'.

Ogilvie protested and sought reform:

For upwards of half-a-century Prof. Ogilvie was perhaps the most energetic member of Senatus, his decidedly progressive views bringing him not infrequently into conflict with his more conservative colleagues. The pages of the College Minutes during his incumbency bristle with protests against, and reasons of dissent from, the decision of the majority.

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.