| Lawrence Ogilvie | |
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Ogilvie in his Bermuda Department of Agriculture laboratory in the mid-1920s
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| Born | 5 July 1898 The Manse, Rosehearty, Aberdeenshire, Scotland |
| Died | 16 April 1980 Winford Hospital, Bristol |
| Nationality | Scottish |
| Known for | Plant pathology of crops in Bermuda 1923-1928 and Britain 1928-1965, entomology in Bermuda |
| Spouse | Doris Katherine Raikes Turnbull |
Lawrence Ogilvie (5 July 1898 – 16 April 1980) was a Scottish plant pathologist.
Ogilvie was a UK expert[1] on the diseases of commercially-grown vegetables and wheat from the 1930s to the 1960s.
In the 1920s — when agriculture, rather than tourism, was Bermuda's major industry — he identified the virus that had devastated for 30 years the island's lily-bulb crop. He re-established the vital export trade to the USA and increased it to seven-fold the volume of ten years earlier.[2][3][4][5][6][7]
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Ogilvie was born in Rosehearty in the north of Aberdeenshire, Scotland, on 5 July 1898. His father, the Reverend William Paton Ogilvie was the minister of the Presbyterian church there. He attended Aberdeen Grammar School[8] and took his BSc and MA at the University of Aberdeen in 1921 as the Fullerton Research Scholar with special distinction in Botany and Zoology. He was also awarded the Collie Prize for the most distinguished student in Botany. In Aberdeen, he lectured on the Alpine flora of China.[9] At Emmanuel College, Cambridge University, he was awarded an MSc in 1923 for his work on slime fluxes on trees, particularly willows, elms, horse chestnuts, and apples.[10][11]
From September 1923 to April 1928 he was the Bermuda government's first plant pathologist. He developed agricultural laws for Bermuda; initiated seed testing; registered local seedsmen; organised the improvement of seed potatoes; established plant quarantine; studied the diseases of celery and other vegetables, maize, vines, avocados, bananas and citrus fruits; and investigated the banana losses from the Mediterranean Fruit Fly.[12][2][13][14][15]
As the Bermuda delegate at the Kingston, Jamaica 8th West Indian Agricultural Conference in March 1924, he initiated West Indian plant inspections,[16] nursery-stock export certificates, and the inspection and grading of fruit and vegetables for export.
He was acclaimed in Bermuda for identifying the virus that had increasingly damaged the commercially vital lily-bulb export trade of Lilium longiflorum to the USA since the late 19th century.[2][3][17][5][18][7] Aphid damage had previously been thought to be the cause of the crop failures. He reported the marked improvements found during his inspections of 204 bulb fields in 1927, following controls in the fields and packing stations: exports of Bermuda Easter lilies increased from 823 cases in 1918 to 6043 cases in 1927.[19][20] Due to this success,while still in his 20s, Ogilvie was made a vice-president of the British Lily Society.[21]
Ogilvie wrote The Insects of Bermuda,[22][23] published in 1928 by the Department of Agriculture, Bermuda. He identified and described 395 insects;[24] in particular the Aphid ogilviei discovered by him on Lilium harisii in Bermuda.[25][26]
Bermuda had three crops of vegetables each year for export to New York: this gave him the experience to later pioneer the European study of vegetable diseases.[27]
In the winter of 1928 he was appointed Advisory Mycologist at Long Ashton Research Station near Bristol, England.[28] The Vale of Evesham, Cornwall, and other West Country areas grew and grow much of Britain's vegetables.[29] He pioneered the European study of commercial fruit[30][31] and particularly vegetable diseases[32][33][34][35][36] with 44 scientific papers between 1929 and 1946 at Long Ashton Research Station. He wrote the government’s official national Diseases of Vegetables[37] practical guide for trade growers: the six editions from 1941 to 1969 were full of photos of wilting crops.[1][38]
Ogilvie was important to the World War II and post-war challenge of feeding Britain: he was the leading British expert[27] on the diseases of cereal crops[39] and vegetables. By the 1940s, wheat varieties had not been sufficiently bred to resist the rust and other diseases that particularly affected the damp conditions of Britain. Before the war, Britain imported half its food, but by 1941 relied on home-grown crops because German submarines were sinking about 60 merchant ships per month, and the priority for shipping was to carry matériel to resist the impending invasion. The 1940s varieties of wheat were still unable to resist disease, with long stalks prone to lodging in the heavy rains of the west of England. Ogilvie was the international authority on the diseases of wheat that flourished in these damp, warm conditions, particularly Black Stem Rust[40][41][42][43][44] and Take All.[45][46] In total he wrote over 130 articles about plant diseases in journals of learned societies.
Ogilvie and his team of scientists advised growers and farmers in the south-west of England through the war years and until his retirement in 1963.[47][48][49][50] This was particularly important to Britain during the war and the continued food rationing period to 1954[51][52] — bread for instance was rationed from 1946 to 1948, even though it was not rationed during the war.
Ogilvie was a keen skier. On 10 January 1931, he married landscape architect Doris Katherine Raikes Turnbull, who he had met in Bermuda. During World War II he was a member of the Home Guard in the hamlet of East Dundry where he lived with his wife and son.
He was a founding member and a chairman of the Friends of the Bristol Art Gallery, giving the Jacob Epstein bronze Kathlene to the gallery. He was on the founding committee of Bristol's Arnolfini Gallery. Ogilvie was a keen watercolour artist, and with his wife formed a collection of 1940s and 1950s modern art.[53] He died on 16 April 1980 following operations after falling in his East Dundry garden and breaking his hip.
Selected references