Lawrence Ogilvie

Lawrence Ogilvie
Ogilvie in his Bermuda Department of Agriculture laboratory in the mid-1920s
Born5 July 1898
The Manse, Rosehearty, Aberdeenshire, Scotland
Died16 April 1980
Winford Hospital, Bristol
NationalityScottish
Alma materUniversity of Aberdeen (BSc, MA) University of Cambridge (MSc)
Known forPlant pathology of crops in Bermuda 1923–1928 and Britain 1928–1965, entomology in Bermuda
SpouseDoris Katherine Raikes Turnbull

Lawrence Ogilvie (5 July 1898 – 16 April 1980) was a Scottish plant pathologist who pioneered the study of wheat, fruit and vegetable diseases in the 20th century.

From 1923, in his first job and aged only 25, when agriculture was Bermuda's major industry, Ogilvie identified the virus that had devastated the islands' high-value lily bulb crops in 204 bulb fields for 30 years. By introducing agricultural controls, he re-established the valuable export shipments to the US, increasing them to seven-fold the volume of earlier "virus years". He was established as a successful young scientist when he had a 3-inch column describing his work published by the world's premier scientific journal Nature.[1][2][3][4][5][6]

Bermuda's exporting its three vegetable crops a year to the USA gave plant pathologist Ogilvie much experience of vegetable diseases, such that on return to Britain, five years later, he became the UK expert[7] on the diseases of commercially grown vegetables and wheat from the 1930s to the 1960s. This knowledge was vital for Britain in World War II with severe food shortages and rationing.

In total he wrote over 130 articles about plant diseases in journals of learned societies.[citation needed]

Lawrence and his older brother Alan with their mother Elizabeth Ogilvie (née Lawrence) at the front door of their family home The Manse, Rosehearty, just west of Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire about 1900.
Lawrence in his Ogilvie tartan kilt with his mother outside their Aberdeen house in about 1911.
  1. ^ Ogilvie, Lawrence (April 1927). "An Important Virus Disease of Lilium longiflorum and its Varieties". Nature. 119 (2997): 528. Bibcode:1927Natur.119..528O. doi:10.1038/119528b0. S2CID 8937999.
  2. ^ Annual reports of the Bermuda Department of Agriculture 1923-26
  3. ^ Page 4 of the January 1929 Royal Botanic Society of London: Quarterly Summary
  4. ^ Ogilvie, Lawrence (1928). "A Transmissible Virus Disease of the Easter Lily". Annals of Applied Biology. 15 (4): 540–562. doi:10.1111/j.1744-7348.1928.tb07776.x.
  5. ^ October 1968 Monthly Bulletin of the Bermuda Department of Agriculture and Fisheries article by Lawrence Ogilvie
  6. ^ Kosmix.com[permanent dead link]
  7. ^ Newsletter of the Federation of British Plant Pathologists No 6, Winter 1980, pages 47–48 Obituary notices: Lawrence Ogilvie by H Croxall