Edward Ogilvie


Edward David Stuart Ogilvie was an English-born Australian politician and businessman. He served as a member of the Upper House of the New South Wales parliament. He built the renowned estate Yugilbar, which remained in his family for a century until it was acquired by the Myer family.

Early life

He was born in Tottenham to Royal Navy officer William Ogilvie of Clan Ogilvie, and Mary White. On 2 September 1858 he married Theodosia de Burgh, with whom he had ten children; he later remarried Alicia Georgiana Loftus Tottenham on 21 December 1890. He and his family migrated to Sydney in 1825, and Ogilvie worked for his father on stations on the Upper Hunter and Liverpool Plains, developing a property called Yugilbar along with his brother W. K. Ogilvie and C. G. Tindal, the son of his father's Royal Navy colleague.

Yugilbar

By 1850, Yugilbar was approximately 777 square kilometres in territory. Ogilvie befriended the local Aboriginals, employing them where they were willing and allowing them their land rights with respect to his. He began buying the territories that would be amalgamated as Yugilbar from 1853 onwards, until attaining full ownership and bequeathing it to his children. Yugilbar has since been sold to the Myer family.

Later life

In the 1860s, Ogilvie moved from sheep to cattle. Australian artist Tom Roberts described Ogilvie as "The Chief, mentally alert, a military-type in mind and physique."
In 1863, he was appointed to the New South Wales Legislative Council, where he remained until 1889. Ogilvie died at Fernside near Bowral in 1896.

Descendants

His granddaughter, Lady Jessie Street, was a prominent human rights activist who married into the Street dynasty. His great-great-granddaughter is Dame Bridget Ogilvie, , , a prominent Australian scientist.