William Henry Ogilvie (21 August 1869 – 30 January 1963) was a Scottish-Australian narrative poet and horseman, jackaroo, and drover, and described as a quiet-spoken handsome Scot of medium height, with a fair moustache and red complexion. He was also known as Will Ogilvie, by the pen names including 'Glenrowan' and the lesser 'Swingle-Bar', and by his initials, WHO.
Ogilvie was part of the trio of Australian bush poets, with Banjo Paterson (1864–1941) and Henry Lawson (1867–1922). His Fair girls and gray horses (1896) was considered second only to Banjo Paterson's Man from Snowy River (1895). A reader ballot in 1914 saw him placing seventh of Australia's twelve most favourite poets.The 1914 Melbourne's Herald ballot ranked the top twelve of one hundred and ten favourite Australian poets as: 1st Adam Lindsay Gordon, Henry Kendall, Bernard O'Dowd, Victor Daley, Henry Lawson, Banjo Paterson, Will H. Ogilvie, James Brunton Stephens, Roderic Quinn, Mary Gilmore, George Essex Evans, E. J. Brady. (Barrier Miner newspaper, 29 July 1914, p. 6 (http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article45290156))
Wearing the title of 'Universally acclaimed in Australia as a bush balladist of the "Outback"', Will H. Ogilvie wrote over 1,100 poems, including A Scotch night, The Australian, Summer country, Kings of the earth, and Whaup o' the rede.
Personal life
Ogilvie was born at Holefield, near Kelso, Borders, Scotland on 21 August 1869 to George Ogilvie and Agnes Christie, the second child of eight.WHO Memorial Trust, 22 October 2017. George farmed the lands of the Earl of Dalkeith on the Buccleuch Estates. Agnes, an orphan of the Indian Mutiny at Cawnpore, was a gifted pianist. Of the eight children – Zoe (b. 1867), George (b. 1872), Winifred (b. 1873), Tom (b. 1875), Eric (b. 1876), Kate (b. 1879), and Gladys (b. 1884) – William was the only one to marry.
Ogilvie was educated at Kelso High School for two terms as a weekly boarder, had some tutoring in Yorkshire, before entering Fettes College, Edinburgh where he excelled as a runner and in rugby.
Having just turned twenty years of age, he travelled from Scotland to Australia on the SS Arcadia for four weeks, via the Suez Canal, arriving in Sydney on 1 November 1889. During his time in Australia he worked on sheep stations in north-western New South Wales, south-eastern South Australia, and central New South Wales, where he was a proficient horseman, and gained the reputation as one of Australia's top bush poets.
After eleven years on the continent, on 9 February 1901 aged thirty-one, in Sydney the poet and bushman boarded the SS Persic travelling by way of Cape Town to Liverpool, England. Ogilvie returned to Scotland to Edinburgh to become a freelance journalist. From 1905 to 1908, he held the position of professor of agricultural journalism at the Iowa State College, United States of America. American ranch life however held no attraction to that of Australian properties.
In 1908 he returned again to Scotland and married Katharine Margaret 'Madge' Scott Anderson (1879 – 25 June 1965), the daughter of Tom Scott Anderson and a descendant of Dr Alexander Anderson who participated in the last and fatal expedition of explorer Mungo Park. Will and Madge had two children, Margaret Deloraine 'Wendy' Ogilvie (1909–2003), and George Thomas Anderson Ogilvie (1912–1995), when living at 'Brundenlaws' in the village of Bowden.
Australia remained important to the poet, prizing a stockwhip made by Alexander Patton with a silver tacks spelling out 'W.H.O.' on the handle, and making a damper for visiting guests.The stockwhip is now in the possession of the Cobb & Co. Museum, Toowoomba, Australia. Australia also remembered Ogilvie through continued correspondence over his later years, including school children wishing him a happy 70th birthday.
During World War I, Ogilvie remained in Great Britain, and was in charge of and prepared Canadian horses for military service at the Army Remounts Branch in Wiltshire, England. Fellow Australian poet A. B. 'Banjo' Paterson was placed with the Australian Remount Service in 1915, rising to become its officer in charge in Cairo, Egypt.
In 1918 he first leased then bought the Presbyterian church manse 'Kirklea' at Ashkirk, Selkirkshire, Scotland. At the start of World War II Ogilvie, aged 71, undertook ARP warden duties in Selkirk. He continued to live in Kirklea until his death at 93 years of age in 1963, followed by his wife Madge in 1965. His ashes were scattered on the hill road to Roberton, Scotland, along with Australian wattle leaves.
Ogilvie's son George wrote the biography entitled Balladist of Borders & Bush in 1994.
Influences
The poet actively acknowledged the influences of Australian poet Adam Lindsay Gordon (1833–1870):
Our Lindsay Gordon! From the north-most cape South to the Otway he is loved and known. The boughs that shadow and the dusts that drape His horse and horseman— are they not our own? And every bronzed, burnt bushman in the east, And every digger In the western mines, From him has learned one lilting page at least, And loved it for the heart between the lines.
He was given to be of the Whyte-Melville school, named after Scottish novelist and poet George John Whyte-Melville (1821–1878), which was evident in two poems of the same name in his works Galloping shoes (1922) and Scattered scarlet (1923).
Ogilvie wrote lyrical and romantic poetry noted for its balladic style, with expressive descriptions of Australian Outback life and characters. Will, as he was known, also wrote a great deal of work on English and Scottish themes and his work has been included in collections of English and Scottish poetry. All of his work was originally published in, and he is most closely associated with, Australia. Before being printed in books, many works in the newspapers were under the pen name of 'Glenrowan', and also 'Swingle-Bar'. It was suggested 'Glenrowan' was named for the town of Glenrowan, Victoria where he passed through on his way to Gunningbland station, near Parkes, New South Wales in 1894 as a roustabout. Ogilvie however had been using that pen name by April 1893. 'Swinglebar' is the name associated with a wooden bar between draught horses and a wagon that keeps the chains separate. He also wrote in Australia under the names of 'Free Lance' and 'Fourth Mate', and in Scotland with 'Freebooter'.
Events in Eastern Australia also brought 'the Lucky Country' an impact on the quality of life in the last decade of the 1800s:
the 1891 Australian shearers' strike (with issues still persisting into 1894, even on Belalie, a property where Ogilvie worked), the Australian banking crisis of 1893 (where bank notes from collapsed banks became worthless), and the Federation Drought (from 1896 to 1902). Due to the droughts, properties such as Belalie underwent destocking in 1899.
Ogilvie captured the essence of droughts in his words, contained within The outlaw (To round the cattle on drafting-camps on drought-bound western runs), The pack horse (But drought had stolen my strength away), The team bullock (Grim Drought had bound the Western land), and particularly Back o' Bourke (That's where the fires of hell burn through).
At the time of 1898 each of Australia's balladeers wrote of a different phase of their own lives: 'Lawson the swagman, Dyson the miner, Daley the poet, Paterson the humorist... And now Ogilvie... the horseman'. In the same year, it was also suggested that Daley was 'Ogilvie's only living rival', but does not explain the absence of references to Lawson and Paterson.
His good friend Harry 'Breaker' Morant was said to write like Ogilvie, beginning 'to write prose and verse – mostly horse-verse and lovey-dovey rhymes'. Similarly some outside influences can be seen in some of Ogilvie's work: that of John Greenleaf Whittier in Memory town, Rudyard Kipling in Black sheep, and perhaps a little of Henry Lawson. Robert Burns, Robert Browning, James Hogg, and John Keats have all been ascribed. Within the poet's own A song of the poets, he also hints at Robert Bridges, Abercrombie, Davies, W. B. Yeats, Noyes, Watson, Henry Newbolt and John Masefield.
His love of the Australian Outback, dogs, and horses is well-reflected in his work (My Life in the Open, Kelpies, The Australian). The equestrian dedication was even subject of jibes:
For suffering days, weeks, and months, we've heard Adam Lindsay Gordon. 'Banjo' Paterson, Will Ogilvie, Harry Morant and others spoken, mouthed, recited, garroted and assassinated in the pursuit of verses dedicated to Horse!'
A collection of Will Ogilvie's poetry was published in Saddle for a throne (1952), 'Dedicated to comrades of camp-fire and muster'; the book contains a foreword by R. M. Williams, who met him in the late 1940s and who was instrumental in publishing the works. Cited as a 'triumvirate of renown – the horsemen poets', he held the pedestal with Adam Lindsay Gordon and R. B. Cunninghame Graham.
Ogilvie also wrote tributes about soldiers, including 'The Australian: The bravest thing God ever made!' (A British officer's opinion) which was set to music by 1918. During World War I, Ogilvie contributed verses for the London Punch magazine. In World War II, his poem The Australian was reprinted, the only article ever republished by the magazine (by 1970).
Women or 'fair girls' were also a recurring theme in Ogilvie's poems, including His Gippsland girl. Although his attitudes were said to be that of a courtly gentleman, and mindful of his love of horses, 'One might say that he showed no sign of deeper feeling for girls than for horses.'
Ogilvie was included as one of the worthy 'sun-browned muses' who wrote in rhythmic metre rather than 'free style' evident by the 1920s:
I claim that my old friends the Bush poets are the sort that the Empire needs – workers, sportsmen, fighters, good comrades—and as to the pale, long-haired writer of free verse, let us take him out and drown him!
He exercised his prerogative to both use the same title for different poems, and adjust existing poems.
Adam Lindsay Gordon (poem) 'Ah! sad, proud Gordon! Crossing swords with Care, And touching hands so many times with Death' (Hearts of gold, 1903). 'Our Lindsay Gordon! From the north-most cape, South to the Otway he is loved and known.' (1919 newspaper) 'Two things stand like stone,' he said— 'Courage and Kindness. Gallant Dead!' (Galloping shoes, 1922) Australia (poem) 'I have gathered verse-gold from her glory, Spell-bound in her emerald chains; I have stolen her heart for a story' (1899 newspaper) 'She has hidden each footprint of mine' (The collected sporting verse of Will H. Ogilvie, 1932) 'Arrayed against the Triple Powers' (From sunset to dawn, 1946)
He occasionally assigned another title to an existing poem, such as The ploughman (in Hearts of gold (1903)) and The ploughman poet (1925, in an Australian newspaper).
By 1950 the poet was still warmly described as 'one of Australia's greatest and most loved poets', and 'one of the last of the great poets of the 1900 era'.
Ogilvie's work also went on to influence others, including 'a lifetime addiction' of his accounts by Australian architect Mary Turner Shaw (1906–1990), including his insights into stock movements in the Outback. Australian artist Hugh Sawrey (1919–1999) was also inspired by Paterson and Ogilvie, especially the affinity to horses and experiencing the droving life.
Australian period
After schooling, Ogilvie was sent to Australia in 1889 as a 'testing ground' by his father, returning to Scotland after a decade. He had a deep love of horses and riding and he became interested in the Outback. Setting out from Sydney in November 1890, before long he became an expert station hand, drover and horse breaker. Over his eleven years Ogilvie worked on several pastoral stations including: