David Ogg (19 June 1887 - 28 March 1965) was a Scottish historian who specialised in the

history of England England became inhabited more than 800,000 years ago, as the discovery of stone tools and footprints at Happisburgh in Norfolk have indicated.; "Earliest footprints outside Africa discovered in Norfolk" (2014). BBC News. Retrieved 7 February ...

during the reign of Charles II and of Europe dominated by

Louis XIV of France , house = Bourbon , father = Louis XIII , mother = Anne of Austria , birth_date = , birth_place = Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France , death_date = , death_place = Palace of ...

Early life

He was born in

Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popu ...

, the son of a civil servant, Archibald Ogg. He was educated at

Glasgow University , image = UofG Coat of Arms.png , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of arms Flag , latin_name = Universitas Glasguensis , motto = la, Via, Veritas, Vita , ...

and

Lincoln College, Oxford Lincoln College (formally, The College of the Blessed Mary and All Saints, Lincoln) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford, situated on Turl Street in central Oxford. Lincoln was founded in 1427 by Richard Fleming, th ...

, after he won a scholarship. Ogg won the Stanhope Prize (1910), the Lothian Prize (1911) and the Chancellor's Essay Prize (1912).'Mr. David Ogg', ''The Times'' (30 March 1965), p. 15.

Academic career

In 1912 he won an Open Fellowship at

New College, Oxford New College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1379 by William of Wykeham in conjunction with Winchester College as its feeder school, New College is one of the oldest colleges at ...

, where he served as tutor and later as sub-warden and librarian. During the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

, Ogg served in the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against Fr ...

as Paymaster. His most popular work, ''Europe in the Seventeenth Century'', was first published in 1923 and went through eight editions during Ogg's life and one last slightly-altered 9th edition after the author passed away. Ogg also wrote histories of the reigns of Charles II and James II. He retired in 1956 and subsequently held visiting professorships at South Carolina University, Charleston College and the

University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

. In 1959 he was elected to an Honorary Fellowship at New College.

Personal life

Ogg married Emily Louise White in 1917 and they had one son, John.

Assessment

In 1963, H. E. Bell and R. L. Ollard edited Ogg's ''festschrift'' and said of Ogg:

Those who have had the privilege of knowing David Ogg as a tutor or a colleague will not need to be reminded of those qualities of wit and intellectual elegance, of originality of thought and expression, of common sense applied in an uncommon way, that characterise his talk as unmistakenly as his writing. The deceptive ease with which his exact scholarship and wide erudition have been put at our disposal is no small part of the pleasant debt we all owe him.
The same holds true for, though in the nature of the case less personally, for those who know him only through his books. It would be an imperceptive reader who had failed to notice that in both the fields that Ogg has made his own, the England of Charles II and the Europe of Louis XIV, he has challenged both the accepted historiography of the period and the fashionable portrayal of the two eponymous figures of the age. It would be imperceptive, but it would not be impossible. The modulations of irony, the subtle effects of tone, the humility in which, above all, the style reveals the man, will be lost on such as prefer vulgar colours, familiar platitudes, and the techniques of self-advertisement in which modern scholarship can report such notable advances. But the continued and increasing success of ''Europe in the Seventeenth Century'' and ''England in the Reign of Charles II'' gives good ground for believing that the rare qualities of which his pupils at Oxford and in America have been the chief beneficiaries have been recognised and valued by a far wider public. Of the influence exerted by these books on students of the period there can be no doubt: of their example there cannot be too many imitators.H. E. Bell and R. L. Ollard, ‘Preface’, in Bell and Ollard (eds.), ''Historical Essays 1600-1750 presented to David Ogg'' (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1963), p. vii.

Works

*''Cardinal de Retz 1613-1679'' (London: Macmillan, 1912). *''Ioannis Seldeni Ad Fletan Dissertatio'' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1925). *''Europe in the Seventeenth Century'' (London: A. & C. Black, 1923; revised eds. 1931, 1938, 1943, 1948, 1952, 1959, 1960, 1971 ibliography posthumously revised by D. H. Pennington
online 8th ed
*''Louis XIV'' (London: Home University Library, 1933)
online
*''England in the Reign of Charles II'' (Oxford: Clarendon Press: 2 vols., 1934; 2nd edn., 1955)
online
*''New England and New College, Oxford, a Link in Anglo-American Relations'' (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1937). *''Herbert Fisher 1865-1940'' (London: Edward Arnold, 1947). *''England in the Reigns of James II and William III'' (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1955; 2nd edn., 1957). *''William III'' (London: Collins, 1956). *''Europe of the Ancien Regime: 1715-1783'' (London: Fontana, 1965)
online free to borrow

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ogg, David 1887 births 1965 deaths Writers from Glasgow Alumni of the University of Glasgow Alumni of Lincoln College, Oxford Fellows of New College, Oxford Royal Navy officers of World War I