William Ogilby

William Ogilby (1805–1873) was an Irish-born zoologist who was at the forefront of classification and naming of animal species in the 1830s and served as Secretary of the Zoological Society of London from 1839 to 1847. He removed to Ireland during the Great Famine and later built the grand but architecturally dismal Altinaghree Castle near Donemana, County Tyrone. Mount Ogilby in Queensland was named for him in 1846. Birth, family background and education Probably born in County Londonderry in 1805, William Ogilby was an illegitimate son of Leslie Ogilby (c1764-1845) who owned a bleaching green at Lackagh in the parish of Dungiven. The Ogilbys had been active in the linen trade since the mid-eighteenth century, and William's uncle Robert Ogilby (c1761-1839), having amassed a fortune as a linen factor in Dublin, bought the lease of the 22,000-acre Dungiven Castle estate and was reckoned "the wealthiest commoner in the North of Ireland, possessing it is said between ten and twenty thousand pounds a year". The fortune of William's father was more modest but sufficient to buy the 3,170-acre Terkernaghan and Altnachree estate in Donagheady, County Tyrone, in 1829. Illegitimate births were commonplace among the Ogilbys in the early nineteenth century, and William seems to have been recognised as his father's heir from an early age. He was educated at a small academy kept by a clergyman in Macclesfield before proceeding to Belfast Academical Institution and thence to Trinity College, Cambridge in 1824. He graduated in 1828 and was called to the Bar by Lincoln's Inn in 1832. His examination performance at Cambridge was unimpressive, perhaps indicating he neglected the necessary preparatory work in favour of studying natural history and science. His interest in the natural world was of early origin and may have been kindled by relatives. His uncle Alexander Ogilby (c1756-1846) of Kilcatten House, Claudy, had a "curious and valuable collection of fossils" in his "choice little museum"; his maiden aunt Elizabeth Ogilby of Limavady "saved from the ravages of the lapidiary" a natural crystal which, weighing 70lbs, was in 1814 believed to be the largest in Ireland; and his older cousin, Leslie Ogilby, was an "accomplished naturalist and botanist" who successfully cultivated Ireland's rarer native plants and whose bequest of 400 books on scientific topics was an important addition to the Royal Dublin Society's library.