Author: Ogg, George
Biography:
OGG, George (1782-1844: ancestry.co.uk)
He was probably the George Ogg baptised on 22 Dec. 1782 at Wick, Caithness, Scotland, the son of George Ogg and his wife Elizabeth Douglas. The work listed here contains a poem “Written on my Twentieth Birth-Day,” which supports a birthdate in the 1780s. He states that “I have had no other education than what could be acquired at a crowded school before the age of eight years” and that he had lost his right arm at sea. How or why he came to London is unknown. Most of the 150 subscribers to his volume were from the City of London or its eastern outskirts. There were also several Scots who took copies. Samuel Douglas of America Square, a wealthy Scottish merchant, took four copies and may have been distantly related. At some point he became a bookseller in Leadenhall Street with James Scholefield (who was a witness to his marriage in 1809 at which point they dissolved the partnership). As George Oge (sic), he was listed as a schoolmaster born in Scotland, aged 55, living with his wife and five children at Gardeners’ Lane, Putney, in the 1841 Census. He had married Maria Augusta Collins on 26 June 1809 at Saint Benet Fink, City of London. They had at least six children. Five were baptised at Batter Street, Presbyterian, Plymouth (1812-18), indicating that he still had naval or maritime connections. He gave a lecture to the Plymouth Institution on the prevention and cure of dry rot in ships in 1817. At some point the family moved back to London and settled at Gardeners’ Lane, Putney. He died there after a five-year illness on 5 July 1844, aged 62. His wife died at Little Chelsea on 25 Nov. 1844, aged 57, probably at the house of one of her sons. They were both buried at West Brompton Cemetery, Kensington, where there is still a gravestone. (ancestry.co.uk 10 Nov. 2022; findmypast.co.uk 10 Nov. 2022; Scotlands People; Pilot 13 Dec. 1809; Bath Chronicle 17 July 1817; SJC 9 July 1844; MH 29 Nov. 1844) AA