The Ogle family has roots in pre-conquest Northumberland, where they had extensive properties including the castles of Ogle and Bothal. They were involved in border battles with the Scots and Lord Ogle was one of the English leaders at the Battle of Flodden. It is possible that the family was involved with the Constable family of Flamborough and that a member of the Ogle family was in the military service of Marmaduke Constable (1443-1518). This may explain why John and Jennet Ogle arrived in Flamborough in the mid-sixteenth century. He died in 1605 and his wife in 1614 (U DOG/11/30; Brearley, A history of Flamburgh, pp.73-5).
John and Jennet Ogle had a son, George, in 1566, who served in Ireland with Robert Constable and in the 1630s was a churchwarden at St Oswald's in Flamborough. He died in 1638 leaving three houses, 21 cottages and three closes. Two branches of the family by this time existed and they owned considerable property in Flamborough. George's son, John (b.1605), died prematurely in circa 1638, leaving behind a widow, Thomasina, who did not die until 1696. Their son, also John, was born just before he died, probably in 1637. He had three sons: John (1667-1731), George (1670-1742) and William (1671-1757). George had four children: John, George, Mark and Jane. There are a few papers in the collection from this line of the family, but the bulk are papers of William Ogle, his wife, Elizabeth Jarratt, and their descendants (U DOG/11/30; Brearley, A history of Flamburgh, chpt.12; Allison, A history of the county of York, ii, pp.155-6).
William and Elizabeth's son, John Ogle, was born 1702. Their other children included Frances, who married James Harrison. John Ogle married Ann Sawden and they were active in the local community; for example, building the spa well. Their eldest son, William (1736-1788) was the largest landowners in the village, except for Walter Strickland who owned the lordship of the manor. At enclosure in 1767 he and his younger brother, John (1742-1796), received 118 and 169 acres respectively and when he died unmarried this land transferred to other members of the family, which now had many branches (Allison, A history of the county of York, ii, pp.155-6; U DOG/11/30).
A reasonable proportion of the correspondence and diaries/notebooks in the collection are those of William's younger brother John. John Ogle went into the church. He married first Margaret Rudd (d.1776) and then Martha Furniss (d.1826) by whom he had John Furniss Ogle (b.1781), Charlotte, Harriet and several other children. The other concentration of papers in the collection are those of John Furniss Ogle, who also went into the church. The family letters of their wives are also in the collection and the value of the correspondence lies largely in it being about local and family affairs. This includes some comment about parliamentary elections as well as gossip about smuggling and shipwrecks. John Furniss Ogle married, secondly, Frances Conington, and died in 1850 (U DOG/11/30).
Their eldest son, John, followed the evangelical preoccupations of his father, initially preaching locally and building a local infants' and Sunday school and then becoming a missionary in Algeria before drowning at sea in 1866. His younger brother William (b.1824) was also an evangelical Christian, who went to school at Rugby under Dr Arnold (some mention in letters) and then St Catherine's College in Cambridge, where he was elected fellow. He studied medicine at Edinburgh, Dublin and London before moving in 1860 to Derby where he became physician to the Derbyshire Royal Infirmary. He founded the Derbyshire Medical Association in 1862 and the Nursing and Sanitary Institution about which he corresponded with Florence Nightingale. He married Margaret Lambert and had two sons and is largely remembered for being the first to use the term 'immunity' in the medical sense. He was actively involved in the Young Mens' Christian Association and he died in 1905 in Derby (U DOG/11/30; Brearley, A history of Flamburgh, chpt.12; Allison, A history of the county of York, ii, p.164; Douglas Hubble, 'William Ogle of Derby and Florence Nightingale', Medical History, pp.201-6).
The papers of the family do not go beyond this generation, but the Ogles continued to be landowners who dominated the religious life of Flamborough. In 1918 18 cottages and the 181 acre Ocean View farm were sold by the Reverend H L Ogle and only three years later the 97 acre North Moor farm was sold by the Reverend P H D Ogle, ending over 300 years of sizeable landownership in the East Riding (Allison, A history of the county of York, ii, pp.155-6).
