'flitch of bacon' ceremony, and shows in the foreground a portrait, more or less caricatured, of the then vicar of Dunmow. Another well-known Essex print by Ogborne is 'A Perspective View of the County Town of Chelmsford in Essex. With the Judges Procession on the Day Entrance attended by the High Sheriff and his Officers,' published 2 Aug. 1762, engraved by T. Ryland.
Ogborne also wrote some poetry and plays. Of these the only piece printed was The Merry Midnights Mistake, or Comfortable Conclusion: a new Comedy. Chelmsford printed and sold for the author by T. Loft,' 1765. The prologue and epilogue are by George Saville Carey. The piece was produced, with indifferent success, by a company of ladies and gentlemen at the Saracen's Head Inn, Chelmsford.
After 1764 Ogborne appears to have left Chelmsford, and the register there contains no record of his death.
By his wife Ruth, Ogborne had at least three sons. It is possible that John [q.v.] the engraver, and Elizabeth [q.v.], the historian of Essex, were his children by a second wife.
[Baker's Biogr. Dramatica, i. 647, iii. 37; Albert Magazine and Home Counties Miscellany, Chelmsford. December 1865, p. 78; Smiths Brit. Mezzotint Portraits; register at Chelmsford, per F. Chancellor, F.R.I.B.A.]
OGBORNE, ELIZABETH (1759–1853), historian of Essex, born at Chelmsford and baptised 16 May 1759, was daughter of engraver, contributing the plates. She was assisted by Thomas Leman [q. v.], who contributed 'a Slight Sketch of the Antiquities of Essex' (printed at pp. i-iv), and by her relative Joseph Strutt [q. v.], the antiquary, The book was printed in quarto, but, owing to want of encouragement and the impaired means of the family, only the first volume was published (in 1817, though the title-page is dated 1814). This contains twenty-two parishes in the hundreds of Becontree, Waltham, Ongar, and the liberty of Havering, Miss Ogborne died in Great Portland Street, London, on 22 Dec. 1853, in her ninety-fifth year. Some of her manuscripts fell into the hands of her servant, the wife of a marine-store dealer in Somers Town. Many of them were used as waste paper (Notes and Queries, 1st ser. ix. 322). The remainder was purchased in March 1864 by Mr. Edward J. Sage, an Essex antiquary, who happened to be passing the shop at the time.
[Gent. Mag. 1854, pt. i. p. 220; Trans. of Essex Archæolog. Soc. ii. 153; London Mag. iii, 552, xiii. 411; Parish Register of Chelmsford, per F. Chancellor, F.R.I.B.A.; Lowndes's Bibl. Manual (Bohn).]
OGBORNE, JOHN (fl. 1770–1790), engraver, possibly the son of David Ogborne [q.v.], who was baptised at Chelmsford on Aug. 1765, was a pupil of Francesco Bartolozzi [q.v.] He was one of the band of stipple-engravers who worked under that artist. He produced some excellent specimens of engraving in this branch of art, and later, by combining a certain amount of work in line with that in stipple, produced a variety of effect. He engraved some plates after J. Boydell, R. Smirke, and T. Stothard, for J. Boydell's 'Shakespeare Gallery,' and a great number of plates after Angelica Kauffmann, W. Hamilton, W. R. Bigg, R. Westall, T. Stothard, and others. and others. He was also largely employed in engraving portraits, including those for Thane's 'Illustrious British Characters.' He engraved a portrait of Thane, in the line manner, after W. R. Bigg. The name of Mary Ogborne, who may have been his wife, appears on two plates after W. Hamilton. A number of his prints were published by himself at 68 Great Portland Street, London. Ogborne is stated to have died about 1796, but in 1828 John Ogborne, at the same address, exhibited a picture at the British Institution, and in 1837 another at the British Artists in Suffolk Street. This may have been a son of the same name.
Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Dodd's manuscript, Hist. of English Engravers (Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 33403); Graves's Dict. of Artists, 1760-1880.]
OGDEN, JAMES (1718–1802), author, born at Manchester in 1718, was a fustian cutter or shearer who in his early manhood travelled on the continent, resided for a year at the Hague or Leyden, and was a witness of the battle of Dettingen (1743). For a time he acted as master of a school in connection with the Manchester Collegiate Church, and in the course of years published a number of volumes of turgid verse, some of which have a local interest, besides an interesting and useful prose description of his native town. His intelligent assistance in the compilation of the 'Description of the Country from Thirty to Forty Miles round Manchester,' 1793, is acknowledged by Dr. John Aikin in the preface to that work. By his fellow-townsmen he was usually styled 'Poet' Ogden, and is so designated in the 'Manchester Directory ' for 1797. He died at Manchester on 13 Aug. 1802, aged 83, and
