Sir Frederick Wolff Ogilvie FRSE (7 February 1893 – 10 June 1949) was a British broadcasting executive and university administrator, who was Director-General of the BBC from 19 July 1938 to 26 January 1942, and was succeeded by joint Directors-General Cecil Graves and Robert Foot. He also served as Vice-Chancellor of Queen's University Belfast from 1934 to 1938. He was knighted by King George VI on 10 June 1942.
Early life and education
Ogilvie was born in February 1893 in Valparaíso, Chile, the youngest son of Mary Ann (née Wolff) and William Maxwell Ogilvie, an engineer from Harrow Weald in northwest London. before beginning studying for a Literae humaniores degree at Balliol College, Oxford in 1911.
Ogilvie was one of the first British economists to recognise the significance of tourism. He wrote on this subject in his book The Tourist Movement (1933), outlining how more expenditure on tourism could bring about faster growth in that area. He also contributed articles on economics and tourism to Chambers's Encyclopaedia. although an exception was recruiting Lindley Fraser to head the BBC's German service, where Fraser developed a large German audience throughout the war. Historian Asa Briggs described Ogilvie's period in office as "short, stormy and in some ways calamitous".