David Ogilvy, the 13th earl of Airlie, who has died aged 97, was a reforming lord chamberlain who, as head of the royal household from 1984 until 1997, reorganised many time-honoured but not necessarily efficient royal practices.
Among his achievements, he persuaded Queen Elizabeth II to cut the number of royals financed through the civil list paid by the government and to rationalise the management of the royal palaces. He presided over arrangements following the 1993 decision by his employer to pay income tax. Following fire damage at Windsor Castle in 1992, he coordinated the public opening of Buckingham Palace in order to finance the castle’s restoration.
When Airlie, who had retired from a successful career as a merchant banker running Schroders, arrived at Buckingham Palace in December 1984, he found little evidence of Margaret Thatcher’s bracing ethos then sweeping the rest of the country. He set in train a quiet revolution.
He found, for one thing, that his predecessor, the amiable Lord “Chips” Maclean, had been unwilling to discuss anything of importance on the telephone. Everything had to be set down in writing and hand-delivered by liveried pages. The tweedy Maclean had played his part with distinction at ceremonial events, but was not renowned for his administrative flair.
On the face of it, Airlie, too, was tweediness and tradition personified, and he went on to oversee royal occasions including the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales in 1997. But after a career in the financial markets he was imbued with a modern business outlook, which he blended seamlessly with his aristocratic Scottish pedigree. As one courtier put it: “He was part Wall Street wizard; part Highland chieftain.”
David was the son of David Ogilvy, the 12th earl, and his wife, Lady Alexandra Coke, daughter of the 3rd earl of Leicester. His father had been lord in waiting to King George V and lord chamberlain to Queen Elizabeth, both when she was consort to George VI and as the Queen Mother. David’s younger brother, Sir Angus Ogilvy, married Princess Alexandra.
David was educated at Eton and commissioned into the Scots Guards in 1944, serving in Germany, Austria and Malaya, but resigned his commission in 1950. Three years later, he joined Schroders. He succeeded to the family title, and with it 69,000 acres and two castles in Scotland, in 1968. But that did not hinder his career at the bank and he became chairman of Schroders in 1973.
He had been a guest at royal shoots since the reign of George VI and was a very old friend of the Queen. When he was appointed lord chamberlain, he gave himself six months to assess what needed to be done. Then, rather belatedly, he asked the Queen for a job description: was the lord chamberlain really in charge of every department in the royal household? The answer was yes. In that case, he asked the Queen, did he have her backing for major changes? Once again, yes. Drawing on his merchant banking experience, he embarked on a course of cajoling his fellow courtiers into thinking along more corporate lines.
Airlie had an ally in Sir William Heseltine, the Queen’s private secretary. The two men commissioned a management efficiency study from Peat Marwick McLintock, the royal auditors. The result was a 1,393-page report, containing 188 proposals for change. The Queen approved all of them, and for the remainder of the decade the royal household underwent its first major administrative restructuring since the early years of Queen Victoria.
Airlie’s overall aim was to make the royal household more of a master of its own destiny. Over the years it had been increasingly absorbed into the civil service, and that, he believed, was contrary to its main role of providing strong, independent support for the sovereign. Under the new order, the Royal Collection – the family’s private art collection – became a department in its own right; Buckingham Palace took control of building maintenance, and negotiations began for the reform of the civil list. This culminated in 1990 with the replacement of the annual review with a new 10-year guaranteed payment arrangement.
An addendum to the civil list debate came in 1992 when government financing for the cost of carrying out royal duties was ended for all members of the royal family except the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh, and, at the time, Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. At the same time, the Queen’s immunity from paying tax on her personal fortune was coming under fire from both politicians and public. The Queen was expected to resist any proposal to remove her exemption, but in the event, she agreed after the shortest of discussions. Airlie, it was believed, had carefully prepared the ground.
He also set up the Way Ahead group, a royal task force which, headed by the Queen, met twice a year to discuss a strategy for the monarchy’s survival, and to reshape its work to the challenges of the 21st century.
Airlie married Virginia Ryan in 1952. She became lady of the bedchamber, a senior lady in waiting, to the Queen in 1973. The couple spent their time between the Airlie family seat, Cortachy Castle in Angus, and a pied-a-terre beside the Chelsea Physic Garden in London, from where they would cycle to work at Buckingham Palace.
He was appointed GCVO (a Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order) in 1984 and KT (a Knight of the Order of the Thistle, Scotland’s most ancient order of chivalry), in 1985.
Airlie is survived by Virginia and their three sons, David, Bruce and Patrick, and three daughters, Doune, Jane and Elizabeth.
• David George Coke Patrick Ogilvy, 13th earl of Airlie, lord chamberlain and banker, born 17 May 1926; died 26 June 2023
• This article was amended on 4 July 2023, to delete mention of some royal occasions not overseen by Airlie.
