Sheila Millar Ogilvie was a valued local historian who had for many years researched and chronicled the history of her home burgh of Pollokshields.

Born and brought up in Pollokshields, one of two children of Mabel and John William Taylor, Sheila attended Craigholme School, finishing her studies there as head girl in 1944. She went on to study at Glasgow School of Art and after qualifying as a teacher taught in several schools. She retired in 1984 as guidance mistress and assistant head at Hillpark Secondary School.

A keen observer of the natural and built environment, she became increasingly immersed in the history of the largely Victorian and Edwardian-built suburb in which she lived. Many hours of research, much of it spent in the Glasgow Collection of the Mitchell Library, resulted in the production of three publications: Pollokshields Pastiche, Pollokshields Panorama and Pollokshields in Perspective. Together they form a lasting legacy to the people of Pollokshields.

The first publication, Pollokshields Pastiche, appeared in 1989 and, quoting its author, was an attempt to contain a potpourri of facts inside one cover. Therein one finds information on the lands of upper and lower Pollok, later to be known as Nether Pollok, its composition, ownership and feuing arrangements. The history of the landscape is traced through its transition from open countryside to agricultural land, interspersed later with mined coal seams, to the built-up dormitory suburb it became from the mid-19th century. The strictures placed upon architects and artisans for quality buildings to ensure high living standards for all and the modes of transport, the places for religious observance, for education and for leisure are all to be found here, along with comment on the social demands of the increasing population.

Pollokshields Panorama was published in 1990, to coincide with Glasgow's European City of Culture, and followed a series of small exhibitions mounted by the local history group and displayed in Pollokshields public library. This second book is mainly devoted to late-19th to mid-20th century photographs and delightful pen and ink, drawings by the late CK Fletcher.

The final work of the trilogy, Pollokshields in Perspective, was published in 2002. It includes lists of early residents, their businesses and professions, along with house names echoing familial and geographic associations. There are details of tenement addresses bearing terrace names, such as Berlin, Cambridge, Elsinore, Jane, Kew, Kilmorie, Lamlash and Rosebery, many of which can be seen to this day carved in the buildings' stone but now made redundant by postal numbers. There are lists of burgh provosts prior to burgh annexation by Glasgow in 1891, and she notes her historic "three favourite men of vision - a prestigious architect HE Clifford, an experienced builder George Hamilton and a skilled entrepreneur Robert Barclay Shaw".

In 1992 she became a founder member of Pollokshields Heritage. This local amenity society monitors and encourages modern development in keeping with the area's present-day conservation status. In so doing it attempts to uphold the vision of Sir John Maxwell, 8th Baronet of Pollok, who in 1849 commissioned the Edinburgh architect, David Rhind, to produce a feuing plan for Pollokshields which resulted in the first planned garden suburb in Britain.

She was associated with other community organisations and served for many years on Pollokshields Community Council, only retiring in 2007. Her views and wise counsel were valued by local residents and officers of Glasgow City Council, with whom she developed a productive working relationship.

In her younger days, she was keen on fishing. She was also regarded as a formidable golfer. Her knowledge, guidance, wit and good humour were appreciated and will be missed by her many friends.

Her husband, Alfred John Ogilvie, predeceased her in 2009.

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