Florinda Katharine Ogilvie

Florinda Katharine Ogilvie MBE (12 January 1902 – 27 January 1983) was an Australian social worker and educator. She became a qualified hospital almoner, and she founded the almoners' professional association. She went on to lecture in medical social work at the University of Sydney. She is credited with being central to the development of Social Work in Australia.

The Rachel Forster Hospital for Women and Children had opened in 1922 and in 1926 she became its executive officer with the job title of secretary. Australia's women's national field hockey team played their first international match on foreign soil that year when they went to South Africa and Rhodesia to compete in an Empire tournament.

In 1933 she went to England where she studied for 15 months to qualify as a hospital almoner. She returned to the Rachel Forster Hospital and while she was there, she was pivotal in the creation of the New South Wales Institute of Hospital Almoners at her alma mater. Ogilvie became she its first President in 1942 and served for four years. She created the idea of Social work for members of the Australian military funded by the Australian Comforts Fund in NSW during World War Two. as the profession of social worker became even more accepted.

Ogilvie died in 1983 in the Sydney suburb of Darlinghurst. After her death a fund was established by retired social workers because she had played such a key role in the establishment of social work in Australia. The money that was raised created a scholarship in her name in 1988. The fund still (in 2024) pays out about $10,000 to support post graduate work.