Oliver St John (civil servant)

Sir Oliver Beauchamp Coventry St John, KCSI (21 March 1837 – 3 June 1891) was an administrator in British India, who took a close interest in the zoology of the region. He served as the chief commissioner of Baluchistan for ten years.

Oliver St John was born on 21 March 1837 in Ryde, Isle of Wight. His father was Captain St John of the Madras Army. He studied at the East India Company's Military College at Addiscombe (1855–7), and joined the Bengal Engineers on 12 December 1856.

After serving in the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh in the public works department, St John volunteered for work in Persia. This mission was mainly to establish a telegraph line between Persia and India. This mission, along with Patrick Stewart, was meant to lay a cable in the Persian Gulf and a land cable line for telegraphic link to Bosporus. Stewart and his brother Champain had already worked on a survey in Turkey. St John worked on the expedition under Captain Murdoch Smith, RE.

He later took charge of the line from Teheran to Bashahr (March 1866), and during this time a second telegraph line was added. He went home in May 1867 and he was then sent to Abyssinia to organize telegraph lines for the war. This line was 200 miles from the coast and the work led to his promotion. Towards the end of 1868 he returned to Persia and he remained here till 1871. In October 1871, St John was sent to Baluchistan for the survey of the Perso-Kelat frontier. He returned to England in October 1872 and worked on preparing maps at the India Office. These maps were based on longitudes of the Persian telegraph stations fixed in co-operation with General James Walker of the Indian Trigonometric Survey, Captain William Pierson, RE, and Lt Stiffe, IN.

...
Wikipedia