Samuel Pasfield Oliver

Samuel Pasfield Oliver (1838–1907) was an English artillery officer, geographer and antiquary.

Born at Bovinger, Essex, on 30 October 1838, he was the eldest and only surviving son of William Macjanley Oliver, rector of Bovinger, by his wife Jane Weldon. He entered Eton College in 1853; and after passing through the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, he received a commission in the royal artillery on 1 April 1859. In the following year he went out with his battery to China, where hostilities had been renewed. The First Convention of Beijing was however signed soon after Oliver's arrival (24 October 1860), and his service was confined to garrison duty at Canton.

On the establishment of a British embassy at Beijing in 1861 he accompanied General Sir John Michel on a visit to the capital, and subsequently made a tour through Japan. In the following year he was transferred to Mauritius; and from there with Major-general Johnstone on a mission to Madagascar to congratulate King Radama II on his accession. He spent some months exploring the island, and witnessed the king's coronation at Antananarivo (23 September). A second brief visit to the island followed in June 1863, when Oliver, after King Radama's assassination, was again despatched to Madagascar on board HMS Rapid.

On his return to Mauritius he studied the flora and fauna of the Mascarene Islands. In 1864 the volcanic eruption on the island of Réunion gave him the opportunity of recording geological phenomena.

Oliver returned to England with his battery in 1865. In 1867 he joined Captain Bedford Clapperton Trevelyan Pim's exploring expedition to Central America. A route was cut and levelled across Nicaragua from Monkey Point to Port Realejo; and it was proposed that this route might be more practicable than that projected by Ferdinand de Lesseps for the Panama Canal.

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