Sir Arthur Olver

FRSE Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy of science and Literature, letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". ...

CB CMG (4 August 1875 – 15 August 1961) was a 20th-century

British army The British Army is the principal Army, land warfare force of the United Kingdom. the British Army comprises 73,847 regular full-time personnel, 4,127 Brigade of Gurkhas, Gurkhas, 25,742 Army Reserve (United Kingdom), volunteer reserve perso ...

officer and expert on animal husbandry. He served in Sudan and in India. He was one of the first to advocate livestock registration and monitoring of pedigree and animal movements to control the potential spread of disease and to ensure quality control.

Life and work

Olver was born in 1875 the son of Robert Sobey Olver (1832-1913) of Trescowe House near

Bodmin Bodmin () is a town and civil parish in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is situated south-west of Bodmin Moor. The extent of the civil parish corresponds fairly closely to that of the town so is mostly urban in character. It is bordered ...

Cornwall Cornwall (; or ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is also one of the Celtic nations and the homeland of the Cornish people. The county is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, ...

, and his wife, Mary Ann Jane Sobey. Robert was an agriculturalist. He was baptized in the church of St Mabyn. He went to school at Harleigh House School near Bodmin. Some sources note that he went to

Godolphin School Godolphin School is a Private schools in the United Kingdom, private boarding school, boarding and day school for girls in Salisbury, England, which was founded in 1726 and opened in 1784. The school educates girls between the ages of three an ...

, although that appears unlikely as it was only meant for girls. He then studied at the

Royal Veterinary College, London The Royal Veterinary College (informally the RVC) is a veterinary school located in London and a member institution of the federal University of London. The RVC was founded in 1791 and joined the University of London in 1949. It is the oldest an ...

and was admitted MRCVS to the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons in 1897. In 1899 he joined the

Royal Army Veterinary Corps The Royal Army Veterinary Corps (RAVC), known as the Army Veterinary Corps (AVC) until it gained the royal prefix on 27 November 1918, is an administrative and operational branch of the British Army responsible for the provision, training and c ...

, seeing active service in the

Second Boer War The Second Boer War (, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, Transvaal War, Anglo–Boer War, or South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer republics (the South African Republic and ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

. He served as a lieutenant with the cavalry in Natal and with the 3rd Dragoon Guards in Orange River Colony. He was awarded the Queen's South Africa Medal in 1902 with clasps for Cape Colony and Orange. In 1901 he was posted to Curragh. In 1906 he was posted to

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

and then the

Sudan Sudan, officially the Republic of the Sudan, is a country in Northeast Africa. It borders the Central African Republic to the southwest, Chad to the west, Libya to the northwest, Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the east, Eritrea and Ethiopi ...

in 1907. Here he dealt with trypanosomiasis, piroplasmosis, epizootic lymphangitis, rinderpest and African horse sickness. In 1908 he returned to England. In the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

he was

Mentioned in Dispatches To be mentioned in dispatches (or despatches) describes a member of the armed forces whose name appears in an official report written by a superior officer and sent to the high command, in which their gallant or meritorious action in the face of t ...

three times and rose to the rank of Battalion Lt Colonel. From 1917 to 1919 he lived in Canada and the USA as part of the British Remount Commission of the War Mission to the US with an office in Montreal. From 1922 to 1927 he again served in Egypt. In 1928 he was promoted to colonel and was posted Assistant Director of Veterinary Services, Southern Command in India and later the year deputy director in the northern command. He retired from the army in April 1930 and applied for the position of Animal Husbandry Commissioner in the Imperial Council of Agricultural Research in India and took up the position in 1933. He was involved in establishing the journal ''Indian Journal of Veterinary Science and Animal Husbandry.'' His office was at Mukteshwar in the Himalayas. He was involved in establishing veterinary education in India with courses at the Patna Veterinary College (3 year course), the Punjab Veterinary College (4 year course) and in 1936 the Madras Veterinary College. The first All India Cattle Show was held in Delhi in 1938. He presided over a section on veterinary research at the 25th annual meeting of the Indian Science Congress Association which, to mark the silver jubilee of the Association at Calcutta from 3rd to 9th January 1938. He retired from service in India in 1938 and became Principal of the Royal (Dick) Veterinary College in Edinburgh serving until 1946. In 1939 he was elected a Fellow of the

Royal Society of Edinburgh The Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was establis ...

. His proposers were Sir

Thomas Henry Holland Sir Thomas Henry Holland (22 November 1868 – 15 May 1947) was a British geologist who worked in India with the Geological Survey of India, serving as its director from 1903 to 1910. He later worked as an educational administrator at Ed ...

, Sir

Thomas Hudson Beare Sir Thomas Hudson Beare FRSE RSSA (30 June 1859 – 10 June 1940) was a British engineer. He was successively Professor of Engineering at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, at University College, London (where he was a colleague of Karl Pears ...

James Ritchie James Ritchie may refer to: * James Ritchie (rugby union) (1907–1942), Scottish international rugby union player * James Ritchie (naturalist) (1882–1958), President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh * James Ritchie (Massachusetts politician) (1 ...

and

Francis Albert Eley Crew Francis Albert Eley Crew (2 March 1886 – 26 May 1973) was an English animal geneticist. He was a pioneer in his field leading to the University of Edinburgh’s place as a world leader in the science of animal genetics. He was the first Dire ...

. He died from a myocardial infarction in a London hospital on 15 August 1961. The parasite genus '' Olveria'' is named after him.

Family

In 1914 he married Natal-born Marjorie Beart.

Publications

*''A Brief Survey of Some of the Important Breeds of Cattle in India'' (1938)

Footnotes

1875 births 1961 deaths 19th-century British medical doctors 20th-century British medical doctors 20th-century British writers Alumni of the Royal Veterinary College British Army personnel of the Second Boer War British Army personnel of World War I British veterinarians Companions of the Order of the Bath Companions of the Order of St Michael and St George Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh People from Bodmin People from Cornwall Royal Army Veterinary Corps officers Military personnel from Cornwall {{UK-army-bio-stub