Schoolmaster, clergyman and antiquary
Oliver was born at Papplewick, Nottinghamshire, on 5 November 1782, the eldest son of Samuel Oliver and his wife Elizabeth. After education in Nottingham, he became second master at Caistor Grammar School in 1803 and headmaster of the grammar school at Great Grimsby in 1809. He married Mary Ann Beverley in 1805; they had five children.
Teaching was followed by a long career in the Church of England. He served at Grimsby and Clee before becoming rector of Scopwick in Lincolnshire in 1831. He also held the incumbency of St Peter’s, Wolverhampton, and later the rectory of South Hykeham. He received a Lambeth doctorate of divinity in 1835.
His interest in the past extended well beyond the lodge room. He published accounts of Grimsby’s antiquities, Beverley’s town and minster, Wolverhampton’s collegiate church and the Trinity Guild at Sleaford. Buildings, monuments, religious institutions and local customs gave him subjects that joined his clerical life to antiquarian investigation. When his voice began to fail in the 1850s, he entrusted parish duties to curates and spent his later years in Lincoln. He died there on 3 March 1867.
A literary life within Freemasonry
Oliver followed his father into Freemasonry as a young man. He became Deputy Provincial Grand Master of Lincolnshire in 1832 and received honorary recognition from the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts in 1840. He wrote as a member of the fraternity, addressing its history and obligations to fellow Masons.
