The son of John Bradford Jarvis, an insurance clerk, and his wife, Mary Harvey, he joined the merchant navy in 1896, then volunteered for British imperial service in the Second Boer War in 1899.

He was seconded to the new Egyptian frontiers administration by the British high commissioner, Sir Reginald Wingate, serving first in the Western desert and then in Sinai.

His Arabic and knowledge of Bedouin customs allowed him as governor of Sinai from 1923 to intercede successfully in local disputes and to clamp down on banditry and drug trafficking.

He also traced the remains of a Roman and Byzantine settlement in northern Sinai, and by damming the local Wadi Gedeirat and restoring the stone channels succeeded in recreating an oasis.

He wrote of governance in Western Egypt:[2] The Coastguards had policed the Western Desert and Red Sea District; and the [Ministry of the] Interior had functioned in the oases of Kharga, Dakhla, Bahariya, and Farafra; whilst the Ministries of Justice, Finance, Health, Education, etc., had all supplied officials to perform their various duties.In 1933 Governor of Sinai Jarvis was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire.