At an early age he was sent to London, where he entered the office of his uncle, Richard Oliver, a West India merchant of Low Leyton, Essex.

He was one of the trustees of the fund raised in 1768 to pay the debts of John Wilkes, a founder member of the Bill of Rights Society, and later its treasurer.

[1] On 6 December 1770 he seconded Serjeant Glynn's motion for a committee to inquire into the administration of criminal justice (Parl.

On 6 April he was brought up on a writ of habeas corpus before Lord Mansfield, who declined to interfere, as parliament was still sitting.

The parliamentary session, however, closed on 8 May, when Oliver and Crosby were released from the Tower, and conducted in a triumphal procession to the Mansion House.

The friends of Wilkes were so enraged at the election of James Townsend, MP as Lord Mayor in this year that they appear to have accused Oliver "of having taken the vote of the court before their party had arrived" (Fitzmaurice, Life of William, Earl of Sherburne, 18751876, ii.

On 26 January 1773 Oliver spoke in favour of Sawbridge's motion for leave to bring in a bill for shortening the duration of parliaments (Parl.

On 27 November 1775 his proposed address to the king respecting 'the original authors and advisers' of the measures against the American colonies was defeated by 163 votes to 10 (ib.

His name appears for the last time in the 'Parliamentary History' on 10 May 1776, when he seconded Sawbridge's resolution that the American colonies should 'be continued upon the same footing of giving and granting their money^ as his Majesty's subjects in Ireland are, by their own representatives' (ib.

The silver-gilt cup which was presented to him by the livery in March 1772 ' for joining with other magistrates in the release of a freeman, who was arrested by order of the House of Commons, and in a warrant for imprisoning the messenger who had arrested the citizen and refused to give hail,' is preserved among the corporation plate at the Mansion House.