He was born at Ludgvan, Cornwall, and baptised on 27 August 1695, described as the son of John Oliver the owner of the Trevarno Estate.

[1] His family, originally seated at Trevarnoe in Sithney, resided afterwards in Ludgvan, and the estate of Treneere in Madron, which belonged to him, was sold in 1768 after his death.

When he decided to erect a monument in Sithney churchyard to the memory of his parents, Alexander Pope wrote the epitaph and drew the design of the pillar.

[5] but about 1725 he settled at Bath and remained there for the rest of his life, obtaining in a very short time the leading practice of the city.

This was mainly due to his friendship with Ralph Allen (a fellow Cornishman, who introduced him to Pope, Warburton, and the rest of the guests at Prior Park), and with Dr. William Borlase, his 'friend and relation,’ who, after being his patient in 1730, sent to him the gentry of the west country.

The third article in Charleton's Three Tracts on Bath Waters, 1774, consisted of 'histories of hospital cases under the care of the late Dr. Oliver,’ a subject on which he had himself contemplated the publication of a volume; and Some Observations on Stomach Complaints, which were found among his papers, were printed in pp.

Peirce and Oliver were painted together by William Hoare, R.A. in 1742, in a picture now in the board-room of the hospital, in the act of examining three patients, candidates for admission.

An inquiry was held into the circumstances, under the presidency of Philip, brother of Ralph, Allen; this resulted in Oliver's conduct being highly commended.

[4] Oliver is said to have invented the Bath bun,[10] however it proved too fattening for his rheumatic patients, and so he invented the ‘Bath Oliver’ biscuit, and shortly before his death confided the recipe to his coachman Atkins, giving him at the same time £100 in money and ten sacks of the finest wheat-flour.

[4][11] In 1746, Oliver purchased a small farmhouse two miles from Box, near Bath, as a vacation residence, and called it Trevarnoe, after the scene of his childhood and the abode of his fathers.

He died at Bath on 17 March 1764, and was buried in All Saints' Church of Weston, near that city, where an inscription 'on a white tablet, supported by palm-branches,’ was erected to his memory.

His son, the third William Oliver, matriculated from Christ Church, Oxford, on 20 January 1748–9, aged 18, and his name appears on the books at Leyden on 21 September 1753.

Oliver was also the anonymous author of A Faint Sketch of the Life, Character, and Manners of the late Mr. Nash, which was printed at Bath for John Keene, and sold at 3d.

He bestowed many favours on Duck, and was, no doubt, the polite son of Æsculapius depicted in that author's Journey to Marlborough, Bath, &c. (Works, 1753, p. 75).

Benjamin Heath dedicated to him in 1740 The Essay towards a demonstrative Proof of the Divine Existence; plate 18 in the Antiquities of Cornwall was engraved at his expense and inscribed to him by Dr. Borlase; and the later impressions of Mary Chandler's 'Description of Bath' contained (pp.