XI 



DANIEL OLIVEE, 1830-1916.* 



By the death of Daniel Ohver Kew has lost its senior retired official, whose 

 connection with the establishment began 1858. He was the first to bear the 

 title of " Keeper of the Herbarium and Library," and was appointed in 1864. f 

 He obtained the post through his own initiative. Under date of February 2, 

 1858, he wrote to Sir William J. Hooker, then Director of Kew, suggesting 

 that possibly there might be an opening as Botanist to a Surveying 

 Expedition, adding: "I venture to express a hope that thou wilt kindly 

 afford me a chance of placing my best services at thy disposal." The result 

 was an invitation to Kew, where he arrived in February, 1858. Deceased 

 was born at Newcastle-on-Tyne on February 6, 1830, and was the son of 

 Andrew and Jane Oliver, of Benwell Hills, members of the Society of Friends. 



He was educated at the Friends' School at Brookfield, Wigton, where he 

 early developed a keen interest in the study of Natural History in the field, 

 and soon joined the Tyneside Naturalists' Field Club, now the Natural 

 History Society of Northumberland and Durham. This brought him into 

 contact with Sir Walter Trevelyan, Dr. Embleton and other enthusiastic 

 North Country naturalists. Later Oliver became Lecturer on Botany in the 

 Medical School of the University of Durham, and during these earlier years 

 he made herborising excursions in the northern counties and in Ireland ; 

 always with a view to critical study and discovery. 



His earliest publication^ was, I believe, " On a Few Plants found in 

 Bouldersdale and Teesdale, together with the Formations on which they were 

 Found," which appeared in the ' Phytologist,' vol. 2, 1847. This was followed, 

 previous to his going to Kew, by a number of short papers, mostly on British 

 plants. Notable in his early herborisings was the discovery of Naias flexilis 

 in Connemara, thus adding a new genus to the Irish and British flora : a 

 fresh water organism of wide distribution, which has since been recorded 

 within the United Kingdom from Scotland. Meanwhile, in 1851, he had been 

 elected a Member of the Edinburgh Botanical Society ; in 1853 he entered the 

 Linnean Society of London, of which Society he was the Father at the time 

 of his death, with six years' seniority over Sir Howard Elphinstone and 

 Sir J ohn Llewelyn, the former of whom followed Oliver less than a fortnight 

 later. 



* This sketch is in part a repetition of my memoir, with portrait, which appeared in 

 the 'Journal of the Kew Guild"' for 1898 ; in part from information kindly supplied by 

 the deceased's family ; in part from particulars extracted from the ' Kew Bulletin, 

 supplemented by my personal knowledge of Prof. Oliver's career. 



t His lamented predecessor, A. A. Black, became " Curator " in 1853, and died in 

 India in 1864 ; but his was not a Civil Service appointment. 



:|: A bibliography of Oliver's botanical work is given in the ' Kew Bulletin,' 1917, 

 pp. 32-36. 



VOL. XC. — B. d 



