Thomas Oliver (January 5, 1733/34 – November 20, 1815) was the last Royal Lieutenant-Governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay.
Biography
Born in Antigua to a wealthy plantation owner, Thomas Oliver graduated from Harvard College in 1753. In 1760 he married Elizabeth Vassall, who was from another family of West Indies plantation owners that had settled in Massachusetts. The Vassalls were also connected by marriage to the politically powerful Phips family. Oliver was active in the militia but did not involve himself in politics. In 1766 he commissioned the mansion now at 33 Elmwood Avenue, Cambridge, later called Elmwood, for his growing family.
When the provincial lieutenant governor, Andrew Oliver died in 1774, Oliver was appointed his successor by King George III and his government ministers, who may have believed him to be a brother or other relative of Andrew Oliver. On September 2, 1774, Oliver saw a crowd of four thousand angry citizens entering Cambridge and traveled to Boston to advise General Thomas Gage not to send troops against them. On his return, the crowd, defying the advice of their political leaders, surrounded Oliver's house and forced him to sign a resignation. Oliver fled to Boston, remaining there for over a year. He chaired one meeting of the Massachusetts Council after Gage's departure. When the British troops sailed to Halifax in March 1776, Oliver went with them, going on to England. He was proscribed under the Massachusetts Banishment Act in 1778, and his estate confiscated. The Continental Army had already used his house as a hospital during the siege of Boston.
Thomas Oliver may refer to:
Thomas Oliver (March 1821 – November 8, 1880) was an Ontario businessman and political figure. He represented Oxford North in the Canadian House of Commons as a Liberal member from 1867 to 1880.
He was born in Kildonan, Sutherland, Scotland. He taught school there for two years and came to Zorra Township in Oxford County, Upper Canada, where he taught school for several years. Oliver then moved to Woodstock, where he became a dry goods merchant. He served on the town council, becoming reeve for Woodstock and was county warden in 1866. He was elected in the North riding of Oxford in an 1866 by-election held following the death of Hope Fleming Mackenzie and served until Confederation; in 1867, he was elected to the House of Commons and served until his death in Woodstock in 1880.
References
Thomas Oliver was a Tyneside poet/songwriter from the late eighteenth/early nineteenth century.
Details
P. France & Co. in their 1850 book “Songs of the Bards of the Tyne gives three works “Canny Newcastle Again””, “Stream of a Thousand Fallen Adieu”, (both attributed to T. Oliver), and “Yon Orb is Sinking” (attributed to Thomas Oliver).
None of these three songs are written in the Geordie dialect, although they are written about Newcastle, Northumberland and North East England.
Nothing more appears to be known of this person, or his life or work.