Admiral of the Fleet Sir Henry Francis Oliver, GCB, KCMG, MVO (22 January 1865 – 15 October 1965) was a Royal Navy officer. After serving in the Second Boer War as a navigating officer in a cruiser on the Cape of Good Hope and West Coast of Africa Station, he became the first commanding officer of the new navigation school HMS Mercury in the early years of the 20th century. He went to be commanding officer first of the armoured cruiser HMS Achilles and then of the new battleship HMS Thunderer before becoming Director of the Intelligence Division at the Admiralty.
During the First World War, Oliver was sent to Antwerp where, with Belgian support, he blew up the engine rooms of 38 stranded German merchant vessels. He became Naval Secretary to Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, and then chief of the Admiralty War Staff before serving as Deputy Chief of the Naval Staff. In that capacity, he was closely involved in directing the Allied forces at the Battle of Jutland. He served as commander of the 1st Battlecruiser Squadron in the Grand Fleet in the last year of the war.
After the war, Oliver commanded in rapid succession the 2nd Battle Squadron, the Home Fleet and the Reserve Fleet. After that he became Second Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Personnel and implemented the extensive expenditure cuts recommended by the Committee on National Expenditure chaired by Sir Eric Geddes and the large reductions in numbers of ships agreed under the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty. His last appointment was as commander-in-chief of the Atlantic Fleet.
Born the fifth son of Robert Oliver and Margaret Oliver (née Strickland) at Lochside near Kelso, Oliver joined the Royal Navy as a cadet in the training ship Britannia on 15 July 1878. He joined the armoured frigate Agincourt, flagship of the Second-in-Command of the Channel Squadron, in September 1880 and, having been promoted to midshipman on 21 January 1881, he transferred to the corvette Amethyst on the South America Station in March 1882. Promoted to sub-lieutenant on 21 January 1885, he joined the battleship Triumph, flagship of the Pacific Station, in October 1886. Promoted to lieutenant on 30 June 1888, he joined the survey ship Stork and then qualified as a navigator. He then became navigating officer in the cruiser Wallaroo on the Australia Station in February 1894, navigating officer in the cruiser Blake in the Channel Squadron in January 1898 and navigating officer in the cruiser Niobe on the Cape of Good Hope and West Coast of Africa Station in December 1898 in which he served during the Second Boer War. Promoted to commander on 31 December 1899, he became navigating officer on the battleship Majestic, flagship of the Vice-Admiral Commanding the Channel Squadron, in September 1900. He was appointed fleet navigator, demonstrating his skills on one occasion by leading the entire Channel Fleet into a southern Irish anchorage in thick fog with the ships anchoring by signal. They were revealed to be perfectly positioned when the fog lifted. He proposed a number of ideas for improving the organisation and training of the Navy's navigation branch, and was directed by Admiral Jacky Fisher, then the Second Sea Lord, to put them into effect.