F. S. Oliver

F. S. Oliver (1864–1934), businessman and polemicist, was educated at Edinburgh and Trinity College, Cambridge, before joining forces in 1892 with Ernest Debenham in the firm of Debenham and Freebody (drapers, wholesalers, manufacturers), which they caused to flourish and expand (buying up Marshall and Snelgrove and Harvey Nichols); Oliver, who had become a wealthy man, retired as managing director in 1920. A radical Tory, he engaged himself in many public issues. His publications included Alexander Hamilton (1906), Ordeal by Battle (1915), and The Endless Adventure (3 vols., 1930–5).