Boer War Discovery Page 92l

The Oliver typewriter was invented in the 1890s by a Canadian minister, the Rev. Thomas Oliver, who was born in Woodstock, Ontario.

He ended up preaching in Iowa, and somewhere down the road decided to give up the frock and become an inventor.

In the early 1890s he came up with one of the most unique, and long lasting typewriters ever designed.

Conventional typewriters of the day had the type arms laying on a bed in a well in the bottom of the machine, where they gathered dust. When the key was struck the arm would rise up in an arc and hit the page on the platen above it, before falling back quite exhausted from the trip up and then down...

The "Iron Butterfly:" Thomas Oliver decided he could do better, though there are those who say he never saw a typewriter before he began his experimenting.

Why have the type arms lying down, where the type would "face up" and gather all the dirt and dust that fell on it? Why not, instead, mount the arms in twin towers, above the platen, on either side of the typewriter, where dust and dirt would fall past them, not build up on them and clog them up.

Furthermore, instead of having a fragile, slim single arm, like conventional typewriters, with the type on the end, Thomas Oliver bent his type arm into a bow, like an inverted U, and mounted the type face in the middle, and attached the ends of the U to the machine. This dual type arm, with its double mount created an extremely rugged type writing machine.

Below you can clearly see the rugged drive train that was engaged once a key was pressed to snap a type bar down from one of the twin towers.

You can also see how the twin carrying handles, out the sides, earned it the name "gull" or "bat" winged.

Overall the typewriter feels compact, solid, and heavy, and features two curved carrying handles protruding out the sides. The Oliver 3 has 28 keys in three banks.

Printype: In 1912 Oliver also introduced Printype on its machines, which it claimed offered the clarity of book printing in place of the traditional thin Pica type used on other typewriters. Printype letters were thicker, shaded, and clearer; 3s and 8s, and 5s and 3s were no longer confused or blurred. Past eyestrain was now said to be a thing of the past with the Printype advances of the Oliver "visible typewriter."

The Oliver typewriter had a slow start in the early 1890s but became popular just as the Boer War was hotting up in 1900 - 1901.

During the war this would have been the typewriter used to send messages or to type up news stories.

Our Oliver 3 was used in the Boer War television series for a sequence where Col. Sam Hughes is writing critical letters about his British commander to newspapers.

Thomas Oliver invented many other useful items but died rather prematurely in 1909.

In 1926 the American plant closed and the company moved to England, becoming the British Oliver Company.

During World War II - because of their reputation as rugged and durable machines - all Olivers produced in England went to the Government for the war effort; none were made available for civilians.

Below a nickel plated Oliver, which was recommended for use in tropical climates to prevent rust. In fact judging from remaining Olivers, the painted machines offered better long-term protection against rust than did the nickel ones.