St John, Oliver Beauchamp Coventry, active 1880-1884, telegraph engineer and political officer

1856 joined the Bengal Engineers; 1863-1867 volunteer, expedition of the Royal Engineers to run a telegraph India-Persia and Turkey-Bosphorous; 1867-1868 director of the field telegraph and army signalling department, the Abyssinian field force; 1868 returned to England and produced a report on the military telegraph systems of France, Prussia and Russia; 1869 returned to telegraph duties in Persia; 1871-1873 boundary commissioner of the Perso-Kalat frontier in Baluchistan; 1873 returned to England; 1873-1874 compiler of maps of Persia and Persian Baluchistan, the India Office; 1875-1878 principal, the Mayo College, Ajmer; 1878 attached to a diplomatic mission to Kabul; 1878-1881 chief political officer to the staff of Sir Donald Stewart, commander of the Kandahar field force and served in the Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878-1879); 1879 CSI and brevet lieutenant-colonel; 1880-1881 political agent, Southern Afghanistan; 1881 officiating agent to the governor-general for Baluchistan; 1880s series of short term appointments in Kashmir, Hyderabad, Quetta and Baroda; 1882 KCSI; 1889-1891 resident and chief commissioner of Mysore and Coorg; 1891 governor-general's agent in Baluchistan.

Epithet: telegraph engineer and political officer