General Oliver Nicolls (c.1740 – 1829) was a British Army officer.
Military career Nicolls was commissioned into the 1st Regiment of Foot in November 1756.Richard Cannon, Historical record of the Life Guards containing an account of the formation of the corps in the year 1660 and of its subsequent services to 1835, p. 135 In 1793, a yellow fever epidemic began in Grenada and spread throughout the Caribbean, many of Nicolls’ soldiers who came from Europe perished and so he was obliged to recruit black soldiers to fill in the gaps, raising two companies and starting a trend in the Caribbean which would later from the West India Regiments. He then became Quartermaster-General in the West Indies in 1794, in which capacity he subdued a rebellion in Grenada. He became Commander-in-chief of the Bombay Army on 22 January 1801 retiring from that post in 1808 to become a member of the Board of Inquiry into the Convention of Sintra under which the defeated French were allowed to evacuate their troops from Portugal without further conflict.The Inquiry, p. 12 He went on to serve as Governor of the Island of Anholt in 1813.Parliamentary Papers, House of Commons and Command
Nicolls was also colonel of the 54th Regiment of Foot and then the 66th Regiment of Foot.
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