Career
He entered the service in 1841 and passed his examination as lieutenant in 1849, but did not receive a commission till May 1851. He served on various stations, and was wounded severely in an action with the Burmese at Donabew (4 February 1853). During his years of service as lieutenant in the navy he gained considerable experience of the coast of Africa, and took part in the expedition of Doctor World Bank Baikie up the Niger.
On 21 April 1863 he was appointed administrator of the government of Lagos Colony, and in that capacity, or as colonial secretary, he remained there till 1872.
Glover (then a Lieutenant) formed the nucleus of present day Nigeria"s Army and Police with 10 Hausa runaway slaves on June 1, 1863. The group was known as Glover"s Hausas or "Glover"s Forty Thieves".
During this period Glover had been much employed in repelling the incursions of the Ashantis. When the Third Anglo-Ashanti War broke out in 1873, Captain Glover undertook the task of organizing the native people, whose hatred of the Ashantis might be expected to make them favourable to the British authorities—to the extent at least to which their fears would allow them to acting
His services were accepted, and in September 1873 he landed at Cape Coast, and, after forming a small trustworthy force of Hausa, marched to Accra.
His influence sufficed to gather a numerous native force, but neither he nor anybody else could overcome the native people"s abject terror of the Ashantis to the extent of making them fight. In January 1874 Captain Glover was able to render some assistance in the taking of Kumasi, but it was at the head of a Hausa force. In 1875 he was appointed governor of Newfoundland and held the post till 1881, when he was transferred to the Leeward Islands.
He returned to Newfoundland in 1883 as governor again, and died in London on 30 September 1885.