William Wordsworth Fisher

Admiral Sir William Wordsworth Fisher, G.C.B., G.C.V.O. (26 March, 1875 – 24 June, 1937) was an officer of the Royal Navy during the First World War.

Early Life & Career

Fisher was born at Blatchington Court, Seaford, 26 March 1875, the fifth son and eighth child of Herbert William Fisher, vice-warden of the Stannaries. His eldest brother was H. A. L. Fisher [q.v.] . He entered the training ship Britannia in July 1888. As midshipman he served on the Cape of Good Hope station for three years, in the Raleigh, flagship, which often made the longer passages under sail alone.

As sub-lieutenant (1894) and later as lieutenant (1896), Fisher served in the Mediterranean before qualifying as a gunnery lieutenant in 1900. The next year he joined the Canopus in the Mediterranean Fleet. He was already recognized by his contemporaries as a man of great ability and outstanding character, possessing exceptional talents as a leader of men. In 1903 he was appointed a senior staff officer at Whale Island, but having left after a disagreement with Captain (Sir) P. M. Scott [q.v.] , he was appointed to the King Edward VII, flagship, in January 1905 at the request of the commander-in-chief of the Atlantic Fleet, Vice-Admiral Sir W. H. May [q.v.] . He took a prominent share in the renaissance of scientific naval gunnery then in progress; he was promoted commander in June 1906, at the age of thirty-one, and joined the Albemarle, flagship of the rear-admiral of the Atlantic Fleet, as executive officer. Before he joined, her ship's company were slack and discontented, but the new commander in the space of a few months brought about a great improvement and he earned glowing reports from his captain, R. F. Scott [q.v.] , later of Antarctic fame, and from both the rear-admiral and the commander-in-chief. In 1908 he was executive officer of the Indomitable when she took the Prince of Wales to Canada, and he was appointed M.V.O. on completion of the voyage. In May 1909 he became flag commander, in the Dreadnought, to Admiral May, commander-in-chief of the Home Fleet, a position principally concerned with the gunnery of the fleet but also involving close study of naval tactics, to the development of which the commander-in-chief devoted much of the work of the Home Fleet during his two years in command. Fisher accompanied the admiral when he left the fleet to become commander-in-chief at Plymouth; and was promoted to captain in 1912.

Great War Service

Five months later Fisher was appointed to command the battleship St. Vincent in the Home Fleet, then flagship of Rear-Admiral (Sir) S. A. Gough-Calthorpe [q.v.] ; he remained in her for four and a half years. By the time war broke out in 1914 he had brought the St. Vincent to the highest pitch of efficiency, and moreover was able to maintain the morale of his ship's company at high pitch even in the somewhat depressing conditions which the strategic situation imposed on the Grand Fleet. The St. Vincent, which ceased to be a flagship in 1916, was in the battle of Jutland. In May 1917, six months after Sir John Jellicoe [q.v.] left the fleet to become first sea lord, Fisher was called to the Admiralty as director of the recently formed anti-submarine division, in succession to Rear-Admiral A. L. Duff [q.v.] , a position which he held with marked distinction up to the end of the war, earning golden opinions from all, civilian men of science who were called in at his suggestion, as well as British and American naval officers. His great share of the credit for the final defeat of the U-boat campaign was recognized by the dedication to him of Sir Henry Newbolt's unofficial Naval History of the War, 1914–1918 (1920).

Flag Captain and Flag Rank

In April 1919 Fisher returned to the sea in command of the Iron Duke, flagship of the Mediterranean Fleet, and in August 1919, when the new commander-in-chief, Admiral Sir John De Robeck [q.v.] , arrived, Fisher became his chief of staff with the rank of commodore, 2nd class. Throughout the troubled times in the Near East he was De Robeck's right-hand man and a particularly valued counsellor in a situation which was never free from problems and difficulties. In 1922 De Robeck transferred from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic Fleet and Fisher continued as his chief of staff, first with the rank of commodore, 1st class and, from November 1922, as rear-admiral. When De Robeck hauled down his flag in 1924 Fisher was appointed rear-admiral in the first battle squadron (flag in the Barham) and returned once more to the Mediterranean for an uneventful year.

In August 1926 Fisher was appointed director of Naval Intelligence; but the following April he joined the Board of Admiralty as fourth sea lord. It was promotion in status, but the work was not to his taste and he was delighted when he was translated in 1928 to the even more responsible post, also with a seat on the Board, of deputy chief of the Naval Staff. He had become a vice-admiral three months earlier, and in his new office was directly concerned with naval policy on the highest plane. It was a difficult period for the sea lords, under successive governments committed to disarmament and naval limitation. Fisher was much exercised regarding the moral and constitutional obligations of the sea lords in such a situation, and what action it was their duty to take if their professional judgement regarding standards of security should be overruled on political grounds.

Fortunately, reductions were not pressed beyond those which Fisher felt that he could conscientiously accept. To him, and to the divisions of the Naval Staff working under him, fell the tasks of working out the voluminous technical details involved in the negotiations for the Naval Treaty of London (1930) and of marshalling the strategical arguments against any over-drastic limitations urged for political ends. That the treaty was not more crippling than it proved to be when published, his brother officers attributed chiefly to Fisher's able advocacy.

In the autumn of 1930 Fisher was appointed vice-admiral commanding the first battle squadron (flag in the Revenge and the Resolution) and second-in-command of the Mediterranean Fleet. That appointment was something of a disappointment to him, since a deputy chief of the Naval Staff could usually expect to become a commander-in-chief on resuming sea service; but he gave no sign of it, and no commander-in-chief could have had a more loyal lieutenant than Admiral Sir Alfred Ernle Montacute (afterwards Lord) Chatfield had in him for the next year and a half. Together they devoted much attention to anti-aircraft gunnery and to the hitherto neglected problems of night fighting between heavy ships. He was now able to exercise to the full his talent for leadership, in a wider sphere than hitherto. That quality stood him, and the ships of the battle squadron under his command, in good stead in 1931, when cuts in naval pay led to the mutiny in the Home Fleet at Invergordon in September. That there was no similar breakdown in the morale or discipline of the Mediterranean Fleet was due in no small measure to Fisher's personal influence on all those under his command.

Mediterranean Command

In July 1932 Fisher was promoted admiral and the following October, after six months unemployed at home, he took over the Mediterranean command from Chatfield (flag in the Resolution and later the Queen Elizabeth). Within three weeks he was able to say that he had seen practically every officer and man under his command; and within a year he had visited almost every part of his station. He continued the series of exercises and experiments in night fighting begun under his predecessor, and was able to demonstrate the progress achieved in that important province in a spectacular manner in the combined fleet exercises of 1934. His work in that respect bore valuable fruit in the battle of Cape Matapan, fought four years after his death. Wherever he went, whatever country he visited round the Mediterranean, he was received with every honour and left with the friendship and appreciation of all. An example of his talents in this direction was furnished by the affection, born of his insight, understanding, and sympathy, with which he was regarded by the people of Malta, and of one small Maltese village in particular.

In the summer of 1935 Fisher brought the Mediterranean Fleet home for the jubilee review at Spithead, at which he was the senior admiral afloat. Returning to his station after those ceremonies he soon found himself immersed in more serious events, for the Italo-Abyssinian war made it necessary to assemble in the Eastern Mediterranean under his command practically the whole of the Royal Navy outside the Home Fleet. This great fleet had to be concentrated at Alexandria and maintained for months on end in instant readiness for attack, with few if any opportunities for relaxation or recreation for the greatly increased numbers of officers and men, and at first no organized facilities for such alleviations. That the morale and spirit of all men of the fleet remained of the highest was due in great measure to the example, wise conduct, and unrivalled personal influence of Fisher as commander-in-chief, an influence which was even enhanced by the personal tragedy which overtook him at the height of the crisis by the death in a flying accident of his elder son.

It was not until the end of March 1936 that tension had relaxed enough for the government to authorize a change of commander-in-chief. Fisher turned over the command to Admiral Sir Dudley Pound and after only three and a half months' rest was appointed commander-in-chief at Portsmouth. He was a tired man by then and the coronation celebrations in the following May, with another Spithead review, threw an even greater strain upon him. A month later, taking the salute at a King's Birthday parade on Southsea Common, he collapsed from fatigue before it was over. A few days later, 24 June 1937, he died in London and was buried at sea with full naval honours.

Fisher was appointed C.B. in 1918, C.V.O. in 1924, K.C.B. in 1929, and G.C.B. and G.C.V.O. in 1935. He married in 1907 Cecilia, youngest daughter of Francis Warre Warre-Cornish [q.v.] , and had two sons and two daughters. Fisher was one of the most eminent sailors of his day; and if it had fallen to him in time of war to command a fleet or conduct naval operations from the Admiralty, it cannot be doubted that he would have shone as brilliantly as he did in command of his battleship in 1914–1917, or of the Mediterranean Fleet in the crisis of 1935–1936. He stood out not only by great ability but chiefly because of his deep sympathy with, and understanding of, his fellow men in all degrees of life; and his great qualities in that respect were born largely of his wide interests in learning, art, and culture outside the limits of his chosen, and well-loved, profession.

Bibliography

• Dictionary of National Biography.
• James, Admiral Sir William, R.N. (1943). Admiral Sir William Fisher. London: Macmillan & Co. Ltd.