Early years y,
Higham on the Hill Geoffrey Francis Fisher was born on 5 May 1887 at the
rectory,
Higham on the Hill,
Leicestershire, youngest of the ten children of the Rev Henry Fisher and his wife Katherine,
née Richmond. A Fisher had served as rector of Higham since 1772: Henry Fisher's father and grandfather had preceded him; his eldest son, Legh, later held the post. From Marlborough, Fisher won a scholarship to
Exeter College, Oxford, going up in October 1906. The college had a strong Anglican tradition with both the
low church evangelical and
high church Anglo-Catholic wings represented. Fisher, though temperamentally inclined to the former, felt that both had much to offer. He disapproved of those in either camp who believed they had a monopoly of the truth. He rowed and played
rugby for the college and distinguished himself academically, leaving with a
triple first. After completing his studies Fisher declined two offers of lecturerships in theology from Oxford colleges. Although intellectually able he was not of an academic turn of mind. In the words of his biographer David Hein, "scholars must be intellectually imaginative and also persistently dissatisfied, even sceptical, in a way that Fisher never was". He accepted an invitation from Fletcher to return to Marlborough as a member of the teaching staff, remaining there for three years, during which time he went to
Wells Theological College during the long summer vacation in 1911, and was ordained
deacon in 1912, and priest in 1913. Within two months of his appointment Fisher was confronted by problems arising from the outbreak of the
First World War. Six of his teaching staff volunteered for the armed forces, as did sixty of the senior boys. he was no disciplinarian or organiser. Fisher was in charge of Repton for 18 years, during which he improved the facilities, instilled firm discipline and modernised the curriculum. His biographer Alan Webster writes: Among Fisher's pupils at Repton were
Stuart Hampshire and
Roald Dahl, both of whom complained that his personally administered beatings had been cruel. Other pupils admired "his combination of extreme competence, lack of self-concern, and genial humour".
Bishop of Chester |alt=interior of large Gothic church Temple had watched his successor's progress at Repton, and once again intervened to further Fisher's career. It was unusual for a bishop to be appointed without having any experience as a parish priest, and Fisher had to overcome reservations about him on that score from some of the clergy in his diocese. Webster writes that Fisher and his wife proved to be exceptionally hard-working, but the lack of previous pastoral experience showed: Fisher became an advocate for rationalisation in many aspects of church life. He pointed out the discrepancies in the remuneration of the clergy, with some of them extremely poorly paid; he drew attention to the lack of a consistent appointment system; he intervened to save the Church Training College in Chester from threatened closure; strengthened the financial administration of the diocese; and campaigned for financial support of church schools, overseas missions and the widows of clergy. It was clear that Winnington-Ingram's successor must be a man with a strong hand; Fisher was seen as one such, and Lang favoured his appointment. Chamberlain was reassured, and recommended to
George VI that Fisher should succeed Winnington-Ingram. The King approved the appointment, but Fisher hesitated when offered it. He saw the great difficulties the turbulent diocese presented, and doubted his ability to unite it. After much private prayer, and reassurance from colleagues, he accepted and was enthroned as Bishop of London in
St Paul's Cathedral in November 1939. The
Second World War had broken out shortly before Fisher took up his London post, and from September 1940 the city suffered nightly bombing. Twenty-three
Wren City churches were bombed by 1941, some beyond repair. Urgent action was needed to deal with devastated parishes. Fisher took the lead in the church assembly and in the
House of Lords and the resulting measure was largely his work. Webster writes that Fisher showed courtesy, skill, and determination in "defeating ultra-conservative attitudes which would have prevented any episcopal intervention even in severely blitzed areas". In his view Canterbury needed "a dynamic presence for some years, not a caretaker", and he welcomed working with Fisher. Nonetheless, after Churchill lost the
1945 general election, the Church was left, in Webster's words, with "a reforming
Labour government" but "a conservative, headmasterly archbishop who, though warm-hearted, was determined to maintain the protestant establishment".
Canon law Fisher put considerable effort into revising the Church of England's
canon law. The canons of 1604 were still nominally in force, despite being substantially out of date. His efforts provoked bitter controversy. In 1946 he preached a university sermon at Cambridge on the theme that communion between the Church of England and the Free Churches was possible and should be pursued. His enthusiastic support for the
World Council of Churches and his blessing of the new
Church of South India, an Anglican and Free Church coalition, were viewed with hostility by some Anglo-Catholics. They suspected Fisher of fostering pan-Protestantism, and the force with which he criticised the exclusiveness of the Church of Rome added to their resistance. They regarded his detailed and painstaking revision of canon law with similar suspicion.
The Times summed up: Fisher also met resistance from liberals in the church, who regarded his canon law reforms as unduly bureaucratic and calculated to institute a regime of "prosecutions and petty persecutions".
Marriages, coronation and divorces , 1953. Behind him, from l.:
Lord Simonds (
Lord Chancellor),
Lord Cholmondeley (
Lord Great Chamberlain),
Lord Alanbrooke (
Lord High Constable of England) and the
Duke of Norfolk (
Earl Marshal) Fisher officiated at
the marriage of
Princess Elizabeth in
Westminster Abbey in 1947, and after her accession to the throne he led the
coronation service in 1953, and crowned her as queen. One of Fisher's aims during his 16 years as archbishop was to make the position of the Church about the marriage of divorced people widely understood and accepted. He staunchly upheld the rules that would have prevented Princess Margaret and Townsend from marrying in church, but in the words of
The Guardian, he "combin[ed] that undoubted rigour with a profound compassion for all those whose lives had been ... wrecked by a disastrous marriage. That road lay over a knife-edge of perplexity and contradiction, but he trod it creatively." In his speech at Cambridge in 1946 he urged full communion between the episcopal and non-episcopal churches, in which there were no barriers to exchanges of ministers and ministries. His efforts led to the prospect of union with the
Methodists, and his visit to Rome in 1960 to meet
Pope John XXIII.
The Guardian reported that Fisher was received in the Vatican "not as a bishop on pilgrimage but as the Father in God of the entire Anglican Communion"; the visit marked the end of centuries of hostility between Canterbury and Rome. Ramsey was described by
The Times as "a theologian in, but not quite of, the world of high-powered ecclesiastical committees". Without Garbett's skill in political matters, Fisher began to make incautious and sometimes controversial pronouncements. Matters were exacerbated by his suspicion of the British press, and his dislike was frequently reciprocated, causing Fisher to receive hostile press coverage on occasion. He also welcomed the decision of the Lambeth Conference in favour of family planning: "It is utterly wrong to urge that unless children are specifically desired, sexual intercourse is of the nature of sin". He was heavily criticised in the press for this view, but a number of clergy, including
Christopher Chavasse,
Bishop of Rochester, defended him, saying, "In an evil world, war can be the lesser of the two evils." Fisher tried to influence the choice of his successor. He preferred the evangelical
Donald Coggan,
Bishop of Bradford, to the more obvious choice, Ramsey. To Fisher, the latter was too much a party man – too closely allied with the Anglo-Catholic wing of the church. Macmillan, with whom Fisher got on least well of the four prime ministers with whom he had to deal during his time in office, was not swayed by his arguments. Several versions exist of the exchange between archbishop and premier, all to the effect that Fisher said that as Ramsey's former headmaster he did not consider him suitable, to which Macmillan is said to have replied that Fisher may have been Ramsey's headmaster but had never been his, and that he would make up his own mind. Fisher retired on 17 January 1961; Ramsey succeeded him. He and his wife settled at
Trent rectory, near
Sherborne, in Dorset, where he served as an honorary assistant priest. Webster describes him as "a warm-hearted country parson, getting to know everyone in the village and playing chess with some of the boys". In retirement he bombarded his successor with "critical and sometimes harsh comments" (Webster). Ramsey, though hurt, contented himself with observing, "The trouble with Geoffrey is that he could not get episcopacy out of his system". A memorial to Fisher was erected in the chapel of St Gregory in Canterbury Cathedral. ==Honours==