Jackie Fisher, 1st Baron Fisher Totally Explained

Everything about Jackie Fisher 1st Baron Fisher totally explained

Admiral of the Fleet John Arbuthnot "Jackie" Fisher, 1st Baron Fisher of Kilverstone, GCB, OM, GCVO (25 January 1841 – 10 July 1920) was a British admiral known for his efforts at naval reform. He had a huge influence on the Royal Navy in a career spanning more than 60 years, starting in a navy of wooden sailing ships armed with muzzle-loading cannon and ending in one of battlecruisers, submarines and the first aircraft carriers. The argumentative, energetic, reform-minded Fisher is often considered the second most important figure in British naval history, after Lord Nelson.

Childhood and personal life

Fisher was born on 25 January 1841, the eldest of eleven children, in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). His father - Captain William Fisher, a British Army officer in the 78th Highlanders - was aide-de-camp to the governor. The family owned a coffee plantation but it wasn't a great success. With his parents unable to provide for all their children, at the age of six, he was sent to England to live with his maternal grandfather, Charles Lambe, in New Bond Street, London. She had a crew of 700, and discipline was strictly enforced by the "hard-bitten Captain Stopford". He arrived on 19 May, just as the war was ending.
Fisher passed his board for sub-lieutenant (the rank was called Mate at the time) on his nineteenth birthday, 25 January 1860. He received top grades in seamanship and gunnery, and achieved the highest score ever - 963/1000 - for navigation.

Commander (1869-1876)

On 2 August 1869, "at the early age of twenty-eight", he was promoted to commander. Shortly afterwards, he was sent to Germany, to report on torpedo and mine developments. Donegal was a Conqueror-class ship of the line, with auxiliary screw propulsion. She plied between Portsmouth and Hong Kong, taking out relief crews and bringing home the crews they replaced.
In May 1870, he transferred, again as second in command, to HMS Ocean, flagship of the China Station.
In 1872, he returned to England to the gunnery school Excellent, this time as head of torpedo and mine training, during which time he split the Torpedo Branch off from Excellent, forming a separate establishment for it called HMS Vernon. He was promoted to captain on 30 October 1874, aged thirty-three.

Captain R.N. (1876-1883)

Bacon's account

Sep 1876-Mar 1877 On half-pay with his family
Mar 1877-Jul 1878 HMS Bellerophon Flag-Captain to the Admiral of the North-west Coast of America squadron.
Jul 1878-Dec 1878 HMS Hercules

Bacon and Mackay concur.

Jan 1879-Jul 1879 HMS Pallas Captain, serving in the Mediterranean Command, including an official visit to Istambul where Fisher dined with the sultan of the Ottoman Empire. He then returned to the UK.

Jul 1879-Sep 1879. Leave on half-pay. He visited the Continent with his family.

Sep 1879-Jan 1880 HMS Northampton

Jan 1880-Oct 1881 HMS Duke of Wellington

Oct 1881-Dec 1882 HMS Inflexible She was the most powerful warship of her day and a very prestigious appointment. Inflexible was assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet where she took part in the 1882 Anglo-Egyptian War, bombarding the port of Alexandria as part of Admiral Seymour's fleet.

Jan-Apr 1883 Half pay.

Apr 1883-Jun 1885 HMS Excellent Fisher returned to the UK to become commanding officer of Excellent.

Jun-Jul 1885 HMS Minotaur Fisher's first command was a temporary three-month one, taking HMS Pallas

HMS Valorous During this time he became a close friend of the future King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra. He was appointed a Companion of the Bath (CB) in 1882.
From 1886 to 1890, he was Director of Naval Ordnance. In this role, he met with limited success in wresting the design of naval guns from the War Office. He was appointed Aide-de-Camp to the Queen in 1887, and promoted Rear-Admiral in August 1890.

Admiral (1890-1902)

Fisher was superintendent of the dockyard at Portsmouth for a few months in 1891–1892 after which he became Third Sea Lord, the naval officer with overall responsibility for provision of ships and equipment. He presided over the development of torpedo boat destroyers (later called destroyers), for countering torpedo boats. Torpedo boats had become a major threat as they were cheap but able to sink the largest battleships, and France had built large numbers of them. Torpedo boat destroyers were small, fast warships equipped with the then novel water-tube boilers and quick-firing small calibre guns.
Fisher was knighted in the Queen's Birthday Honours of 1894 as a Knight Commander of the Bath, promoted to Vice-Admiral in 1896, and put in charge of the North Atlantic and West Indies station in 1897 before heading the British delegation to the First Hague Peace Convention. Following this he was made chief of the Mediterranean station from 1899 until 1902. Unlike the North Atlantic station, this was a vital British operational command because the line of communication between India and Britain passed through the Suez Canal, which was felt to be under continuous threat from France. He was awarded the Grand Cordon, Order of Osmanieh in November 1900, and promoted to full Admiral in November 1901.
In 1902 he returned to the UK as Second Sea Lord in charge of personnel, and in 1903 became commander in chief of Portsmouth dockyard. As C-in-C, Portsmouth, HMS Victory became his flagship. He was appointed a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath (GCB) in 1902.

First Sea Lord (1904-1910)

On 21 October 1904 (Trafalgar Day), following breakfast with the king-emperor, Edward VII, at Buckingham Palace, Fisher was sworn in as First Sea Lord, in overall operational command of the Royal Navy. On the same day he was appointed "First and Principal Naval Aide-de-Camp to His Majesty The King". In June 1905 he was appointed to the Order of Merit (OM), in December he was promoted Admiral of the Fleet.
   Fisher was brought into the Admiralty to reduce naval budgets, and to reform the navy for modern war. Amidst massive public controversy, he ruthlessly sold off 90 obsolete and small ships and put a further 64 into reserve, describing them as "too weak to fight and too slow to run away", and "a miser's hoard of useless junk". This freed up crews and money to increase the number of large modern ships in home waters.
   He was a driving force behind the development of the fast, all big-gun battleship, and chaired the Committee on Designs which produced the outline design for the first modern battleship, HMS Dreadnought. His committee also produced a new type of cruiser in a similar style to Dreadnought with a high speed achieved at the expense of armour protection. This became the battlecruiser, the first being HMS Invincible. Fisher's policy with regards to Dreadnoughts has often been misunderstood; it wasn't a class of ship which he favoured, as his time as admiral of the Mediterranean fleet had taught him the vulnerability of slow big gun ships to mines, torpedoes and submarines. He wanted battlecruisers to defend Britain’s colonies, and a large fleet of small ships to defend the British Isles. However, when his plans for battlecruisers met with opposition from within the service, he was forced to compromise. He also encouraged the introduction of submarines into the Royal Navy, and the conversion from a largely coal fuelled navy to an oil fuelled one. He had a long-running public feud with another admiral, Charles Beresford.
   On 7 December 1909, he was created Baron Fisher, of Kilverstone.
   In 1912, Fisher was appointed chairman of the Royal Commission to enquire into Liquid Fuel, with a view to converting the entire fleet to oil. Classified "Secret", Fisher's Commission reported in on 27 November 1912, with two follow-up reports on 27 February 1913 and 10 February 1914.
   Once the First World War broke out in August 1914, Fisher was a 'constant' visitor to Churchill at the Admiralty.

First Sea Lord (1914-1915)

In October 1914, Lord Fisher was recalled as First Sea Lord, after Prince Louis of Battenberg had been forced to resign because of alleged German ties. The Times reported that Fisher "was now entering the close of his 74th year but he was never younger or more vigorous". His wife, Frances, died in July 1918. She was cremated and her ashes were interred in St Andrew's churchyard

, adjacent to Kilverstone Hall, on 22 July. Her casket was draped with Fisher's flag as Admiral of the Fleet and topped by a coronet. and he was given a grand national funeral at Westminster Abbey. That evening, the body was cremated at the Golders Green crematorium.

In folklore and popular culture

Fisher's life is celebrated in the folk song "Old Admirals" by the Scottish singer Al Stewart, and he's expressly referred to in Stewart's earlier song "Manuscript" - "Admiral Lord Fisher is writing to Churchill, calling for more dreadnoughts".

A reference to Jackie Fisher was hidden as an encrypted message, the Smithy code, by Mr Justice Peter Smith in the April 2006 judgment on the Da Vinci Code plagiarism case. Smith's biography in Who's Who stated that he was a "Jackie Fisher fan".

Notes and references

Bacon, Admiral Sir Reginald Hugh. The Life of Lord Fisher of Kilverstone VOL 1 New York (1929): Doubleday. Facsimile edition (2007): ISBN 1432593625

Bacon, Admiral Sir Reginald Hugh. The Life of Lord Fisher of Kilverstone VOL 2 New York (1929): Doubleday. Facsimile edition (2007): ISBN 143259351X

Dreyer, Admiral Sir Frederic C, The Sea Heritage, a Study of Maritime Warfare pub Museum Press, 1955.

Mackay, Ruddock F. Fisher of Kilverstone. London: Oxford University Press, 1973.

Morris, Jan. Fisher's Face London: Viking (1995).Further Information

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