John Fisher, 1st Baron Fisher
| Lord Fisher | |
|---|---|
Lord Fisher in December 1915
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| Nickname(s) | Jacky |
| Born |
25 January 1841 Ramboda, Ceylon |
| Died | 10 July 1920 (aged 79) St James's Square, London |
| Allegiance | United Kingdom |
| Service/branch | Royal Navy |
| Years of service | 1854–1909 1914–1915 |
| Rank | Admiral of the Fleet |
| Commands held |
First Sea Lord (1904–10, 1914–15) Commander-in-Chief, Portsmouth (1903–04) Second Naval Lord (1902–03) Mediterranean Fleet (1899–02) North America and West Indies Station (1897–99) Third Naval Lord and Controller (1892–97) Admiral Superintendent Portsmouth (1891) Director of Naval Ordnance (1886–91) |
| Battles/wars |
Crimean War Second Opium War Anglo-Egyptian War First World War |
| Awards |
Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath Member of the Order of Merit Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order Grand Cordon of the Légion d'honneur (France) Grand Cordon of the Order of Osmanieh (Ottoman Empire) Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun (Japan) |
Admiral of the Fleet John Arbuthnot "Jacky" (or "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 steel-hulled 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.
Fisher is primarily celebrated as an innovator, strategist and developer of the navy rather than a seagoing admiral involved in major battles, although in his career he experienced all these things. When appointed First Sea Lord in 1904, he removed 150 ships then on active service which were no longer useful and set about constructing modern replacements, creating a modern fleet prepared to meet Germany during World War I.
Fisher saw the need to improve the range, accuracy and rate of fire of naval gunnery, and was an early proponent of the use of the torpedo, which he believed would supersede big guns for use against ships. As Controller, he introduced torpedo boat destroyers as a class of ship intended for defence against attack from torpedo boats or submarines. As First Sea Lord, he was responsible for the construction of HMS Dreadnought, the first all-big-gun battleship, but he also believed that submarines would become increasingly important and urged their development. He was involved with the introduction of turbine engines to replace reciprocating engines, and the introduction of oil fuelling to replace coal. He introduced daily baked bread on board ships, whereas when he entered the service it was customary to eat hard biscuits, frequently infested by biscuit weevils.
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