William Wordsworth Fisher
| Sir William Fisher | |
|---|---|
| Born | 26 March 1875 |
| Died | 24 June 1937 (aged 62) |
| Allegiance |
 United Kingdom
|
| Service/branch |
 Royal Navy
|
| Rank | Admiral |
| Commands held |
HMS St. Vincent HMS Iron Duke Mediterranean Fleet Portsmouth Command |
| Battles/wars | World War I |
| Awards |
Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order |
Admiral Sir William Wordsworth Fisher GCB GCVO (26 March 1875 – 24 June 1937) was a Royal Navy officer who captained a battleship at the Battle of Jutland and became Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Fleet. Arthur Marder wrote that he was "the outstanding admiral of the inter-war period."
Fisher was born at Blatchington in Sussex, the son of historian Herbert William Fisher and his wife Mary Louisa Jackson (1841–1916). He joined the Royal Navy in 1888 and trained in HMS Britannia.
As a Midshipman he served in HMS Raleigh, flagship of the Cape of Good Hope and West Africa Squadron, for three years from 1890 to 1893, before joining HMS Calypso in the Training Squadron. After examinations and courses, and now a Sub-Lieutenant, he joined the protected cruiser HMS Hawke in the Mediterranean Fleet in January 1896. The ship was a byword for smartness, her "stream anchor ... kept burnished like polished silver", and Fisher left her as a Lieutenant, with highly appreciative reports from his captains, selected for the gunnery course.
He joined the gunnery course, for a first year at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, on 14 September 1898, along with other Lieutenants who were likewise to distinguish themselves in later years: A A M Duff, Frank Larken, Tufton Beamish and E A Taylor (like Beamish, later also a MP). The second year of the course was at Whale Island and the third and final year on a gunnery school staff, which for Fisher was to be Whale Island. His joined his first ship, the modern pre-dreadnought battleship HMS Canopus, as a gunnery Lieutenant in Malta in November 1901. In mid-1903 he was again ashore, on the staff of the West Country gunnery school and this was followed, on 1 January 1904, by an appointment as a senior staff officer at Whale Island. This appointment would normally have led to his becoming First Lieutenant of Whale Island but Fisher fell out with Captain Percy Scott, the famous gunnery expert then commanding 'The Island'.
...
Wikipedia