Jackie Fisher, 1st Baron Fisher
Encyclopedia
Admiral of the Fleet
John Arbuthnot "Jacky" 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 battlecruiser
s, submarine
s and the first aircraft carrier
s. 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 but 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 firing rate 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 designs, 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 weevil
s.
He retired from the Admiralty in 1911, but became First Sea Lord again in late 1914. He resigned seven months later in frustration over the Gallipoli
campaign, and then served as chairman of the Government's Board of Invention and Research until the end of the war.
Throughout his life he was a religious man and attended church regularly when ashore. He had a passion for sermons and might attend two or three services in a day to hear them, which he would 'discuss afterwards with great animation'. However, he was discreet in expressing his religious views because he feared public attention might hinder his professional career.
He was not keen on sport, but he was a highly proficient dancer. Fisher employed his dancing skill later in life to charm a number of important ladies. He became interested in dancing in 1877 and insisted that the officers of his ship learn to dance. Fisher cancelled the leave of midshipmen who would not take part. He introduced the practice of junior officers dancing on deck when the band was playing for senior officers' wardroom
dinners. This practice spread through the fleet. He broke with the then ball tradition of dancing with a different partner for each dance, instead adopting the scandalous habit of choosing one good dancer as his partner for the evening. His ability to charm all comers of all social classes made up for his sometimes blunt or tactless comments. He suffered from seasickness throughout his life.
Fisher's aim was 'efficiency of the fleet and its instant readiness for war', which won him support amongst a certain kind of navy officer. He believed in advancing the most able, rather than the longest serving. This upset those he passed over. Thus, he divided the navy into those who approved of his innovations and those who did not. As he became older and more senior he also became more autocratic and commented, 'Anyone who opposes me, I crush'. He believed that nations fought wars for material gain, and that maintaining a strong navy deterred other nations from engaging it in battle, thus decreasing the likelihood of war, On the British fleet rests the British Empire. Fisher also believed that the risk of catastrophe in a sea battle was far greater than on land: a war could be lost or won in a day at sea, with no hope of replacing lost ships, but an army could be rebuilt quickly. When an arms race broke out between Germany and Britain to build larger navies, the German Kaiser commented, 'I admire Fisher, I say nothing against him. If I was in his place I should do all that he has done and I should do all that I know he has in mind to do'. In 1911, Fisher predicted that war with Germany would break out in October 1914, following the anticipated completion date of work on the Kiel Canal
to allow the passage of battleships. However, the Kiel Canal was completed in July, and war commenced in August 1914. Fisher was forced to retire, but the candidate he chose to command the British fleet in its major engagement against Germany at The Battle of Jutland, Sir John Jellicoe
, was appointed to this role.
John Arbuthnot Fisher was born on 25 January 1841 on the Wavenden Estate at Rambodde in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka
). He was the eldest of eleven children (of whom seven survived infancy) born to Sophie Fisher and Captain William Fisher, a British Army
officer in the 78th Highlanders, who had been an aide-de-camp
to the former governor, Sir Robert Horton, Bt., and was serving as a staff officer at Kandy
. Fisher commented, 'My mother was a most magnificent and handsome, extremely young woman....My father was 6 feet 2 inches..., also especially handsome. Why I am ugly is one of those puzzles of physiology which are beyond finding out'.
William Fisher sold his commission the year John was born, and became a coffee planter and late Chief Superintendent of police. He incurred such debt on his two coffee plantations that he could barely support his growing family. At the age of 6 John (who was always known within the family as "Jack") was sent to England to live with his maternal grandfather, Charles Lambe, in New Bond Street, London. His grandfather had also lost money and the family survived by renting out rooms in their home. John's younger brother, Frederic William Fisher, joined the Royal Navy and reached the rank of admiral, and his youngest surviving sibling Philip became a navy lieutenant on Atalanta
before drowning in an 1880 storm.
William Fisher was killed in a riding accident when John was 15. John's relationship with his mother Sophie suffered from their separation, and he never saw her again. However, he continued to send her an allowance until her death. In 1870, she suggested visiting Fisher in England, but he dissuaded her as strongly as he could. Fisher wrote to his wife: "I hate the very thought of it and really, I don't want to see her. I don't see why I should as I haven't the slightest recollection of her."
Fisher married Frances Katharine Josepha Broughton, the daughter of Rev. Thomas Delves Broughton and Frances Corkran, on 4 April 1866 while stationed at Portsmouth. Kitty's two brothers were both naval officers. According to a cousin, she believed that Jack would rise "to the top of the tree." They remained married until her death in July 1918. They had a son, Cecil Vavasseur, 2nd Baron Fisher (1868–1955), and three daughters, Beatrix Alice (1867–1930), Dorothy Sybil (1873–1962) and Pamela Mary (1876–1949), who all married naval officers.
Fisher's father ultimately aided his entry into the navy, via his godmother Lady Horton, widow of the governor of Ceylon
to whom William Fisher had been ADC
. She prevailed upon a neighbour, Admiral Sir William Parker (the last of Nelson's captains), to nominate John as a naval cadet. The entry examination consisted of writing out the Lord's Prayer
and jumping naked over a chair. He formally entered the Royal Navy
on 13 July 1854, aged 13, on board Nelson's
former flagship, Victory
, at Portsmouth. On 29 July he joined HMS Calcutta
, an old ship of the line
. She was built of wood, in 1831, with 84 smooth-bore muzzle-loading guns arranged on two gun decks, and relied entirely on sail for propulsion. She had a crew of 700, and discipline was strictly enforced by the "hard-bitten Captain Stopford". Fisher fainted when he witnessed eight men flogged on his first day.
Calcutta participated in the blockade of Russian ports in the Gulf of Finland
during the Crimean War
, entitling Fisher to the Baltic medal, before returning to Britain a few months later. The crew were paid off on 1 March 1856.
On 2 March 1856, Fisher was posted to HMS Agamemnon
, and was sent to Constantinople (now Istanbul
) to join her. He arrived on 19 May, just as the war was ending. After a tour around the Dardanelles
picking up troops and baggage, Agamemnon returned to England where the crew were paid off.
Promotion to midshipman came on 12 July 1856 and Fisher joined a 21-gun steam corvette
, HMS Highflyer
, part of the China Station
. He was to spend the next five years in Chinese waters, seeing action in the Second Opium War
, 1856–1860.
The Highflyer's captain, Captain Shadwell, was an expert on naval astronomy (subsequently being appointed a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1861) and he taught Fisher much about navigation, with spectacular later results. When Shadwell was replaced as captain following an injury in action, he gave Fisher a pair of studs engraved with his family motto 'Loyal au Mort', which Fisher was to use for the rest of his life.
Fisher passed his board for sub-lieutenant
(the rank was called mate at the time) on his nineteenth birthday, 25 January 1860. He was transferred three months later to the steam frigate
HMS Chesapeake
as an acting lieutenant
. Shortly afterwards, Fisher had his first brief command: taking the yacht of the China Squadron's admiral - the paddle-gunboat
HMS Coromandel
- from Hong Kong to Canton (nowadays Guangzhou
), a voyage of four days.
He was transferred, on 12 June 1860, to the paddle-sloop
HMS Furious
where he saw sufficient action to add the Taku and Canton clasps to his China service medal. Furious left Hong Kong and the China Station in March 1861 and, after a leisurely voyage home, paid off in Portsmouth on 30 August. Captain Oliver Jones of the Furious was entirely different to Shadwell: Fisher wrote there was a mutiny on board within his first fortnight, that Jones terrorised his crew and disobeyed orders given to him. Nonetheless, by the end of the tour he also was impressed by Fisher.
That November, Fisher sat his lieutenant
's examination and passed with flying colours. He received top grades in seamanship and gunnery, and achieved the highest score ever - 963/1000 - for navigation. For this, he was awarded the Beaufort Testimonial, an annual prize of books and instruments but, in the meantime, he had to wait around, unpaid, until his appointment came through officially. He was one of the last Royal Navy officers to receive basic training entirely at sea.
From January 1862 to March 1863, Fisher returned to the payroll at the navy's principal gunnery school aboard HMS Excellent, a three-decker
moored in Portsmouth harbour. During this time, Excellent was evaluating the performance of the "revolutionary" Armstrong breech-loading guns
against the traditional Whitworth
muzzle-loading type. During free afternoons Fisher would walk the downs, shouting to practice his command voice. He spent 15 of the next 25 years in four tours of duty at Portsmouth concerned with development of gun
nery and torpedoes.
In March 1863, Fisher was appointed Gunnery Lieutenant to HMS Warrior
, the first all-iron sea-going armoured battleship and the most powerful ship in the fleet. Built in 1859, she marked the beginning of the end of the Age of Sail
and, coincidentally, was armed with both Armstrong breech-loading and Whitworth muzzle-loading guns. Fisher noted he was popular amongst his brother officers because he frequently stayed on board when others went ashore and could take duty for them.
Fisher returned to Excellent in 1864 as a gunnery instructor, where he remained until 1869. Towards the end of his posting he became interested in torpedoes, which were invented during the 1860s, and championed their cause as a relatively simple weapon capable of sinking a battleship. His expertise with torpedoes led to his being invited to Germany in June 1869 for the founding ceremony of a new naval base at Wilhelmshaven
, where he met King William I of Prussia
(soon to become German emperor), Bismarck
and Moltke
. Perhaps inspired by the visit, he started preparing a paper on the design, construction and management of electrical torpedoes, the cutting-edge technology of the time.
, serving under Captain Hewett
, a Crimean War Victoria Cross
holder. 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. During this time he completed his torpedoes treatise.
In May 1870, he transferred, again as second in command, to HMS Ocean, flagship
of the China Station. It was whilst he was on Ocean that he wrote an eight-page memoir: "Naval Tactics", which Captain J.G. Goodenough
had printed for private circulation. He installed a system of electrical firing so that all guns could be fired simultaneously, making Ocean the first vessel to be so equipped. Fisher noted in his letters that he greatly missed his wife, but also missed his work on torpedoes and the access to important people possible with a posting in England.
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
. His duties included lecturing, and negotiating the purchase of the navy's first Whitehead self-propelling torpedo. In order to promote the school, he invited politicians and journalists to attend lectures and organised demonstrations. This produced mixed reactions amongst some officers, who did not approve of his showmanship. He was promoted to captain on 30 October 1874, aged thirty-three, in time to be its first commander. HMS Vernon consisted of the hulk of Symonds'
famous 1832 50-gun sailing frigate, and the hulk of the 26-gun steam frigate Ariadne provided accommodation. Vesuvius, a torpedo boat of 245 tons, was Vernon's experimental tender for the conduct of torpedo trials. They were moored in Portsmouth harbour. In 1876 he served on the admiralty torpedo committee.
Fisher was appointed to command HMS Bellerophon
as flag captain
to the Admiral of the North America and West Indies Station, Astley Cooper-Key, from 2 March 1877 to 4 June 1878. Bellerophon had been in the dockyard for repairs, so the new crew was less than perfect in carrying out their duties. Fisher told them I intend to give you hell for three months, and if you have not come up to my standard in that time you'll have hell for another three months. Midshipman (later Admiral) A. H. Gordon Moore reported, Fisher was a very exacting master and I had at times long and arduous duties, long hours at the engine room telegraphs in cold fog, etc., and the least inattention was punished. It was, I think, his way of proving us, for he always rewarded us in some way when an extra hard bit of work was over.
Cooper Key was transferred to a special squadron operating in the Channel formed to combat fears of war with Russia. Fisher went with him as flag captain of HMS Hercules from 7 June to 21 August 1878. From 22 August to 12 September he transferred still as flag captain under Cooper Key to HMS Valorous
. At this time Fisher first became a proponent of the new compass being designed by Sir William Thomson
which incorporated corrections for the deviation caused by the metal in iron ships. Between 12 September 1878 and 1 January 1879 he was again on leave.
From 9 January to 24 July 1879 Fisher commanded HMS Pallas
serving in the Mediterranean Command under Geoffrey Phipps Hornby. Pallas was in poor condition, having a chain passed around the ship to hold the armour plates in place. The tour included an official visit to Istanbul
where Fisher dined with the sultan
of the Ottoman Empire
from gold cups and plates. He then returned to the UK for two months leave at half pay, visiting Bruges with his family.
His next posting, starting 25 September 1879, was to HMS Northampton
as Flag Captain to Sir Leopold McClintock
, commanding the North American squadron. Northampton was a new ship with a number of innovations, including twin screws, searchlights and telephones, as well as being armed with torpedoes. It was fitted with an experimental Thompson-designed compass, which the inventor was on hand to adjust. Three days were spent attempting and failing to adjust the compass, with Thomson becoming increasingly bad tempered, until it was noticed that by accident the degree card had only been marked with 359 degrees instead of 360. The ship was fitted with a new design of lamp created by Captain Philip Colomb, who came on board to inspect them. As a joke, Fisher arranged for anything that could go wrong with the lamps to do so, sending Colomb away disheartened over his invention (although Fisher officially reported favourably about the lamps). On another occasion, the naval hospital at Halifax requested some flags to fly for the Queen's birthday. Fisher obliged, but sent only yellow and black flags signifying plague and quarantine. On the other hand, he worked hard at improving his ship. As reported by his second in command, Commander Wilmot Fawkes, the ship carried out 150 runs with torpedoes in a fortnight, whereas the whole rest of the navy only performed 200 in a year.
Fisher's brother Philip was serving on the training ship Atalanta
, which disappeared somewhere between the West Indies and England, believed lost in a storm. Northampton was one of the ships sent to search for her, but without result. In January 1881 Fisher received news of his appointment to the new ironclad battleship HMS Inflexible
. Admiral McClintock commented, Everyone regrets the departure of Captain Fisher, but I fancy we shall not fully realize our loss until he is gone....Since his nomination to the Inflexible, his spirits have returned and daily increased, and now he almost requires wiring down. The ship was still building, so Fisher was temporarily appointed to HMS Duke of Wellington
, flagship of the port admiral at Portsmouth between 30 January and 4 July 1881.
. Inflexible had the largest guns and thickest armour of any ship in the navy, but still carried masts and sails and had slow, muzzle-loading guns. She had been seven years under construction and had many innovations built into her, including electric lighting and torpedo tubes, but with such a tortuous layout that crew became lost. The sails were never used for propulsion, but because a ship's performance was partly judged on the speed with which a ship could set sails, Fisher was obliged to drill the crew in their use.
In spring 1882 Inflexible was part of the Mediterranean Fleet and was assigned to protection of Queen Victoria during a visit to Menton on the Riviera
. This was intended as a reminder of British naval prowess to the French, but allowed Fisher to meet Victoria and her grandson, Prince Heinrich of Prussia
, who later became admiral of the German navy. Victoria was impressed by Fisher, as she had been by his brother Philip who had served on royal yachts and for whom she had arranged the ill-fated posting to Atalanta. Support from the royal family was to be important for Fisher's career, particularly when his innovations drew criticism.
Inflexible took part in the 1882 Anglo-Egyptian War, bombarding
the port of Alexandria
as part of Admiral Seymour's fleet. Fisher was placed in charge of a landing party which was quartered in the Khedive's palace. Lacking means of reconnaissance, he devised a plan to armour a train with iron plates, machine gun and cannon. This became celebrated and widely reported by correspondents, so that its inventor, Fisher, came to the attention of the public for the first time as a hero. Shore duty had the unfortunate effect that Fisher became seriously ill with dysentery and malaria. He refused to take sick leave, but eventually was ordered home by Lord Northbrook, who commented, 'the Admiralty could build another Inflexible, but not another Fisher'.
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.
for a fortnight by Queen Victoria, concerned about the charming Captain Fisher. Fisher, having entered the navy penniless and unknown, was delighted.
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In April 1883 Fisher had recovered sufficiently to return to duty and was appointed commander of HMS Excellent. He remained with Excellent for two years until June 1885, where he gained a following of officers concerned with the poor offensive capabilities of the fleet, including John Jellicoe and Percy Scott. For the next 15 months he had no naval command and still suffered the effects of his illness. He took to visiting Marienbad, which was famous amongst notable society for its restoring climate, and went there regularly in future years.
From June–July 1885 Fisher served a short posting to HMS Minotaur
in the Baltic under Admiral Hornby, following the Panjdeh Incident
, which led to fear of war with Russia. He returned to Excellent and remained there until November 1885. He did not return to sea for fifteen years.
From November 1886 to 1890, he was Director of Naval Ordnance
, responsible for weapons and munitions. He was responsible for the development of quick-firing guns to be used against the growing threat from torpedo boats, and particularly claimed responsibility for removing wooden boarding pikes from navy ships. The navy did not have responsibility for manufacture and supply of weapons and ammunition, which was in the hands of the War Office
. Fisher began a long campaign to return this responsibility to the admiralty, but did not finally succeed until he later became First Sea Lord. He was appointed Aide-de-Camp
to the Queen in 1887, and promoted Rear-Admiral in August 1890.
, where he concerned himself with improving the speed of operations. Royal Sovereign
was built in two years rather than three, while changing a barbette
gun on a ship was reduced from a two-day operation to two hours. His example obliged all shipyards, both navy and private, to reduce the time they took to complete a ship, making savings in cost and allowing new designs to enter service more rapidly. He used all the tricks he could devise: an official who refused to step outside his office to personally supervise the work was offered a promotion to the tropics; he would find out the name of one or two men amongst a work crew and then make a point of complimenting them on their work and using their names, giving the impression he knew everyone personally; he took a chair and table into the yard where some operation was to be carried out and declared his intention to stay there until the operation was completed. He observed, When you are told a thing is impossible, that there are insuperable objections, then is the time to fight like the devil.
His next appointment was Third Sea Lord
, the naval officer with overall responsibility for provision of ships and equipment. He presided over the development of torpedo boat destroyers armed with quick-firing small-calibre guns (called destroyer
s at Fisher's suggestion). A suggestion for the boats was brought to the admiralty in 1892 by Mr. Alfred Yarrow of shipbuilders Thornycroft and Yarrow, who reported that he had obtained plans of new torpedo boats being built by the French, and he could build a faster boat to defend against them. Torpedo boats had become a major threat, as they were cheap but potentially able to sink the largest battleships, and France had built large numbers of them. The first destroyers were considered a success and more were ordered, but Fisher immediately ran into trouble by insisting that all shipbuilders, not just Yarrow's, should be invited to build boats to Yarrow's design. A similar (though opposite) difficulty with vested interests arose over the introduction of water tube boilers into navy ships, which held out the promise of improved fuel efficiency and greater speed. The first examples were used by Thornycroft and Yarrow in 1892, and then were trialled in the gunboat Sharpshooter. However, an attempt to specify similar boilers for new cruisers in 1894 led to questions in the House of Commons, and opposition from shipbuilders who did not want to invest in the new technology. The matter continued for several years after Fisher moved on to a new posting, with a parliamentary enquiry rejecting the new boilers. Eventually the new design was adopted, but only after another eighteen ships had been built using the older design, with consequent poorer performance than necessary.
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 America and West Indies Station in 1897. In 1898 the Fashoda Crisis brought the threat of war with France, to which Fisher responded with plans to raid the French West Indies including Devil's Island
prison, and return the infamous Alfred Dreyfus
to France to foment trouble within the French army. It was Fisher's policy to conduct all manoeuvres at full speed while training the fleet, and to expect the best from his crews. He would socialise with junior officers so that they were not afraid to approach him with ideas, or disagree with him when the occasion demanded.
Fisher was chosen by Prime Minister Lord Salisbury as British naval delegate to the First Hague Peace Convention
in 1899. The peace conference had been called by Russia to agree to limits on armaments, but the British position was to reject any proposal which might restrict use of the navy. Fisher's style was to say little in formal meetings, but to lobby determinedly at all informal gatherings. He impressed many by his affability and style, combined with a serious determination to press the British case with everyone he met. The conference ended successfully with limitations only upon dumdum bullets, poison gas and bombings from balloons, and Fisher was rewarded with appointment as chief of the Mediterranean station, 'the tip-top appointment of the fleet' . The German delegation summarised Britain's position: English world position depended upon the navy, the navy was sufficiently powerful to overcome any combination of states, and England reserved the right to employ that fleet any way it chose.
Unlike the North Atlantic station, the Mediterranean was a vital British operational command operating from Malta
and Gibraltar
. The important shipping route between India and Britain passed through the Suez Canal
, and was considered threatened by France. France was concerned with the route north-south to its colonies in Northern Africa. Fisher retained his flagship from the North American Squadron, Renown
, rather than choosing a more powerful but slower traditional battleship, despite criticism from other officers.
His strategy emphasised the importance of striking the first blow, but with an awareness that sunk ships could not easily be replaced, and would replace any officer who could not keep up with the standards he demanded. He gave lectures on naval strategy to which all officers were invited and once again encouraged his officers to bring ideas to him. He offered prizes for essays on tactics and maintained a large tabletop map room with models of all ships in the fleet, where all officers could come to develop tactics. A particular concern was the threat of torpedoes, which Germany had boasted would dispose of the British fleet, and the numerous French torpedo boats. Fisher's innovations were not universally approved, with some senior officers resenting the attention he paid to their juniors, or the pressure he placed on all to improve efficiency.
A programme of realistic exercises was adopted including simulated French raids, defensive manoeuvres, night attacks and blockades, all carried out at maximum speed. He introduced a gold cup for the ship which performed best at gunnery, and insisted upon shooting at greater range and from battle formations. He found that he too was learning some of the complications and difficulties of controlling a large fleet in complex situations, and immensely enjoyed it.
Notes from his lectures indicate that, at the start of his time in the Mediterranean, useful working ranges for heavy guns without telescopic sights were considered to be only 2000 yards, or 3000-4000 yards with such sights, whereas by the end of his time discussion centred on how to shoot effectively at 5000 yards. This was driven by the increasing range of the torpedo, which had now risen to 3000-4000 yards, necessitating ships fighting effectively at greater ranges. At this time he advocated relatively small main armaments on capital ships (some had 15 inch or greater), because the improved technical design of the relatively small (10 inch) modern guns allowed a much greater firing rate and greater overall weight of broadside. The potentially much greater ranges of large guns was not an issue, because no one knew how to aim them effectively at such ranges. He argued that 'the design of fighting ships must follow the mode of fighting instead of fighting being subsidiary to and dependant on the design of ships.'. As regards how officers needed to behave, he commented, 'Think and act for yourself' is the motto for the future, not 'Let us wait for orders'.
Lord Hankey
, then a marine serving under Fisher, later commented, 'It is difficult for anyone who had not lived under the previous regime to realize what a change Fisher brought about in the Mediterranean fleet.... Before his arrival, the topics and arguments of the officers messes...were mainly confined to such matters as the cleaning of paint and brasswork....[T]hese were forgotten and replaced by incessant controversies on tactics, strategy, gunnery, torpedo warfare, blockade, etc. It was a veritable renaissance and affected every officer in the navy'. Charles Beresford
, later to become a severe critic of Fisher, gave up a plan to return to Britain and enter parliament, because he had 'learnt more in the last week than in the last forty years'.
Fisher implemented a program of banquets and balls for important dignitaries to improve diplomatic relations. The fleet visited Constantinople, where he had three meetings with the sultan and was awarded the Grand Cordon, Order of Osmanieh in November 1900, and promoted to full Admiral
in November 1901. He lobbied hard with the admiralty to obtain additional ships and supplies for the Mediterranean squadron. Beresford, who had established a career in politics alongside his naval one, continued a public campaign for greater funding of the fleet, which caused him to come into conflict with the admiralty. While Fisher agreed with him as to the need for greater funding and instant readiness for war, he chose to stay out of the public debate. However, he maintained a steady confidential correspondence with the journalist Arnold White
, providing him with information and advice for a newspaper campaign promoting the needs of the navy. During the course of the correspondence in 1902, Fisher noted that although France was Britain's traditional enemy, Britain had considerable common interest with France as a possible ally, whereas growing German activity abroad made her a much more likely enemy.
The correspondence revealed that Fisher remained uncertain how his views were being received at the admiralty and an uncertainty on his part whether he would receive further promotions. He had already received approaches to become a director of Armstrong Whitworth
, of Elswick
(then Britain's largest armaments firm), at a considerably larger salary than that of an admiral and with the possibility of building privately new designs of ship which he believed would be needed to maintain the strength of the fleet.
In 1902 he returned to the UK as Second Sea Lord
in charge of personnel. At this time engineering officers, who had become increasingly important in the fleet as it became steadily more dependent upon machinery, were still largely looked down upon by command officers. Fisher considered it would be better for the navy if the two branches could be merged, as had been done in the past with navigation officers who had similarly once been a completely separate speciality. His solution was to merge the cadet training of ordinary and engineer officers and revise the curriculum so that it provided a suitable grounding to later go on to either path. The proposal was initially resisted by the remainder of the board of admiralty, but Fisher convinced them of the benefits of the changes. Objections within the navy as a whole were harder to quell and a campaign once again broke out in newspapers. Fisher was thoroughly aware of the benefits of getting the press on his side and continued to leak information to friendly journalists. Beresford was approached by officers objecting to the changes to act as champion of their cause, but sided with Fisher on this issue.
Training was extended from two years to four, with the resulting need for more accommodation for cadets. A second cadet establishment was constructed at Osborne on the Isle of Wight for the first two years, with the last two remaining at Dartmouth. All cadets now received an education in science and technology as it related to life on board a ship as well as navigation and seamanship. Those who went on to be command officers would now have the benefit of improved understanding of their ships while those who became engineers would be better equipped for command. Physical education and sport were to be taught, not only for the benefit of the cadets but also for the future training of ships' crews which were expected to produce sporting teams on good-will visits in foreign ports. Entrance by examination, which biased the intake to those who could obtain special tuition, was replaced with an interview committee tasked with determining the general knowledge of candidates and their reaction to the questions as much as their answers. After the four years, cadets were posted to special training ships for final practical experience before being posted to real command positions. The results of the final examination affected the seniority allotted to each cadet and his chance of future early promotion.
In 1903 he became Commander-in-Chief, Portsmouth
. 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.
On 21 October 1904 (Trafalgar Day
), following breakfast with the King, 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. The navy estimate for 1905 was reduced by £3.5 million on the previous year's total of £36.8 million despite new building programs and greatly increased effectiveness. Naval expenditure fell from 1905 to 1907, before rising again. By the end of Fisher's tenure as First Sea Lord expenditure had returned to 1904 levels.
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. He also encouraged the introduction of submarine
s 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.
In 1908, he predicted that war between Britain and Germany would occur in mid-1914, which later proved exactly accurate, basing his statement on the projected completion date of the Kiel Canal
, which Germany needed to move its warships safely from the Baltic
to the North Sea
.
On 7 December 1909, he was created Baron Fisher, of Kilverstone
. He took the punning motto "Fear God and dread nought" on his coat of arms
as a reference to Dreadnought.
He retired on 25 January 1911, his 70th birthday.
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.
, over Gallipoli
, causing Churchill's resignation too. Lord Fisher was never entirely enthusiastic about the campaign—going back and forth in his support, to the consternation and frustration of members of the cabinet—and all in all preferred an amphibious attack on the German Baltic Sea
coastline (the Baltic Project
), even having the shallow-draft battlecruisers HMS Furious
, HMS Glorious and HMS Courageous
constructed for the purpose. As the Gallipoli campaign failed, relations with Churchill had become increasingly acrimonious. One of Fisher's last contributions to naval construction was the projected HMS Incomparable
, a mammoth battlecruiser which took the principles of the Courageous class another step further; mounting 20-inch guns, but still with minimal armour, Incomparable was never approved for construction.
, the highest of eight classes associated with the award. Notice of the King's permission to accept and to display this honour was duly published in the London Gazette
.
Admiral Fisher's 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.
Fisher died of cancer at St. James Square, London, on 10 July 1920, aged 79 and he was given a grand national funeral at Westminster Abbey
.
His coffin was drawn on a gun-carriage through the streets of London to Westminster Abbey
by bluejackets, with six admirals as pall-bearers and an escort of Royal Marines, their arms reversed, to the slow beat of muffled drums. That evening, the body was cremated at the Golders Green crematorium. The following day, Fisher's ashes were taken by train to Kilverstone, escorted by a Royal Navy guard of honour, and were placed in the grave of his wife, underneath a chestnut tree, overlooking the figurehead of his first seagoing ship, Calcutta
.
|-
|-
|-
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Admiral of the Fleet (Royal Navy)
Admiral of the fleet is the highest rank of the British Royal Navy and other navies, which equates to the NATO rank code OF-10. The rank still exists in the Royal Navy but routine appointments ceased in 1996....
John Arbuthnot "Jacky" Fisher, 1st Baron Fisher of Kilverstone, GCB
Order of the Bath
The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate mediæval ceremony for creating a knight, which involved bathing as one of its elements. The knights so created were known as Knights of the Bath...
, OM
Order of Merit
The Order of Merit is a British dynastic order recognising distinguished service in the armed forces, science, art, literature, or for the promotion of culture...
, GCVO
Royal Victorian Order
The Royal Victorian Order is a dynastic order of knighthood and a house order of chivalry recognising distinguished personal service to the order's Sovereign, the reigning monarch of the Commonwealth realms, any members of her family, or any of her viceroys...
(25 January 1841 – 10 July 1920) was a British admiral
Admiral
Admiral is the rank, or part of the name of the ranks, of the highest naval officers. It is usually considered a full admiral and above vice admiral and below admiral of the fleet . It is usually abbreviated to "Adm" or "ADM"...
known for his efforts at naval reform. He had a huge influence on the Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
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 battlecruiser
Battlecruiser
Battlecruisers were large capital ships built in the first half of the 20th century. They were developed in the first decade of the century as the successor to the armoured cruiser, but their evolution was more closely linked to that of the dreadnought battleship...
s, submarine
Submarine
A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below the surface of the water. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability...
s and the first aircraft carrier
Aircraft carrier
An aircraft carrier is a warship designed with a primary mission of deploying and recovering aircraft, acting as a seagoing airbase. Aircraft carriers thus allow a naval force to project air power worldwide without having to depend on local bases for staging aircraft operations...
s. The argumentative, energetic, reform-minded Fisher is often considered the second most important figure in British naval history, after Lord Nelson
Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson
Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, 1st Duke of Bronté, KB was a flag officer famous for his service in the Royal Navy, particularly during the Napoleonic Wars. He was noted for his inspirational leadership and superb grasp of strategy and unconventional tactics, which resulted in a number of...
.
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
First Sea Lord
The First Sea Lord is the professional head of the Royal Navy and the whole Naval Service; it was formerly known as First Naval Lord. He also holds the title of Chief of Naval Staff, and is known by the abbreviations 1SL/CNS...
in 1904 he removed 150 ships then on active service but 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 firing rate 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
HMS Dreadnought (1906)
HMS Dreadnought was a battleship of the British Royal Navy that revolutionised naval power. Her entry into service in 1906 represented such a marked advance in naval technology that her name came to be associated with an entire generation of battleships, the "dreadnoughts", as well as the class of...
, 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 designs, 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 weevil
Weevil
A weevil is any beetle from the Curculionoidea superfamily. They are usually small, less than , and herbivorous. There are over 60,000 species in several families, mostly in the family Curculionidae...
s.
He retired from the Admiralty in 1911, but became First Sea Lord again in late 1914. He resigned seven months later in frustration over the Gallipoli
Gallipoli
The Gallipoli peninsula is located in Turkish Thrace , the European part of Turkey, with the Aegean Sea to the west and the Dardanelles straits to the east. Gallipoli derives its name from the Greek "Καλλίπολις" , meaning "Beautiful City"...
campaign, and then served as chairman of the Government's Board of Invention and Research until the end of the war.
Character and appearance
Fisher was five feet seven inches tall and stocky with a round face. In later years, some insinuated that he had Asian ancestry due to his features and the yellow cast of his skin. His colour resulted from dysentery and malaria in middle life, which nearly caused his death. He had a fixed and compelling gaze when addressing someone, which gave little clue to his feelings. Fisher was energetic, ambitious, enthusiastic and clever. A shipmate described him as "easily the most interesting midshipman I ever met". When addressing someone he could become carried away with the point he was seeking to make, and on one occasion, the king asked him to stop shaking his fist in his face.Throughout his life he was a religious man and attended church regularly when ashore. He had a passion for sermons and might attend two or three services in a day to hear them, which he would 'discuss afterwards with great animation'. However, he was discreet in expressing his religious views because he feared public attention might hinder his professional career.
He was not keen on sport, but he was a highly proficient dancer. Fisher employed his dancing skill later in life to charm a number of important ladies. He became interested in dancing in 1877 and insisted that the officers of his ship learn to dance. Fisher cancelled the leave of midshipmen who would not take part. He introduced the practice of junior officers dancing on deck when the band was playing for senior officers' wardroom
Wardroom
The wardroom is the mess-cabin of naval commissioned officers above the rank of Midshipman. The term the wardroom is also used to refer to those individuals with the right to occupy that wardroom, meaning "the officers of the wardroom"....
dinners. This practice spread through the fleet. He broke with the then ball tradition of dancing with a different partner for each dance, instead adopting the scandalous habit of choosing one good dancer as his partner for the evening. His ability to charm all comers of all social classes made up for his sometimes blunt or tactless comments. He suffered from seasickness throughout his life.
Fisher's aim was 'efficiency of the fleet and its instant readiness for war', which won him support amongst a certain kind of navy officer. He believed in advancing the most able, rather than the longest serving. This upset those he passed over. Thus, he divided the navy into those who approved of his innovations and those who did not. As he became older and more senior he also became more autocratic and commented, 'Anyone who opposes me, I crush'. He believed that nations fought wars for material gain, and that maintaining a strong navy deterred other nations from engaging it in battle, thus decreasing the likelihood of war, On the British fleet rests the British Empire. Fisher also believed that the risk of catastrophe in a sea battle was far greater than on land: a war could be lost or won in a day at sea, with no hope of replacing lost ships, but an army could be rebuilt quickly. When an arms race broke out between Germany and Britain to build larger navies, the German Kaiser commented, 'I admire Fisher, I say nothing against him. If I was in his place I should do all that he has done and I should do all that I know he has in mind to do'. In 1911, Fisher predicted that war with Germany would break out in October 1914, following the anticipated completion date of work on the Kiel Canal
Kiel Canal
The Kiel Canal , known as the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Kanal until 1948, is a long canal in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein.The canal links the North Sea at Brunsbüttel to the Baltic Sea at Kiel-Holtenau. An average of is saved by using the Kiel Canal instead of going around the Jutland Peninsula....
to allow the passage of battleships. However, the Kiel Canal was completed in July, and war commenced in August 1914. Fisher was forced to retire, but the candidate he chose to command the British fleet in its major engagement against Germany at The Battle of Jutland, Sir John Jellicoe
John Jellicoe, 1st Earl Jellicoe
Admiral of the Fleet John Rushworth Jellicoe, 1st Earl Jellicoe, GCB, OM, GCVO was a British Royal Navy admiral who commanded the Grand Fleet at the Battle of Jutland in World War I...
, was appointed to this role.
Childhood and personal life
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
). He was the eldest of eleven children (of whom seven survived infancy) born to Sophie Fisher and Captain William Fisher, a British Army
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...
officer in the 78th Highlanders, who had been an aide-de-camp
Aide-de-camp
An aide-de-camp is a personal assistant, secretary, or adjutant to a person of high rank, usually a senior military officer or a head of state...
to the former governor, Sir Robert Horton, Bt., and was serving as a staff officer at Kandy
Kandy
Kandy is a city in the center of Sri Lanka. It was the last capital of the ancient kings' era of Sri Lanka. The city lies in the midst of hills in the Kandy plateau, which crosses an area of tropical plantations, mainly tea. Kandy is one of the most scenic cities in Sri Lanka; it is both an...
. Fisher commented, 'My mother was a most magnificent and handsome, extremely young woman....My father was 6 feet 2 inches..., also especially handsome. Why I am ugly is one of those puzzles of physiology which are beyond finding out'.
William Fisher sold his commission the year John was born, and became a coffee planter and late Chief Superintendent of police. He incurred such debt on his two coffee plantations that he could barely support his growing family. At the age of 6 John (who was always known within the family as "Jack") was sent to England to live with his maternal grandfather, Charles Lambe, in New Bond Street, London. His grandfather had also lost money and the family survived by renting out rooms in their home. John's younger brother, Frederic William Fisher, joined the Royal Navy and reached the rank of admiral, and his youngest surviving sibling Philip became a navy lieutenant on Atalanta
HMS Atalanta (1844)
HMS Juno was a 26-gun Spartan-class sixth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy launched in 1844 at Pembroke. As HMS Juno, she carried out the historic role in 1857 of annexing the Cocos Islands to the British Empire...
before drowning in an 1880 storm.
William Fisher was killed in a riding accident when John was 15. John's relationship with his mother Sophie suffered from their separation, and he never saw her again. However, he continued to send her an allowance until her death. In 1870, she suggested visiting Fisher in England, but he dissuaded her as strongly as he could. Fisher wrote to his wife: "I hate the very thought of it and really, I don't want to see her. I don't see why I should as I haven't the slightest recollection of her."
Fisher married Frances Katharine Josepha Broughton, the daughter of Rev. Thomas Delves Broughton and Frances Corkran, on 4 April 1866 while stationed at Portsmouth. Kitty's two brothers were both naval officers. According to a cousin, she believed that Jack would rise "to the top of the tree." They remained married until her death in July 1918. They had a son, Cecil Vavasseur, 2nd Baron Fisher (1868–1955), and three daughters, Beatrix Alice (1867–1930), Dorothy Sybil (1873–1962) and Pamela Mary (1876–1949), who all married naval officers.
Early career (1854–1869)
British Ceylon
British Ceylon refers to British rule prior to 1948 of the island territory now known as Sri Lanka.-From the Dutch to the British:Before the beginning of the Dutch governance, the island of Ceylon was divided between the Portuguese Empire and the Kingdom of Kandy, who were in the midst of a war for...
to whom William Fisher had been ADC
Aide-de-camp
An aide-de-camp is a personal assistant, secretary, or adjutant to a person of high rank, usually a senior military officer or a head of state...
. She prevailed upon a neighbour, Admiral Sir William Parker (the last of Nelson's captains), to nominate John as a naval cadet. The entry examination consisted of writing out the Lord's Prayer
Lord's Prayer
The Lord's Prayer is a central prayer in Christianity. In the New Testament of the Christian Bible, it appears in two forms: in the Gospel of Matthew as part of the discourse on ostentation in the Sermon on the Mount, and in the Gospel of Luke, which records Jesus being approached by "one of his...
and jumping naked over a chair. He formally entered the Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
on 13 July 1854, aged 13, on board Nelson's
Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson
Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, 1st Duke of Bronté, KB was a flag officer famous for his service in the Royal Navy, particularly during the Napoleonic Wars. He was noted for his inspirational leadership and superb grasp of strategy and unconventional tactics, which resulted in a number of...
former flagship, Victory
HMS Victory
HMS Victory is a 104-gun first-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, laid down in 1759 and launched in 1765. She is most famous as Lord Nelson's flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805....
, at Portsmouth. On 29 July he joined HMS Calcutta
HMS Calcutta (1831)
HMS Calcutta was an 84-gun second-rate ship-of-the-line of the Royal Navy, built in teak to a draught by Sir Robert Seppings and launched on 14 March 1831 in Bombay. She was the only ship ever built to her draught. She carried her complement of smooth-bore, muzzle-loading guns on two gundecks...
, an old ship of the line
Ship of the line
A ship of the line was a type of naval warship constructed from the 17th through the mid-19th century to take part in the naval tactic known as the line of battle, in which two columns of opposing warships would manoeuvre to bring the greatest weight of broadside guns to bear...
. She was built of wood, in 1831, with 84 smooth-bore muzzle-loading guns arranged on two gun decks, and relied entirely on sail for propulsion. She had a crew of 700, and discipline was strictly enforced by the "hard-bitten Captain Stopford". Fisher fainted when he witnessed eight men flogged on his first day.
Calcutta participated in the blockade of Russian ports in the Gulf of Finland
Gulf of Finland
The Gulf of Finland is the easternmost arm of the Baltic Sea. It extends between Finland and Estonia all the way to Saint Petersburg in Russia, where the river Neva drains into it. Other major cities around the gulf include Helsinki and Tallinn...
during the Crimean War
Crimean War
The Crimean War was a conflict fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the French Empire, the British Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Sardinia. The war was part of a long-running contest between the major European powers for influence over territories of the declining...
, entitling Fisher to the Baltic medal, before returning to Britain a few months later. The crew were paid off on 1 March 1856.
HMS Agamemnon (1852)
HMS Agamemnon was a Royal Navy 91-gun battleship ordered by the Admiralty in 1849 in response to the perceived threat from France by their possession of ships of the Napoléon class...
, and was sent to Constantinople (now Istanbul
Istanbul
Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...
) to join her. He arrived on 19 May, just as the war was ending. After a tour around the Dardanelles
Dardanelles
The Dardanelles , formerly known as the Hellespont, is a narrow strait in northwestern Turkey connecting the Aegean Sea to the Sea of Marmara. It is one of the Turkish Straits, along with its counterpart the Bosphorus. It is located at approximately...
picking up troops and baggage, Agamemnon returned to England where the crew were paid off.
Promotion to midshipman came on 12 July 1856 and Fisher joined a 21-gun steam corvette
Corvette
A corvette is a small, maneuverable, lightly armed warship, originally smaller than a frigate and larger than a coastal patrol craft or fast attack craft , although many recent designs resemble frigates in size and role...
, HMS Highflyer
HMS Highflyer (1851)
HMS Highflyer was a 21-gun wooden screw frigate of the Royal Navy. She was built on the River Thames by C J Mare and launched on 13 August 1851...
, part of the China Station
China Station
The China Station was a historical formation of the British Royal Navy. It was formally the units and establishments responsible to the Commander-in-Chief, China....
. He was to spend the next five years in Chinese waters, seeing action in the Second Opium War
Second Opium War
The Second Opium War, the Second Anglo-Chinese War, the Second China War, the Arrow War, or the Anglo-French expedition to China, was a war pitting the British Empire and the Second French Empire against the Qing Dynasty of China, lasting from 1856 to 1860...
, 1856–1860.
The Highflyer's captain, Captain Shadwell, was an expert on naval astronomy (subsequently being appointed a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1861) and he taught Fisher much about navigation, with spectacular later results. When Shadwell was replaced as captain following an injury in action, he gave Fisher a pair of studs engraved with his family motto 'Loyal au Mort', which Fisher was to use for the rest of his life.
Fisher passed his board for sub-lieutenant
Sub-Lieutenant
Sub-lieutenant is a military rank. It is normally a junior officer rank.In many navies, a sub-lieutenant is a naval commissioned or subordinate officer, ranking below a lieutenant. In the Royal Navy the rank of sub-lieutenant is equivalent to the rank of lieutenant in the British Army and of...
(the rank was called mate at the time) on his nineteenth birthday, 25 January 1860. He was transferred three months later to the steam frigate
Frigate
A frigate is any of several types of warship, the term having been used for ships of various sizes and roles over the last few centuries.In the 17th century, the term was used for any warship built for speed and maneuverability, the description often used being "frigate-built"...
HMS Chesapeake
HMS Chesapeake (1855)
HMS Chesapeake was a Royal Navy screw-propelled 51-gun frigate launched in 1855, with a crew of 510 men. She saw action during the Second Opium War and there is a memorial to her losses at Southsea, near Portsmouth. She was the flagship of the British China Squadron in 1861.Admiral of the Fleet,...
as an acting lieutenant
Lieutenant
A lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer in many nations' armed forces. Typically, the rank of lieutenant in naval usage, while still a junior officer rank, is senior to the army rank...
. Shortly afterwards, Fisher had his first brief command: taking the yacht of the China Squadron's admiral - the paddle-gunboat
Gunboat
A gunboat is a naval watercraft designed for the express purpose of carrying one or more guns to bombard coastal targets, as opposed to those military craft designed for naval warfare, or for ferrying troops or supplies.-History:...
HMS Coromandel
HMS Coromandel
Four ships of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Coromandel, after the Coromandel Coast of India: was a 56-gun fourth rate, previously the ex-Indiaman Winterton...
- from Hong Kong to Canton (nowadays Guangzhou
Guangzhou
Guangzhou , known historically as Canton or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of the Guangdong province in the People's Republic of China. Located in southern China on the Pearl River, about north-northwest of Hong Kong, Guangzhou is a key national transportation hub and trading port...
), a voyage of four days.
Sloop-of-war
In the 18th and most of the 19th centuries, a sloop-of-war was a warship with a single gun deck that carried up to eighteen guns. As the rating system covered all vessels with 20 guns and above, this meant that the term sloop-of-war actually encompassed all the unrated combat vessels including the...
HMS Furious
HMS Furious (1850)
HMS Furious was a 16 gun steam powered paddle wheel frigate of the Royal Navy built at Portsmouth Dockyard and launched on 26 August 1850. She was the lead ship of the two ship class of...
where he saw sufficient action to add the Taku and Canton clasps to his China service medal. Furious left Hong Kong and the China Station in March 1861 and, after a leisurely voyage home, paid off in Portsmouth on 30 August. Captain Oliver Jones of the Furious was entirely different to Shadwell: Fisher wrote there was a mutiny on board within his first fortnight, that Jones terrorised his crew and disobeyed orders given to him. Nonetheless, by the end of the tour he also was impressed by Fisher.
That November, Fisher sat his lieutenant
Lieutenant
A lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer in many nations' armed forces. Typically, the rank of lieutenant in naval usage, while still a junior officer rank, is senior to the army rank...
's examination and passed with flying colours. He received top grades in seamanship and gunnery, and achieved the highest score ever - 963/1000 - for navigation. For this, he was awarded the Beaufort Testimonial, an annual prize of books and instruments but, in the meantime, he had to wait around, unpaid, until his appointment came through officially. He was one of the last Royal Navy officers to receive basic training entirely at sea.
From January 1862 to March 1863, Fisher returned to the payroll at the navy's principal gunnery school aboard HMS Excellent, a three-decker
Three-decker
A three-decker is a sail warship which carried her guns on three fully armed decks. Usually additional guns were carried on the upper works , but this was not a continuous battery and so did not count. Three-deckers were usually "ships of the line", i.e...
moored in Portsmouth harbour. During this time, Excellent was evaluating the performance of the "revolutionary" Armstrong breech-loading guns
100-pounder breech-loader
The Armstrong RBL 7 inch gun, also known as the 110-pounder, was an early attempt to use William Armstrong's new and innovative breechloading mechanism for heavy rifled guns.-Description:...
against the traditional Whitworth
Joseph Whitworth
Sir Joseph Whitworth, 1st Baronet was an English engineer, entrepreneur, inventor and philanthropist. In 1841, he devised the British Standard Whitworth system, which created an accepted standard for screw threads...
muzzle-loading type. During free afternoons Fisher would walk the downs, shouting to practice his command voice. He spent 15 of the next 25 years in four tours of duty at Portsmouth concerned with development of gun
Gun
A gun is a muzzle or breech-loaded projectile-firing weapon. There are various definitions depending on the nation and branch of service. A "gun" may be distinguished from other firearms in being a crew-served weapon such as a howitzer or mortar, as opposed to a small arm like a rifle or pistol,...
nery and torpedoes.
In March 1863, Fisher was appointed Gunnery Lieutenant to HMS Warrior
HMS Warrior (1860)
HMS Warrior was the first iron-hulled, armour-plated warship, built for the Royal Navy in response to the first ironclad warship, the French Gloire, launched a year earlier....
, the first all-iron sea-going armoured battleship and the most powerful ship in the fleet. Built in 1859, she marked the beginning of the end of the Age of Sail
Age of Sail
The Age of Sail was the period in which international trade and naval warfare were dominated by sailing ships, lasting from the 16th to the mid 19th century...
and, coincidentally, was armed with both Armstrong breech-loading and Whitworth muzzle-loading guns. Fisher noted he was popular amongst his brother officers because he frequently stayed on board when others went ashore and could take duty for them.
Fisher returned to Excellent in 1864 as a gunnery instructor, where he remained until 1869. Towards the end of his posting he became interested in torpedoes, which were invented during the 1860s, and championed their cause as a relatively simple weapon capable of sinking a battleship. His expertise with torpedoes led to his being invited to Germany in June 1869 for the founding ceremony of a new naval base at Wilhelmshaven
Wilhelmshaven
Wilhelmshaven is a coastal town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated on the western side of the Jade Bight, a bay of the North Sea.-History:...
, where he met King William I of Prussia
William I, German Emperor
William I, also known as Wilhelm I , of the House of Hohenzollern was the King of Prussia and the first German Emperor .Under the leadership of William and his Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, Prussia achieved the unification of Germany and the...
(soon to become German emperor), Bismarck
Otto von Bismarck
Otto Eduard Leopold, Prince of Bismarck, Duke of Lauenburg , simply known as Otto von Bismarck, was a Prussian-German statesman whose actions unified Germany, made it a major player in world affairs, and created a balance of power that kept Europe at peace after 1871.As Minister President of...
and Moltke
Helmuth von Moltke the Elder
Helmuth Karl Bernhard Graf von Moltke was a German Field Marshal. The chief of staff of the Prussian Army for thirty years, he is regarded as one of the great strategists of the latter 19th century, and the creator of a new, more modern method of directing armies in the field...
. Perhaps inspired by the visit, he started preparing a paper on the design, construction and management of electrical torpedoes, the cutting-edge technology of the time.
Commander (1869–1876)
On 2 August 1869, "at the early age of twenty-eight", Fisher was promoted to commander. On 8 November, he was posted as second-in-command of HMS DonegalHMS Donegal (1858)
HMS Donegal was a 101-gun screw-driven first-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 23 September 1858 at Devonport Dockyard....
, serving under Captain Hewett
William Nathan Wrighte Hewett
Vice Admiral Sir William Nathan Wrighte Hewett VC, KCB, KCSI was an English recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.-Life:Hewett was born at Brighton to Dr. William Hewett,...
, a Crimean War Victoria Cross
Victoria Cross
The Victoria Cross is the highest military decoration awarded for valour "in the face of the enemy" to members of the armed forces of various Commonwealth countries, and previous British Empire territories....
holder. Donegal was a Conqueror-class ship of the line
Ship of the line
A ship of the line was a type of naval warship constructed from the 17th through the mid-19th century to take part in the naval tactic known as the line of battle, in which two columns of opposing warships would manoeuvre to bring the greatest weight of broadside guns to bear...
, with auxiliary screw propulsion. She plied between Portsmouth
Portsmouth
Portsmouth is the second largest city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire on the south coast of England. Portsmouth is notable for being the United Kingdom's only island city; it is located mainly on Portsea Island...
and Hong Kong, taking out relief crews and bringing home the crews they replaced. During this time he completed his torpedoes treatise.
In May 1870, he transferred, again as second in command, to HMS Ocean, flagship
Flagship
A flagship is a vessel used by the commanding officer of a group of naval ships, reflecting the custom of its commander, characteristically a flag officer, flying a distinguishing flag...
of the China Station. It was whilst he was on Ocean that he wrote an eight-page memoir: "Naval Tactics", which Captain J.G. Goodenough
James Graham Goodenough
Captain James Graham Goodenough CB CMG was an officer in the Royal Navy who went to become Commander-in-Chief, Australia Station.-Naval career:...
had printed for private circulation. He installed a system of electrical firing so that all guns could be fired simultaneously, making Ocean the first vessel to be so equipped. Fisher noted in his letters that he greatly missed his wife, but also missed his work on torpedoes and the access to important people possible with a posting in England.
In 1872, he returned to England to the gunnery school Excellent, this time as head of torpedo
Torpedo
The modern torpedo is a self-propelled missile weapon with an explosive warhead, launched above or below the water surface, propelled underwater towards a target, and designed to detonate either on contact with it or in proximity to it.The term torpedo was originally employed for...
and mine
Naval mine
A naval mine is a self-contained explosive device placed in water to destroy surface ships or submarines. Unlike depth charges, mines are deposited and left to wait until they are triggered by the approach of, or contact with, an enemy vessel...
training, during which time he split the Torpedo Branch off from Excellent, forming a separate establishment for it called HMS Vernon
HMS Vernon (shore establishment)
HMS Vernon was a shore establishment or 'stone frigate' of the Royal Navy. Vernon was established on 26 April 1876 as the Royal Navy's Torpedo Branch and operated until 1 April 1996, when the various elements comprising the establishment were split up and moved to different commands.-Foundation...
. His duties included lecturing, and negotiating the purchase of the navy's first Whitehead self-propelling torpedo. In order to promote the school, he invited politicians and journalists to attend lectures and organised demonstrations. This produced mixed reactions amongst some officers, who did not approve of his showmanship. He was promoted to captain on 30 October 1874, aged thirty-three, in time to be its first commander. HMS Vernon consisted of the hulk of Symonds'
William Symonds
Sir William Symonds FRS was "Surveyor of the Navy" in the Royal Navy from 9 June 1832 to October 1847, and took part in the naval reforms instituted by the Whig First Lord of the Admiralty Sir James Robert George Graham in 1832.-Early life:He was the second son...
famous 1832 50-gun sailing frigate, and the hulk of the 26-gun steam frigate Ariadne provided accommodation. Vesuvius, a torpedo boat of 245 tons, was Vernon's experimental tender for the conduct of torpedo trials. They were moored in Portsmouth harbour. In 1876 he served on the admiralty torpedo committee.
Captain R.N. (1876–1883)
- September 1876 – March 1877: On half-pay with his family.
- 30 January 1877 – 1 March 1877: Commanding HMS HerculesHMS Hercules (1868)HMS Hercules was a central-battery ironclad of the Royal Navy in the Victorian era, and was the first warship to mount a main armament of calibre guns....
.
Fisher was appointed to command HMS Bellerophon
HMS Bellerophon (1865)
HMS Bellerophon was a central battery ironclad built for the Royal Navy in the mid-1860s.-Design and description:In this ship, designed by Sir Edward Reed, the power-to-weight ratio was increased; the long rows of guns on the broadside were replaced by a small number of guns, centrally placed, of...
as flag captain
Flag captain
In the Royal Navy, a flag captain was the captain of an admiral's flagship. During the 18th and 19th centuries, this ship might also have a "captain of the fleet", who would be ranked between the admiral and the "flag captain" as the ship's "First Captain", with the "flag captain" as the ship's...
to the Admiral of the North America and West Indies Station, Astley Cooper-Key, from 2 March 1877 to 4 June 1878. Bellerophon had been in the dockyard for repairs, so the new crew was less than perfect in carrying out their duties. Fisher told them I intend to give you hell for three months, and if you have not come up to my standard in that time you'll have hell for another three months. Midshipman (later Admiral) A. H. Gordon Moore reported, Fisher was a very exacting master and I had at times long and arduous duties, long hours at the engine room telegraphs in cold fog, etc., and the least inattention was punished. It was, I think, his way of proving us, for he always rewarded us in some way when an extra hard bit of work was over.
Cooper Key was transferred to a special squadron operating in the Channel formed to combat fears of war with Russia. Fisher went with him as flag captain of HMS Hercules from 7 June to 21 August 1878. From 22 August to 12 September he transferred still as flag captain under Cooper Key to HMS Valorous
HMS Valorous (1851)
HMS Valorous was a 16 gun steam powered paddle wheel frigate of the Royal Navy built at Pembroke Dockyard and launched on 30 April 1851.-Design and Construction:...
. At this time Fisher first became a proponent of the new compass being designed by Sir William Thomson
William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin OM, GCVO, PC, PRS, PRSE, was a mathematical physicist and engineer. At the University of Glasgow he did important work in the mathematical analysis of electricity and formulation of the first and second laws of thermodynamics, and did much to unify the emerging...
which incorporated corrections for the deviation caused by the metal in iron ships. Between 12 September 1878 and 1 January 1879 he was again on leave.
From 9 January to 24 July 1879 Fisher commanded HMS Pallas
HMS Pallas (1865)
HMS Pallas was a purpose-built wooden-hulled ironclad of the Royal Navy, designed as a private venture by Sir Edward Reed, and accepted by the Board of Admiralty because, as an economy measure, they wished to use up the stocks of seasoned timber held in the Woolwich Dockyard...
serving in the Mediterranean Command under Geoffrey Phipps Hornby. Pallas was in poor condition, having a chain passed around the ship to hold the armour plates in place. The tour included an official visit to Istanbul
Istanbul
Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...
where Fisher dined with the sultan
Sultan
Sultan is a title with several historical meanings. Originally, it was an Arabic language abstract noun meaning "strength", "authority", "rulership", and "dictatorship", derived from the masdar سلطة , meaning "authority" or "power". Later, it came to be used as the title of certain rulers who...
of the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
from gold cups and plates. He then returned to the UK for two months leave at half pay, visiting Bruges with his family.
His next posting, starting 25 September 1879, was to HMS Northampton
HMS Northampton (1876)
HMS Northampton was a armoured cruiser of the Royal Navy, built by Robert Napier & Sons, Govan, Scotland and launched in 1876. The Nelson class were "essentially second-class ironclads". She was launched in 1876 but not commissioned until 1881....
as Flag Captain to Sir Leopold McClintock
Francis Leopold McClintock
Admiral Sir Francis Leopold McClintock or Francis Leopold M'Clintock KCB, FRS was an Irish explorer in the British Royal Navy who is known for his discoveries in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago.-Biography:...
, commanding the North American squadron. Northampton was a new ship with a number of innovations, including twin screws, searchlights and telephones, as well as being armed with torpedoes. It was fitted with an experimental Thompson-designed compass, which the inventor was on hand to adjust. Three days were spent attempting and failing to adjust the compass, with Thomson becoming increasingly bad tempered, until it was noticed that by accident the degree card had only been marked with 359 degrees instead of 360. The ship was fitted with a new design of lamp created by Captain Philip Colomb, who came on board to inspect them. As a joke, Fisher arranged for anything that could go wrong with the lamps to do so, sending Colomb away disheartened over his invention (although Fisher officially reported favourably about the lamps). On another occasion, the naval hospital at Halifax requested some flags to fly for the Queen's birthday. Fisher obliged, but sent only yellow and black flags signifying plague and quarantine. On the other hand, he worked hard at improving his ship. As reported by his second in command, Commander Wilmot Fawkes, the ship carried out 150 runs with torpedoes in a fortnight, whereas the whole rest of the navy only performed 200 in a year.
Fisher's brother Philip was serving on the training ship Atalanta
HMS Atalanta (1844)
HMS Juno was a 26-gun Spartan-class sixth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy launched in 1844 at Pembroke. As HMS Juno, she carried out the historic role in 1857 of annexing the Cocos Islands to the British Empire...
, which disappeared somewhere between the West Indies and England, believed lost in a storm. Northampton was one of the ships sent to search for her, but without result. In January 1881 Fisher received news of his appointment to the new ironclad battleship HMS Inflexible
HMS Inflexible (1876)
HMS Inflexible was a Victorian ironclad battleship carrying her main armament in centrally placed turrets. The ship was constructed in the 1870s for the Royal Navy to oppose the perceived growing threat from the Italian Regia Marina in the Mediterranean.The Italian Navy had started constructing a...
. Admiral McClintock commented, Everyone regrets the departure of Captain Fisher, but I fancy we shall not fully realize our loss until he is gone....Since his nomination to the Inflexible, his spirits have returned and daily increased, and now he almost requires wiring down. The ship was still building, so Fisher was temporarily appointed to HMS Duke of Wellington
HMS Duke of Wellington
HMS Duke of Wellington was a 131-gun first-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy. Launched in 1852, she was symptomatic of an era of rapid technological change in the navy, being powered both by sail and steam...
, flagship of the port admiral at Portsmouth between 30 January and 4 July 1881.
HMS Inflexible
Fisher was considered sufficiently able, with recommendations following all of his postings, to be appointed captain of the newly completed battleship HMS InflexibleHMS Inflexible (1876)
HMS Inflexible was a Victorian ironclad battleship carrying her main armament in centrally placed turrets. The ship was constructed in the 1870s for the Royal Navy to oppose the perceived growing threat from the Italian Regia Marina in the Mediterranean.The Italian Navy had started constructing a...
. Inflexible had the largest guns and thickest armour of any ship in the navy, but still carried masts and sails and had slow, muzzle-loading guns. She had been seven years under construction and had many innovations built into her, including electric lighting and torpedo tubes, but with such a tortuous layout that crew became lost. The sails were never used for propulsion, but because a ship's performance was partly judged on the speed with which a ship could set sails, Fisher was obliged to drill the crew in their use.
French Riviera
The Côte d'Azur, pronounced , often known in English as the French Riviera , is the Mediterranean coastline of the southeast corner of France, also including the sovereign state of Monaco...
. This was intended as a reminder of British naval prowess to the French, but allowed Fisher to meet Victoria and her grandson, Prince Heinrich of Prussia
Prince Heinrich of Prussia
Prince Henry of Prussia was a younger brother of German Emperor William II and a Prince of Prussia...
, who later became admiral of the German navy. Victoria was impressed by Fisher, as she had been by his brother Philip who had served on royal yachts and for whom she had arranged the ill-fated posting to Atalanta. Support from the royal family was to be important for Fisher's career, particularly when his innovations drew criticism.
Inflexible took part in the 1882 Anglo-Egyptian War, bombarding
Bombardment of Alexandria (1882)
The Bombardment of Alexandria, in 1882, by the British Mediterranean Fleet took place on 11–13 July 1882. Admiral Sir Frederick Beauchamp Seymour was in command of a fleet of fifteen Royal Navy ironclad ships which sailed to Alexandria...
the port of Alexandria
Alexandria
Alexandria is the second-largest city of Egypt, with a population of 4.1 million, extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country; it is also the largest city lying directly on the Mediterranean coast. It is Egypt's largest seaport, serving...
as part of Admiral Seymour's fleet. Fisher was placed in charge of a landing party which was quartered in the Khedive's palace. Lacking means of reconnaissance, he devised a plan to armour a train with iron plates, machine gun and cannon. This became celebrated and widely reported by correspondents, so that its inventor, Fisher, came to the attention of the public for the first time as a hero. Shore duty had the unfortunate effect that Fisher became seriously ill with dysentery and malaria. He refused to take sick leave, but eventually was ordered home by Lord Northbrook, who commented, 'the Admiralty could build another Inflexible, but not another Fisher'.
During this time he became a close friend of the future King Edward VII
Edward VII of the United Kingdom
Edward VII was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910...
and Queen Alexandra
Alexandra of Denmark
Alexandra of Denmark was the wife of Edward VII of the United Kingdom...
. He was appointed a Companion of the Bath (CB) in 1882.
Home Postings
From January to April 1883 Fisher was on half pay recovering from his illness. In January he was invited to visit Osborne HouseOsborne House
Osborne House is a former royal residence in East Cowes, Isle of Wight, UK. The house was built between 1845 and 1851 for Queen Victoria and Prince Albert as a summer home and rural retreat....
for a fortnight by Queen Victoria, concerned about the charming Captain Fisher. Fisher, having entered the navy penniless and unknown, was delighted.
From June–July 1885 Fisher served a short posting to HMS Minotaur
HMS Minotaur (1863)
HMS Minotaur was the lead ship of the armoured frigates built for the Royal Navy during the 1860s. They were the longest single-screw warships ever built. Minotaur took nearly four years between her launching and commissioning because she was used for evaluations of her armament and different...
in the Baltic under Admiral Hornby, following the Panjdeh Incident
Panjdeh Incident
The Panjdeh Incident or Panjdeh Scare was a battle that occurred in 1885 when Russian forces seized Afghan territory south of the Oxus River around an oasis at Panjdeh . The incident created a diplomatic crisis between Russia and Great Britain...
, which led to fear of war with Russia. He returned to Excellent and remained there until November 1885. He did not return to sea for fifteen years.
From November 1886 to 1890, he was Director of Naval Ordnance
Admiralty administration
The administration of the British Admiralty consists of the following branches and officers.-Department of the Controller :Spending branches are in the department of the controller, and it will be well, while we are dealing with the material side of the Royal Navy, to describe briefly their...
, responsible for weapons and munitions. He was responsible for the development of quick-firing guns to be used against the growing threat from torpedo boats, and particularly claimed responsibility for removing wooden boarding pikes from navy ships. The navy did not have responsibility for manufacture and supply of weapons and ammunition, which was in the hands of the War Office
War Office
The War Office was a department of the British Government, responsible for the administration of the British Army between the 17th century and 1964, when its functions were transferred to the Ministry of Defence...
. Fisher began a long campaign to return this responsibility to the admiralty, but did not finally succeed until he later became First Sea Lord. He was appointed Aide-de-Camp
Aide-de-camp
An aide-de-camp is a personal assistant, secretary, or adjutant to a person of high rank, usually a senior military officer or a head of state...
to the Queen in 1887, and promoted Rear-Admiral in August 1890.
Admiral (1890–1902)
For a few months from May 1891 to February 1892, Fisher was Admiral Superintendent of the dockyard at PortsmouthPortsmouth
Portsmouth is the second largest city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire on the south coast of England. Portsmouth is notable for being the United Kingdom's only island city; it is located mainly on Portsea Island...
, where he concerned himself with improving the speed of operations. Royal Sovereign
HMS Royal Sovereign (1891)
HMS Royal Sovereign was a Royal Sovereign class battleship of the Royal Navy, the lead ship of the class, and the largest warship in the world at the time of her construction. The ships were designed by Sir William White and were the most potent battleships in the world until HMS Dreadnought...
was built in two years rather than three, while changing a barbette
Barbette
A barbette is a protective circular armour feature around a cannon or heavy artillery gun. The name comes from the French phrase en barbette referring to the practice of firing a field gun over a parapet rather than through an opening . The former gives better angles of fire but less protection...
gun on a ship was reduced from a two-day operation to two hours. His example obliged all shipyards, both navy and private, to reduce the time they took to complete a ship, making savings in cost and allowing new designs to enter service more rapidly. He used all the tricks he could devise: an official who refused to step outside his office to personally supervise the work was offered a promotion to the tropics; he would find out the name of one or two men amongst a work crew and then make a point of complimenting them on their work and using their names, giving the impression he knew everyone personally; he took a chair and table into the yard where some operation was to be carried out and declared his intention to stay there until the operation was completed. He observed, When you are told a thing is impossible, that there are insuperable objections, then is the time to fight like the devil.
His next appointment was Third Sea Lord
Third Sea Lord
The Third Sea Lord and Controller of the Navy was formerly the Naval Lord and member of the Board of Admiralty responsible for procurement and matériel in the British Royal Navy...
, the naval officer with overall responsibility for provision of ships and equipment. He presided over the development of torpedo boat destroyers armed with quick-firing small-calibre guns (called destroyer
Destroyer
In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast and maneuverable yet long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy or battle group and defend them against smaller, powerful, short-range attackers. Destroyers, originally called torpedo-boat destroyers in 1892, evolved from...
s at Fisher's suggestion). A suggestion for the boats was brought to the admiralty in 1892 by Mr. Alfred Yarrow of shipbuilders Thornycroft and Yarrow, who reported that he had obtained plans of new torpedo boats being built by the French, and he could build a faster boat to defend against them. Torpedo boats had become a major threat, as they were cheap but potentially able to sink the largest battleships, and France had built large numbers of them. The first destroyers were considered a success and more were ordered, but Fisher immediately ran into trouble by insisting that all shipbuilders, not just Yarrow's, should be invited to build boats to Yarrow's design. A similar (though opposite) difficulty with vested interests arose over the introduction of water tube boilers into navy ships, which held out the promise of improved fuel efficiency and greater speed. The first examples were used by Thornycroft and Yarrow in 1892, and then were trialled in the gunboat Sharpshooter. However, an attempt to specify similar boilers for new cruisers in 1894 led to questions in the House of Commons, and opposition from shipbuilders who did not want to invest in the new technology. The matter continued for several years after Fisher moved on to a new posting, with a parliamentary enquiry rejecting the new boilers. Eventually the new design was adopted, but only after another eighteen ships had been built using the older design, with consequent poorer performance than necessary.
Fisher was knighted in the Queen's Birthday Honours
Queen's Birthday Honours
The Queen's Birthday Honours is a part of the British honours system, being a civic occasion on the celebration of the Queen's Official Birthday in which new members of most Commonwealth Realms honours are named. The awards are presented by the reigning monarch or head of state, currently Queen...
of 1894 as a Knight Commander of the Bath, promoted to Vice-Admiral in 1896, and put in charge of the North America and West Indies Station in 1897. In 1898 the Fashoda Crisis brought the threat of war with France, to which Fisher responded with plans to raid the French West Indies including Devil's Island
Devil's Island
Devil's Island is the smallest and northernmost island of the three Îles du Salut located about 6 nautical miles off the coast of French Guiana . It has an area of 14 ha . It was a small part of the notorious French penal colony in French Guiana until 1952...
prison, and return the infamous Alfred Dreyfus
Alfred Dreyfus
Alfred Dreyfus was a French artillery officer of Jewish background whose trial and conviction in 1894 on charges of treason became one of the most tense political dramas in modern French and European history...
to France to foment trouble within the French army. It was Fisher's policy to conduct all manoeuvres at full speed while training the fleet, and to expect the best from his crews. He would socialise with junior officers so that they were not afraid to approach him with ideas, or disagree with him when the occasion demanded.
Fisher was chosen by Prime Minister Lord Salisbury as British naval delegate to the First Hague Peace Convention
Hague Conventions (1899 and 1907)
The Hague Conventions were two international treaties negotiated at international peace conferences at The Hague in the Netherlands: The First Hague Conference in 1899 and the Second Hague Conference in 1907...
in 1899. The peace conference had been called by Russia to agree to limits on armaments, but the British position was to reject any proposal which might restrict use of the navy. Fisher's style was to say little in formal meetings, but to lobby determinedly at all informal gatherings. He impressed many by his affability and style, combined with a serious determination to press the British case with everyone he met. The conference ended successfully with limitations only upon dumdum bullets, poison gas and bombings from balloons, and Fisher was rewarded with appointment as chief of the Mediterranean station, 'the tip-top appointment of the fleet' . The German delegation summarised Britain's position: English world position depended upon the navy, the navy was sufficiently powerful to overcome any combination of states, and England reserved the right to employ that fleet any way it chose.
Mediterranean Fleet
Malta
Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...
and Gibraltar
Gibraltar
Gibraltar is a British overseas territory located on the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula at the entrance of the Mediterranean. A peninsula with an area of , it has a northern border with Andalusia, Spain. The Rock of Gibraltar is the major landmark of the region...
. The important shipping route between India and Britain passed through the Suez Canal
Suez Canal
The Suez Canal , also known by the nickname "The Highway to India", is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. Opened in November 1869 after 10 years of construction work, it allows water transportation between Europe and Asia without navigation...
, and was considered threatened by France. France was concerned with the route north-south to its colonies in Northern Africa. Fisher retained his flagship from the North American Squadron, Renown
HMS Renown (1895)
HMS Renown was a predreadnought battleship of the Royal Navy. Third and last of the lightly armed, long-range Centurion class, she had an upgraded design compared to her two sister ships HMS Centurion and HMS Barfleur....
, rather than choosing a more powerful but slower traditional battleship, despite criticism from other officers.
His strategy emphasised the importance of striking the first blow, but with an awareness that sunk ships could not easily be replaced, and would replace any officer who could not keep up with the standards he demanded. He gave lectures on naval strategy to which all officers were invited and once again encouraged his officers to bring ideas to him. He offered prizes for essays on tactics and maintained a large tabletop map room with models of all ships in the fleet, where all officers could come to develop tactics. A particular concern was the threat of torpedoes, which Germany had boasted would dispose of the British fleet, and the numerous French torpedo boats. Fisher's innovations were not universally approved, with some senior officers resenting the attention he paid to their juniors, or the pressure he placed on all to improve efficiency.
A programme of realistic exercises was adopted including simulated French raids, defensive manoeuvres, night attacks and blockades, all carried out at maximum speed. He introduced a gold cup for the ship which performed best at gunnery, and insisted upon shooting at greater range and from battle formations. He found that he too was learning some of the complications and difficulties of controlling a large fleet in complex situations, and immensely enjoyed it.
Notes from his lectures indicate that, at the start of his time in the Mediterranean, useful working ranges for heavy guns without telescopic sights were considered to be only 2000 yards, or 3000-4000 yards with such sights, whereas by the end of his time discussion centred on how to shoot effectively at 5000 yards. This was driven by the increasing range of the torpedo, which had now risen to 3000-4000 yards, necessitating ships fighting effectively at greater ranges. At this time he advocated relatively small main armaments on capital ships (some had 15 inch or greater), because the improved technical design of the relatively small (10 inch) modern guns allowed a much greater firing rate and greater overall weight of broadside. The potentially much greater ranges of large guns was not an issue, because no one knew how to aim them effectively at such ranges. He argued that 'the design of fighting ships must follow the mode of fighting instead of fighting being subsidiary to and dependant on the design of ships.'. As regards how officers needed to behave, he commented, 'Think and act for yourself' is the motto for the future, not 'Let us wait for orders'.
Maurice Hankey, 1st Baron Hankey
Maurice Pascal Alers Hankey, 1st Baron Hankey, GCB, GCMG, GCVO, PC was a British civil servant who gained prominence as the first Cabinet Secretary and who later made the rare transition from the civil service to ministerial office.-Life and career:The third son of R. A...
, then a marine serving under Fisher, later commented, 'It is difficult for anyone who had not lived under the previous regime to realize what a change Fisher brought about in the Mediterranean fleet.... Before his arrival, the topics and arguments of the officers messes...were mainly confined to such matters as the cleaning of paint and brasswork....[T]hese were forgotten and replaced by incessant controversies on tactics, strategy, gunnery, torpedo warfare, blockade, etc. It was a veritable renaissance and affected every officer in the navy'. Charles Beresford
Lord Charles Beresford
Charles William de la Poer Beresford, 1st Baron Beresford GCB GCVO , styled Lord Charles Beresford between 1859 and 1916, was a British Admiral and Member of Parliament....
, later to become a severe critic of Fisher, gave up a plan to return to Britain and enter parliament, because he had 'learnt more in the last week than in the last forty years'.
Fisher implemented a program of banquets and balls for important dignitaries to improve diplomatic relations. The fleet visited Constantinople, where he had three meetings with the sultan and was awarded the Grand Cordon, Order of Osmanieh in November 1900, and promoted to full Admiral
Admiral
Admiral is the rank, or part of the name of the ranks, of the highest naval officers. It is usually considered a full admiral and above vice admiral and below admiral of the fleet . It is usually abbreviated to "Adm" or "ADM"...
in November 1901. He lobbied hard with the admiralty to obtain additional ships and supplies for the Mediterranean squadron. Beresford, who had established a career in politics alongside his naval one, continued a public campaign for greater funding of the fleet, which caused him to come into conflict with the admiralty. While Fisher agreed with him as to the need for greater funding and instant readiness for war, he chose to stay out of the public debate. However, he maintained a steady confidential correspondence with the journalist Arnold White
Arnold White
-Early life:In 1879, he married Helen Constance , only daughter of Lowell Price of Farnham Royal, Buckinghamshire. She predeceased him and they had one son.-Politics:...
, providing him with information and advice for a newspaper campaign promoting the needs of the navy. During the course of the correspondence in 1902, Fisher noted that although France was Britain's traditional enemy, Britain had considerable common interest with France as a possible ally, whereas growing German activity abroad made her a much more likely enemy.
The correspondence revealed that Fisher remained uncertain how his views were being received at the admiralty and an uncertainty on his part whether he would receive further promotions. He had already received approaches to become a director of Armstrong Whitworth
Armstrong Whitworth
Sir W G Armstrong Whitworth & Co Ltd was a major British manufacturing company of the early years of the 20th century. Headquartered in Elswick, Newcastle upon Tyne, Armstrong Whitworth engaged in the construction of armaments, ships, locomotives, automobiles, and aircraft.-History:In 1847,...
, of Elswick
Elswick, Tyne and Wear
Elswick is a ward of the city of Newcastle upon Tyne, England, in the western part of the city, bordering the river Tyne. One of the earliest references to the coal mining industry of the north east occurs in 1330, when it was recorded that the Prior of Tynemouth let a colliery, called Heygrove, at...
(then Britain's largest armaments firm), at a considerably larger salary than that of an admiral and with the possibility of building privately new designs of ship which he believed would be needed to maintain the strength of the fleet.
Second Sea Lord: reform of officer training (1902-1904)
Second Sea Lord
The Second Sea Lord and Commander-in-Chief Naval Home Command , commonly just known as the Second Sea Lord , is one of the most senior admirals of the British Royal Navy , and is responsible for personnel and naval shore establishments.-History:In 1805, for the first time, specific functions were...
in charge of personnel. At this time engineering officers, who had become increasingly important in the fleet as it became steadily more dependent upon machinery, were still largely looked down upon by command officers. Fisher considered it would be better for the navy if the two branches could be merged, as had been done in the past with navigation officers who had similarly once been a completely separate speciality. His solution was to merge the cadet training of ordinary and engineer officers and revise the curriculum so that it provided a suitable grounding to later go on to either path. The proposal was initially resisted by the remainder of the board of admiralty, but Fisher convinced them of the benefits of the changes. Objections within the navy as a whole were harder to quell and a campaign once again broke out in newspapers. Fisher was thoroughly aware of the benefits of getting the press on his side and continued to leak information to friendly journalists. Beresford was approached by officers objecting to the changes to act as champion of their cause, but sided with Fisher on this issue.
Training was extended from two years to four, with the resulting need for more accommodation for cadets. A second cadet establishment was constructed at Osborne on the Isle of Wight for the first two years, with the last two remaining at Dartmouth. All cadets now received an education in science and technology as it related to life on board a ship as well as navigation and seamanship. Those who went on to be command officers would now have the benefit of improved understanding of their ships while those who became engineers would be better equipped for command. Physical education and sport were to be taught, not only for the benefit of the cadets but also for the future training of ships' crews which were expected to produce sporting teams on good-will visits in foreign ports. Entrance by examination, which biased the intake to those who could obtain special tuition, was replaced with an interview committee tasked with determining the general knowledge of candidates and their reaction to the questions as much as their answers. After the four years, cadets were posted to special training ships for final practical experience before being posted to real command positions. The results of the final examination affected the seniority allotted to each cadet and his chance of future early promotion.
In 1903 he became Commander-in-Chief, Portsmouth
Commander-in-Chief, Portsmouth
The Commander-in-Chief, Portsmouth was a senior commander of the Royal Navy for hundreds of years. Portsmouth Command was a name given to the units, establishments, and staff operating under the post.-History:...
. As C-in-C, Portsmouth, HMS Victory
HMS Victory
HMS Victory is a 104-gun first-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, laid down in 1759 and launched in 1765. She is most famous as Lord Nelson's flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805....
became his flagship. He was appointed a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath (GCB) in 1902.
First Sea Lord (1904–1910)
Trafalgar Day
Trafalgar Day is the celebration of the victory won by the Royal Navy, commanded by Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson over the combined French and Spanish fleets at the Battle of Trafalgar on 21 October 1805. The formation of the Navy League in 1894 gave added impetus to the movement to recognise...
), following breakfast with the King, Edward VII, at Buckingham Palace
Buckingham Palace
Buckingham Palace, in London, is the principal residence and office of the British monarch. Located in the City of Westminster, the palace is a setting for state occasions and royal hospitality...
, Fisher was sworn in as First Sea Lord
First Sea Lord
The First Sea Lord is the professional head of the Royal Navy and the whole Naval Service; it was formerly known as First Naval Lord. He also holds the title of Chief of Naval Staff, and is known by the abbreviations 1SL/CNS...
, 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
Order of Merit
The Order of Merit is a British dynastic order recognising distinguished service in the armed forces, science, art, literature, or for the promotion of culture...
(OM), in December he was promoted Admiral of the Fleet
Admiral of the Fleet (Royal Navy)
Admiral of the fleet is the highest rank of the British Royal Navy and other navies, which equates to the NATO rank code OF-10. The rank still exists in the Royal Navy but routine appointments ceased in 1996....
.
Fisher was brought into the Admiralty
Admiralty
The Admiralty was formerly the authority in the Kingdom of England, and later in the United Kingdom, responsible for the command of the Royal Navy...
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. The navy estimate for 1905 was reduced by £3.5 million on the previous year's total of £36.8 million despite new building programs and greatly increased effectiveness. Naval expenditure fell from 1905 to 1907, before rising again. By the end of Fisher's tenure as First Sea Lord expenditure had returned to 1904 levels.
He was a driving force behind the development of the fast, all-big-gun battleship
Battleship
A battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of heavy caliber guns. Battleships were larger, better armed and armored than cruisers and destroyers. As the largest armed ships in a fleet, battleships were used to attain command of the sea and represented the apex of a...
, and chaired the Committee on Designs which produced the outline design for the first modern battleship, HMS Dreadnought
HMS Dreadnought (1906)
HMS Dreadnought was a battleship of the British Royal Navy that revolutionised naval power. Her entry into service in 1906 represented such a marked advance in naval technology that her name came to be associated with an entire generation of battleships, the "dreadnoughts", as well as the class of...
. 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
Battlecruiser
Battlecruisers were large capital ships built in the first half of the 20th century. They were developed in the first decade of the century as the successor to the armoured cruiser, but their evolution was more closely linked to that of the dreadnought battleship...
, the first being HMS Invincible. He also encouraged the introduction of submarine
Submarine
A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below the surface of the water. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability...
s into the Royal Navy, and the conversion from a largely coal
Coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...
-fuelled navy to an oil
Petroleum
Petroleum or crude oil is a naturally occurring, flammable liquid consisting of a complex mixture of hydrocarbons of various molecular weights and other liquid organic compounds, that are found in geologic formations beneath the Earth's surface. Petroleum is recovered mostly through oil drilling...
-fuelled one. He had a long-running public feud with another admiral, Charles Beresford.
In 1908, he predicted that war between Britain and Germany would occur in mid-1914, which later proved exactly accurate, basing his statement on the projected completion date of the Kiel Canal
Kiel Canal
The Kiel Canal , known as the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Kanal until 1948, is a long canal in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein.The canal links the North Sea at Brunsbüttel to the Baltic Sea at Kiel-Holtenau. An average of is saved by using the Kiel Canal instead of going around the Jutland Peninsula....
, which Germany needed to move its warships safely from the Baltic
Baltic Sea
The Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and...
to the North Sea
North Sea
In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean. In the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively...
.
On 7 December 1909, he was created Baron Fisher, of Kilverstone
Kilverstone
Kilverstone is a civil parish in the English county of Norfolk east of Thetford.It covers an area of and had a population of 60 in 25 households as of the 2001 census...
. He took the punning motto "Fear God and dread nought" on his coat of arms
Coat of arms
A coat of arms is a unique heraldic design on a shield or escutcheon or on a surcoat or tabard used to cover and protect armour and to identify the wearer. Thus the term is often stated as "coat-armour", because it was anciently displayed on the front of a coat of cloth...
as a reference to Dreadnought.
Before the war (1911–1914)
In 1912, Fisher was appointed chairman of the Royal Commission
Royal Commission
In Commonwealth realms and other monarchies a Royal Commission is a major ad-hoc formal public inquiry into a defined issue. They have been held in various countries such as the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and Saudi Arabia...
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 his German name. The Times reported that Fisher "was now entering the close of his 74th year but he was never younger or more vigorous". He resigned on 15 May 1915 amidst bitter arguments with the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston ChurchillWinston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
, over Gallipoli
Battle of Gallipoli
The Gallipoli Campaign, also known as the Dardanelles Campaign or the Battle of Gallipoli, took place at the peninsula of Gallipoli in the Ottoman Empire between 25 April 1915 and 9 January 1916, during the First World War...
, causing Churchill's resignation too. Lord Fisher was never entirely enthusiastic about the campaign—going back and forth in his support, to the consternation and frustration of members of the cabinet—and all in all preferred an amphibious attack on the German Baltic Sea
Baltic Sea
The Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and...
coastline (the Baltic Project
Baltic Project
The Baltic Project was a plan promoted by the Admiral Lord Fisher to procure a speedy victory in a war with Germany. It involved landing a substantial force, either British or Russian soldiers, on the flat beaches of Pomerania on the North German coast, under 100 miles from Berlin. To support this...
), even having the shallow-draft battlecruisers HMS Furious
HMS Furious (47)
HMS Furious was a modified cruiser built for the Royal Navy during the First World War. Designed to support the Baltic Project championed by the First Sea Lord of the Admiralty, Lord John Fisher, they were very lightly armoured and armed with only a few heavy guns. Furious was modified while...
, HMS Glorious and HMS Courageous
HMS Courageous (50)
HMS Courageous was the lead ship of the cruisers built for the Royal Navy during the First World War. Designed to support the Baltic Project championed by the First Sea Lord, John Fisher, the ship was very lightly armoured and armed with only a few heavy guns. Courageous was completed in late...
constructed for the purpose. As the Gallipoli campaign failed, relations with Churchill had become increasingly acrimonious. One of Fisher's last contributions to naval construction was the projected HMS Incomparable
HMS Incomparable
HMS Incomparable was the name given by Admiral "Jackie" Fisher to a proposal for a very large battlecruiser which was suggested in 1915. It never entered the design stage nor came close to being built....
, a mammoth battlecruiser which took the principles of the Courageous class another step further; mounting 20-inch guns, but still with minimal armour, Incomparable was never approved for construction.
Last years (1915–1920)
Fisher was made chairman of the Government's Board of Invention and Research, serving in that post until the end of the war. In 1917 he was awarded the Japanese Order of the Rising Sun with Paulownia Flowers, Grand CordonOrder of the Rising Sun
The is a Japanese order, established in 1875 by Emperor Meiji of Japan. The Order was the first national decoration awarded by the Japanese Government, created on April 10, 1875 by decree of the Council of State. The badge features rays of sunlight from the rising sun...
, the highest of eight classes associated with the award. Notice of the King's permission to accept and to display this honour was duly published in the London Gazette
London Gazette
The London Gazette is one of the official journals of record of the British government, and the most important among such official journals in the United Kingdom, in which certain statutory notices are required to be published...
.
Admiral Fisher's 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.
Fisher died of cancer at St. James Square, London, on 10 July 1920, aged 79 and he was given a grand national funeral at Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey
The Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster, popularly known as Westminster Abbey, is a large, mainly Gothic church, in the City of Westminster, London, United Kingdom, located just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is the traditional place of coronation and burial site for English,...
.
His coffin was drawn on a gun-carriage through the streets of London to Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey
The Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster, popularly known as Westminster Abbey, is a large, mainly Gothic church, in the City of Westminster, London, United Kingdom, located just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is the traditional place of coronation and burial site for English,...
by bluejackets, with six admirals as pall-bearers and an escort of Royal Marines, their arms reversed, to the slow beat of muffled drums. That evening, the body was cremated at the Golders Green crematorium. The following day, Fisher's ashes were taken by train to Kilverstone, escorted by a Royal Navy guard of honour, and were placed in the grave of his wife, underneath a chestnut tree, overlooking the figurehead of his first seagoing ship, Calcutta
HMS Calcutta (1831)
HMS Calcutta was an 84-gun second-rate ship-of-the-line of the Royal Navy, built in teak to a draught by Sir Robert Seppings and launched on 14 March 1831 in Bombay. She was the only ship ever built to her draught. She carried her complement of smooth-bore, muzzle-loading guns on two gundecks...
.
In folklore and popular culture
- Fisher's life is celebrated in the folk song "Old Admirals" by the Scottish singer Al StewartAl StewartAl Stewart is a Scottish singer-songwriter and folk-rock musician.Stewart came to stardom as part of the British folk revival in the 1960s and 1970s, and developed his own unique style of combining folk-rock songs with delicately woven tales of the great characters and events from history.He is...
, and he is expressly referred to in Stewart's earlier song "Manuscript" - "Admiral Lord Fisher is writing to Churchill, calling for more dreadnoughts".
- A reference to Fisher was hidden as an encrypted message, the Smithy codeSmithy codeThe Smithy code is series of letters embedded, as a private amusement,within the April 2006 approved judgement of Mr Justice Peter Smith on the The Da Vinci Code copyright case...
, by Mr Justice Peter SmithPeter Smith (judge)Sir Peter Winston Smith , styled The Hon Mr Justice Peter Smith, is a Judge of the High Court of Justice in England and Wales, appointed to that office on 15 April 2002 and assigned to the Chancery Division...
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".
- Fisher is credited with the earliest known use of the phrase "OMGSMS languageSMS language or textese is a term for the abbreviations and slang most commonly used due to the necessary brevity of mobile phone text messaging, in particular the widespread SMS SMS language or textese (also known as txt-speak, txtese, chatspeak, txt, txtspk, txtk, txto, texting language, txt...
" as an abbreviation for "Oh my God".
Honours
- Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath, 1896
- Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath, 1902.
- Order of MeritOrder of MeritThe Order of Merit is a British dynastic order recognising distinguished service in the armed forces, science, art, literature, or for the promotion of culture...
, 1905. - Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order, 1908.
- Légion d'honneurLégion d'honneurThe Legion of Honour, or in full the National Order of the Legion of Honour is a French order established by Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of the Consulat which succeeded to the First Republic, on 19 May 1802...
, France, 1906. - Order of Osminieh, 1900.
- Order of the Rising Sun with Paulownia Flowers, Grand CordonOrder of the Rising SunThe is a Japanese order, established in 1875 by Emperor Meiji of Japan. The Order was the first national decoration awarded by the Japanese Government, created on April 10, 1875 by decree of the Council of State. The badge features rays of sunlight from the rising sun...
, 1917.
Styles
- 1841–1856: John Arbuthnot Fisher
- 1856–1860: MidshipmanMidshipmanA midshipman is an officer cadet, or a commissioned officer of the lowest rank, in the Royal Navy, United States Navy, and many Commonwealth navies. Commonwealth countries which use the rank include Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, Pakistan, Singapore, Sri Lanka and Kenya...
John Arbuthnot Fisher - 1860–1861: Sub-LieutenantSub-LieutenantSub-lieutenant is a military rank. It is normally a junior officer rank.In many navies, a sub-lieutenant is a naval commissioned or subordinate officer, ranking below a lieutenant. In the Royal Navy the rank of sub-lieutenant is equivalent to the rank of lieutenant in the British Army and of...
John Arbuthnot Fisher - 1861–1869: LieutenantLieutenantA lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer in many nations' armed forces. Typically, the rank of lieutenant in naval usage, while still a junior officer rank, is senior to the army rank...
John Arbuthnot Fisher - 1869–1876: CommanderCommanderCommander is a naval rank which is also sometimes used as a military title depending on the individual customs of a given military service. Commander is also used as a rank or title in some organizations outside of the armed forces, particularly in police and law enforcement.-Commander as a naval...
John Arbuthnot Fisher - 1876–1882: CaptainCaptain (naval)Captain is the name most often given in English-speaking navies to the rank corresponding to command of the largest ships. The NATO rank code is OF-5, equivalent to an army full colonel....
John Arbuthnot Fisher - 1882–1890: Captain John Arbuthnot Fisher, CBOrder of the BathThe Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate mediæval ceremony for creating a knight, which involved bathing as one of its elements. The knights so created were known as Knights of the Bath...
- 1890–1894: Rear-Admiral John Arbuthnot Fisher, CB
- 1894–1896: Rear-Admiral SirSirSir is an honorific used as a title , or as a courtesy title to address a man without using his given or family name in many English speaking cultures...
John Arbuthnot Fisher, KCBOrder of the BathThe Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate mediæval ceremony for creating a knight, which involved bathing as one of its elements. The knights so created were known as Knights of the Bath...
; abbreviated where necessary to Admiral Sir John Fisher - 1896–1901: Vice-Admiral Sir John Arbuthnot Fisher, KCB
- 1901–1902: AdmiralAdmiralAdmiral is the rank, or part of the name of the ranks, of the highest naval officers. It is usually considered a full admiral and above vice admiral and below admiral of the fleet . It is usually abbreviated to "Adm" or "ADM"...
Sir John Arbuthnot Fisher, KCB - 1902 – June 1905: Admiral Sir John Arbuthnot Fisher, GCB
- June – December 1905: Admiral Sir John Arbuthnot Fisher, GCB, OMOrder of MeritThe Order of Merit is a British dynastic order recognising distinguished service in the armed forces, science, art, literature, or for the promotion of culture...
- December 1905–1908: Admiral of the FleetAdmiral of the FleetAn admiral of the fleet is a military naval officer of the highest rank. In many nations the rank is reserved for wartime or ceremonial appointments...
Sir John Arbuthnot Fisher, GCB, OM - 1908–1909: Admiral of the Fleet Sir John Arbuthnot Fisher, GCB, OM, GCVO
- 1909–1920: Admiral of the Fleet The Right HonourableThe Right HonourableThe Right Honourable is an honorific prefix that is traditionally applied to certain people in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Anglophone Caribbean and other Commonwealth Realms, and occasionally elsewhere...
the Lord Fisher of Kilverstone, GCB, OM, GCVO; abbreviated to Lord Fisher
Further reading
- Fisher, John Arbuthnot Fisher, Baron. Records, by the Admiral of the Fleet, Lord Fisher London, New York [etc.]: Hodder and Stoughton, 1919.
- Heathcote, T. A. (2002). The British Admirals of the Fleet 1734 - 1995. Pen & Sword Ltd. ISBN 0850528356
- Lambert, Nicholas A. Sir John Fisher's Naval Revolution. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1999.
- Massie, Robert K. Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany, and the Winning of the Great War at SeaCastles of Steel: Britain, Germany, and the Winning of the Great War at SeaCastles of Steel is a work of non-fiction by Pulitzer Prize-winner Robert K. Massie. It details the naval actions of the First World War with an emphasis on those of the United Kingdom and Imperial Germany. This book continues the examination of the naval arms race between these two powers in...
. Great Britain: Jonathon Cape, 2004. - Murfett, Malcolm H. The First Sea Lords from Fisher to Mountbatten. Westport, 1995.
- Sumida, Jon Tetsuro. In Defence of Naval Supremacy: Finance, Technology, and British Naval Policy 1889–1914. Paperback ed. London and New York: Routledge, 1993.
External links
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