FISHER, JOHN ARBUTHNOT, first Baron Fisher, of Kilverstone (1841-1920), admiral of the fleet, born 25 January 1841 in Ceylon, was the elder son of Captain William Fisher, of the 78th Highlanders and 95th Foot, by his wife, Sophia, daughter of Alfred Lambe, of New Bond Street, London. Fisher entered the royal navy on 13 July 1854, on a nomination from Admiral Sir William Parker. He was appointed as naval cadet to the Calcutta and served in the Baltic fleet during the Crimean War. Two years later he joined the Highflyer as midshipman and served in China during the war of 1859–1860, being present at the capture of Canton and the attack on the Peiho forts. He was transferred to the Furious, promoted acting lieutenant early in 1860, and confirmed in November of that year, after winning the Beaufort testimonial, while still on the China station. Having qualified in the gunnery school Excellent he joined the Warrior, the first ‘ironclad’, in 1863, and a year later was appointed to the staff of the Excellent, where he remained till November 1869; he was promoted commander in August of that year. Then came another three-year commission in the flagship on the China station, and in 1872 he was again appointed to the Excellent, this time for experimental work on the torpedo, a new weapon then being tested. He remained on instructional and experimental work at Portsmouth for the next four years, and devoted himself to the development of the torpedo. He was chiefly responsible for establishing a separate torpedo school which was developed out of the gunnery school and finally placed in the Vernon. In 1874 he was promoted captain at the age of thirty-three, and at the end of 1876 he came for the first time to the Admiralty to serve on a torpedo committee and to go out to Fiume to study experiments with the Whitehead torpedo. He was then at sea for six years—in command of the Pallas, under Sir Geoffrey Hornby, in the Mediterranean; as flag captain to Sir Cooper Key in the Bellerophon and Hercules in the North America and particular service squadron; then again commanding the Pallas in the Mediterranean; and from September 1879 to January 1881 in the Northampton as flag captain to Sir Leopold McClintock on the North America and West Indies station; finally being brought home specially to fit out and command the Inflexible, the greatest battleship of the day. In her he was present at the attack on the Alexandria forts (July 1882), under Sir Beauchamp Seymour (afterwards Lord Alcester), and did signal service in fitting out an armoured train and commanding it in action against Arabi Pasha. For this he was awarded the C.B. He returned from Egypt with fever and was ill for nine months.
Fisher now began a period of fourteen years’ service ashore, only broken by a few weeks in command of the Minotaur in the evolutionary squadron of the summer of 1885. He was for three years captain of the gunnery school at Portsmouth, for four years director of ordnance and torpedoes at the Admiralty, being promoted rear-admiral in 1890; for one year superintendent of Portsmouth dockyard; and for three years third sea lord and controller of the navy. In the ordnance department he secured, after a long fight with the War Office, in which Lord Salisbury as prime minister was called in to arbitrate, the transfer of the control of naval guns from the army to the Admiralty. At Portsmouth dockyard he superintended the building of the new battleship Royal Sovereign. As controller he was responsible for the execution of the great programme of shipbuilding authorized by the Naval Defence Act (1889), and carried the adoption of the water-tube boiler in the face of great opposition. He had long been a marked man, noticed for his outstanding ability and originality by all first lords from Mr. Ward Hunt to Earl Spencer. He was promoted K.C.B. in 1894.
Mr. (afterwards Viscount) Goschen, on coming to Whitehall as first lord for the second time in 1895, found Fisher a member of the board, and appointed him commander-in-chief, North America and West Indies station, in 1897, after he had been promoted vice-admiral in May 1896. On that station Fisher showed his diplomatic quality by his friendly relations with the American Admiral Sampson during the Cuban War. As British naval delegate he attended the first Hague Conference in 1899, and was one of the outstanding figures in that gathering of diplomatists, international lawyers, seamen, and soldiers of the principal nations of the world. His grasp of realities and of the essential principles of modern warfare did much to keep the conference on reasonably sound lines. He was then transferred to the Mediterranean with his flagship Renown to take command of the greatest fleet England then possessed. His tenure of that command was remarkable for his determination to ensure in every
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