H. A. L. Fisher

Herbert Albert Laurens Fisher {{postnominals|country=GBR|OM|PC|FRS|FBA}}{{Cite journal | last1 = Murray | first1 = G. | title = Herbert Albert Laurens Fisher. 1865-1940 | doi = 10.1098/rsbm.1941.0019 | journal = Obituary Notices of Fellows of the Royal Society | volume = 3 | issue = 10 | pages = 518–526 | year = 1941 | s2cid = 159696817 }}H.A.L. Fisher: A History of Europe, Volume II: From the Beginning of the Eighteenth Century to 1935, Glasgow: Fontana/Collins, 1984, p. i. (21 March 1865 – 18 April 1940) was an English historian, educator, and Liberal politician. He served as President of the Board of Education in David Lloyd George's 1916 to 1922 coalition government.

Background and education

Fisher was born on 21 March 1865, in London,[https://web.archive.org/web/19991117135203/http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/EDfisher.htm Herbert Fisher] the eldest son of Herbert William Fisher (1826–1903), author of Considerations on the Origin of the American War and his wife Mary Louisa Jackson (1841–1916). His sister Adeline Maria Fisher was the first wife of the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, another sister Florence Henrietta Fisher married both Frederic William Maitland and Sir Francis Darwin. His sister Cordelia Fisher married the author, critic and journalist Richard Curle and was the mother of the academic Adam Curle.{{cite web|url=https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/search/archives/c51be206-a306-3ea1-9404-60fead28e3b0|title=The Adam Curle Archive|access-date=11 November 2020|publisher=Archives Hub}} Fisher was a first cousin of Virginia Woolf and her sister Vanessa Bell (the children of his mother's sister Julia). He was educated at Winchester and New College, Oxford, where he graduated with a first class degree in 1888 and was awarded a fellowship.

Career

Fisher was a tutor in modern history at the University of Oxford. His publications include Bonapartism (1908), The Republican Tradition in Europe (1911) and Napoleon (1913). In September 1912, he was appointed (with Lord Islington, Lord Ronaldshay, Justice Abdur Rahim, and others) as a member of the Royal Commission on the Public Services in India of 1912–1915.{{London Gazette |issue=28642 |date=6 September 1912 |page=6631 }} Between 1913 and 1917, he was Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sheffield.Helen Mathers: Steel City Scholars: The Centenary History of the University of Sheffield, London: James & James, 2005

In December 1916 Fisher was elected Member of Parliament for Sheffield Hallam{{cite web |url=http://www.leighrayment.com/commons/Hcommons1.htm |title=THE HOUSE OF COMMONS CONSTITUENCIES BEGINNING WITH "H" |website=Leighrayment.com |access-date=13 March 2017 |url-status=usurped |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181020202137/http://www.leighrayment.com/commons/Hcommons1.htm |archive-date=20 October 2018 }} and joined the government of David Lloyd George as President of the Board of Education.{{London Gazette |issue=29865 |date=15 December 1916 |page=12227 }} He was sworn of the Privy Council the same month.{{London Gazette |issue=29875 |date=22 December 1916 |page=12471 }} In this post he was instrumental in the formulation of the Education Act 1918, which made school attendance compulsory for children up to the age of 14. Fisher was also responsible for the School Teachers (Superannuation) Act 1918, which provided pension provision for all teachers.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4nUr0rIZn3wC&q=UK+Fisher+Superannuation+Act+1918&pg=PA81 |title=Outdoor Learning: Past And Present: Past and Present |author=Joyce, Rosaleen |page=81 |date= February 2012|isbn=9780335243013 |access-date=13 March 2017}}

In 1918, he became MP for the Combined English Universities.{{cite web |url=http://www.leighrayment.com/commons/Ccommons5.htm |title=THE HOUSE OF COMMONS CONSTITUENCIES BEGINNING WITH "C" |website=Leighrayment.com |access-date=13 March 2017 |url-status=usurped |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091220042059/http://www.leighrayment.com/commons/Ccommons5.htm |archive-date=20 December 2009 }}

Fisher resigned his seat in parliament through appointment as Steward of the Chiltern Hundreds on 15 February 1926, retiring from politics to take up the post of warden of New College, Oxford, which he held until his death. There he published a three-volume History of Europe ({{ISBN|0-00-636506-X}}) in 1935. He served on the British Academy, the British Museum, the Rhodes Trustees, the National Trust, the Governing Body of Winchester, the London Library and the BBC. He was awarded the 1927 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his biography James Bryce, Viscount Bryce of Dechmont, O.M.{{cite web|url=https://www.ed.ac.uk/events/james-tait-black/winners/biography|title=Biography winners Winners of the James Tait Black Prize for Biography.|publisher=The University of Edinburgh|access-date=22 November 2019}} and received the Order of Merit in 1937.{{cite web|url=http://www.leighrayment.com/orders/orderofmerit.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080607022546/http://www.leighrayment.com/orders/orderofmerit.htm |archive-date=7 June 2008 |website=Leighrayment.com|access-date=13 March 2017|url-status=usurped |title= Order of Merit}}

In 1939, he was appointed first Chairman of the Appellate Tribunal for Conscientious Objectors in England and Wales.Rachel Barker: Conscience, Government and War, Routledge, 1982

Fisher died in St Thomas's Hospital, London, on 18 April 1940, aged 75, after having been knocked down by a lorry and seriously injured the previous week,"Obituaries." Times [London, England] 19 April 1940: 9. The Times Digital Archive. Web. 29 May 2012 while on his way to sit on a Conscientious Objectors' Tribunal during the blackout.{{cite book|author1=Randolph Spencer Churchill|author2=Martin Gilbert|title=Winston S. Churchill: 1922–1939, the prophet of youth|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XUc-AQAAIAAJ|access-date=1 June 2012|year=1983|publisher=Houghton Mifflin|isbn=9780395330760}} Some of his possessions, including his library and some of his clothing, remained at New College.

In 1943, Operation Mincemeat, a British Intelligence operation to deceive enemy forces, undertook the invention of a false Royal Marines officer, whose body was to be dropped at sea in the hope the false intelligence it carried would be believed. As the fictitious Major Martin was to be a man of some means, he required quality underwear, but with rationing this was difficult to obtain, and the intelligence officers were unwilling to donate their own. Fisher's was obtained, and the corpse used in the deception, dressed in Fisher's quality woollen underpants, succeeded in misleading German Intelligence.{{cite news|url=http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/book_extracts/article6986802.ece| title=Operation Mincemeat: full story of how corpse tricked the Nazis |newspaper=The Times |date=14 January 2010 |first=Ben |last=Macintyre| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110615101936/http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/book_extracts/article6986802.ece | archive-date=15 June 2011 }}Operation Mincemeat, BBC Four, 22 February 2011

Family

Fisher married the economist and historian Lettice Ilbert (1875–1956) in 1899. Their only child was the British academic Mary Bennett. She was interviewed, in October 1974, about her parents, by the historian, Brian Harrison, as part of the Suffrage Interviews project, titled Oral evidence on the suffragette and suffragist movements: the Brian Harrison interviews. Bennett talks about Fisher's support for his wife, and their shared interests in Oxford, Suffragism and Liberal politics, as well as their friendship with Gilbert Murray and Sir Lady Murray.{{Cite web |last=London School of Economics and Political Science |first= |title=The Suffrage Interviews |url=https://www.lse.ac.uk/library/collection-highlights/the-suffrage-interviews.aspx |access-date=2024-03-28 |website=London School of Economics and Political Science |language=en-GB}}

Portraits

A portrait drawing of Fisher by Catharine Dodgson and an oil portrait by William Nicholson (artist) hang at New College, Oxford. The college also possess a conversation piece by Berthe Noufflard of Fisher, Lettice Ilbert, and Mary Bennett.

Works

[https://archive.org/stream/medievalempire01fishuoft#page/n5/mode/2up The Medieval Empire,] [https://archive.org/stream/medievalempire02fishuoft#page/n7/mode/2up Vol. 2], Macmillan & Co., 1898.
[https://archive.org/stream/studiesinnapole00fish#page/ii/mode/2up Studies in Napoleonic Statesmanship: Germany,] Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1903.
[https://archive.org/stream/historyenglandf00fishgoog#page/n10/mode/2up The History of England, from the Accession of Henry VII to the Death of Henry VIII, 1485–1547,] Longmans, Green & Co., 1906.
[https://archive.org/stream/bonapartismsixle00fishiala#page/n3/mode/2up Bonapartism; Six Lectures Delivered in the University of London,] Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1908.
[https://archive.org/stream/cu31924030447761#page/n3/mode/2up The Republican Tradition in Europe,] Methuen & Co., 1911.
{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/stream/napoleon00fishgoog#page/n10/mode/2up |title= Napoleon |publisher= H. Holt and Company |year= 1913}} [1st Pub. 1912].
{{cite book |author= Committee on Alleged German Outrages (James Bryce; F. Pollock; Edward Clarke; Kenelm Edward Digby; Alfred Hopkinson; H. A. L. Fisher; Harold Cox) |title=Report of the Committee on Alleged German Outrages Appointed by His Britannic Majesty's Government and Presided over by The Right Hon. Viscount Bryce, O.M., &c. |publisher= Macmillan Company |year= 1915 |place= New York|url=https://archive.org/details/reportofcommitte01grea/page/n5/mode/2up?view=theater |via= Internet Archive |accessdate= 23 February 2024}}
[https://archive.org/stream/studiesinhistory00fish#page/n5/mode/2up Studies in History and Politics,] Oxford : The Clarendon Press, 1920.
[https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.225141/page/n3/mode/2up The Common Weal,] Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1924.
[https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.178411James Bryce], 2 vols. London: Macmillan, 1927.
[https://archive.org/details/b2997821x/page/n1/mode/2up Our New Religion], Ernest Benn, 1929. An examination of Christian Science.This particular copy from the Wellcome Library belonged to Charles Kellaway, complete with a Sydney bookseller's stamp.
{{cite book |url = https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.532575 |title =A History of Europe |volume= 1 |place = London |publisher= Eyre & Spottiswoode |year= 1935 |via= Internet Archive}} [https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.532586 volume 2];

=Articles=

[https://archive.org/stream/englishhistorica05londuoft#page/n5/mode/2up "Fustel de Coulanges"], The English Historical Review, Vol. V, 1890.
[https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.189877/page/n11/mode/2up "The Codes"] in The Cambridge Modern History, vol. ix, Cambridge: University Press, 1906.
[http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b2973556;seq=53;view=1up;num=43 "The Political Writings of Rousseau"], The Edinburgh Review, Vol. CCXXIV, N°. 457, July 1916.
"The Whig Historians", in Proceedings of the British Academy, n. 14, 1928.
[https://archive.org/details/sim_twentieth-century_1934-12_116_694/page/662/mode/2up "A Universal Historian"] in The Nineteenth Century and After, vol. 116, no. 694, December, London: Constable, 1934.

=Pamphlets=

[https://archive.org/stream/cihm_66912#page/n3/mode/2up The Value of Small States,] Oxford Pamphlets, N°. 17, Oxford University Press, 1914.
[https://archive.org/stream/britishshareinwa00fishuoft#page/n3/mode/2up The British Share in the War,] T. Nelson & Sons, 1915.
[https://archive.org/stream/politicalprophec00fish#page/n5/mode/2up Political Prophecies. An Address to the Edinburg Philosophical Society Delivered Nov. 5, 1918,] Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1919.
The Place of the University in National Life, Oxford University Press, 1919.
Paul Valéry, Oxford, The Clarendon Press, 1927.
What to Read on Citizenship, Leeds, Jowett & Sowry Ltd., 1928.

References

External links

{{Gutenberg author|id=36431}}
{{Hansard-contribs | mr-herbert-fisher | Herbert Fisher }}

{{succession box | before = Charles Stuart-Wortley | title = Member of Parliament for Sheffield Hallam | years = 1916–1918 | after = Douglas Vickers }}

{{s-ttl

| title = Member of Parliament for Combined English Universities

| with = Sir Martin Conway

| years = 1918–1926

}}

{{succession box | title = President of the Board of Education | years = 1916–1922 | before = The Marquess of Crewe | after = Hon. E. F. L. Wood}}

{{succession box|title=Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sheffield|years=1913–1917|before=Charles Eliot|after=William Ripper}}

Category:1865 births

Category:1940 deaths

Category:19th-century English historians

Category:20th-century English historians

Category:British Secretaries of State for Education