Geoffrey Fisher

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Geoffrey Francis Fisher, Baron Fisher of Lambeth GCVO (May 5, 1887 – September 15, 1972) was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1945 to 1961.

Geoffrey Fisher had a successful career in the Church of England, culminating in a relatively long tenure of position of Archbishop of Canterbury, but has subsequently received a somewhat critical historical assessment.

He was brought up in an Anglican background, and was educated at Marlborough and Exeter College, Oxford. He was an assistant master at Marlborough when he decided to be ordained, becoming a priest in 1913. At this time the English public schools had close ties with the Church of England, and it was not uncommon for schoolmasters to be in Holy Orders. Headmasters were typically priests.

In 1914 Fisher was appointed Headmaster of Repton, succeeding William Temple, who was by an odd coincidence also later to be Archbishop of Canterbury. By most accounts Temple had not been a very successful Headmaster and Fisher had to restore discipline. Roald Dahl attended Repton during Fisher's tenure, and in his autobiography he recalls a friend's account of being caned by Fisher.

In 1932 Fisher was appointed Bishop of Chester, and in 1939 he was made Bishop of London, a key post in the Church of England. In all these positions he was noted as a successful administrator; his dioceses functioned well.

In 1942 Cosmo Lang, the Archbishop of Canterbury, retired, partly in order to make way for William Temple. Temple was a strong Christian Socialist, and opinion both in the Church and the general public foresaw great changes in the post-war period. It seemed Temple's hour had come. However, Temple died in 1944. Many considered that the best choice now would be George Bell, the Bishop of Chichester. However, it was Fisher who was appointed, a fact which has caused controversy ever since.

Appointment of Bishops in the Church of England was, ultimately, in the hands of the Prime Minister. Winston Churchill disliked Temple's politics but accepted Lang's advice that Temple was the outstanding figure and no-one else could be seriously considered. This time, however, the situation was less clear-cut. It has been widely assumed subsequently that Bell was passed over because of his criticism in the House of Lords of the obliteration bombing strategy. While it is probably true that this greatly reduced any chance of Bell being appointed, it is not in fact clear that Bell was likely to be appointed anyway. Temple had apparently regarded Fisher as his obvious successor.

As Archbishop, Fisher tended to see his task as one of internal administration above all, although he did not neglect public affairs. He put a huge amount of effort into the task of revising the Church of England's canon law. The canons of 1603 were at that time still in force, despite being largely out of date.

One of his most high-profile tasks was to preside at the 1953 Coronation, crowning the young Queen Elizabeth II. The event was carried on television for the first time. (The previous coronation, in 1937, had been filmed for newsreel.)

He is remembered for his visit to Pope John XXIII in 1960, the first meeting between an Archbishop of Canterbury and a Pope since the Reformation and an ecumenical milestone.

Fisher retired in 1961. He advised the Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, that he did not consider Michael Ramsey, who had been his pupil at Repton, as a suitable successor. Ramsey later relayed to the Reverend Victor Stock the conversation Fisher had with the Prime Minister: Fisher said, "I have come to give you some advice about my successor. Whoever you choose, under no account must it be Michael Ramsey, the Archbishop of York. Dr Ramsey is a theologian, a scholar and a man of prayer. Therefore, he is entirely unsuitable as Archbishop of Canterbury. I have known him all my life. I was his Headmaster at Repton", to which Macmillan memorably replied, "Thank you, your Grace, for your kind advice. You may have been Doctor Ramsey's headmaster, but you were not mine."

Accordingly, Macmillan disregarded the advice and appointed Ramsey, whom many have considered the greatest Archbishop of Canterbury in the twentieth century. Fisher was made a life peer, with the title Baron Fisher of Lambeth, of Lambeth in the County of London (Lambeth being a reference to Lambeth Palace, the London residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury). By this time appointment to the House of Lords as a peer had become a convention for retiring Archbishops of Canterbury (none had ever retired before Davidson in 1928), although Fisher was the first to be created a life peer following the Life Peerages Act 1958.

In retirement Fisher made rather a nuisance of himself for his successor, finding it hard to adapt to being out of the system.

Fisher had said when he retired that he believed he left the Church of England "in good heart", but soon after the Church was plunged into the turmoil of the 1960s and did not find it easy to cope. Many have in hindsight criticized Fisher for having failed to use the period of his primacy in a purposeful way. Important though canon law may have been, it is now widely doubted among Anglicans that this was really where the Church's energies should have been put. Had Temple lived, he might have played a leading role in the post-war reconstruction, in which he would have found much common ground with the leaders of Clement Attlee's Labour Government. In a sense the criticism is unfair because it asks that Fisher should have been someone else. He was a relatively uncomplicated man, who was happy with the Church of England and wanted to make it work well. His experience was in some ways limited, having never been a parish priest. These criticisms of Fisher are often linked with his reputation as a "headmasterly" figure.

It should also be noted that this criticism of the 1950s as a time of lost opportunities is hardly restricted to Fisher and the Church of England. The charge of complacency is also made against the churches in general, and against British governments in this period.

Lord Fisher died on September 15, 1972 and was buried in a crypt in St Andrew, Trent, Dorset. His wife is also interred there.

[edit] Masonic role

Fisher was a committed Freemason (see citation below for a full masonic biography). Although many Church of England Bishops of his day were also members of Freemasonry, Fisher himself rose to very senior masonic rank, serving as Grand Chaplain in the United Grand Lodge of England. Full Masonic Biography of Fisher

[edit] Bibliography

Primary:

• Fisher Papers, Lambeth Palace Library, London

Secondary:

• David Hein, Geoffrey Fisher: Archbishop of Canterbury, 1945-1961. Eugene, Ore.: Pickwick Publications, forthcoming [2007].
• Edward Carpenter, Archbishop Fisher: His Life and Times. Norwich: Canterbury Press, 1991.
• William Purcell, Fisher of Lambeth. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1969.

Religious Posts
Preceded by Henry Paget	Bishop of Chester 1932–1939	Succeeded by Douglas Crick
Preceded by Arthur Winnington-Ingram	Bishop of London 1939–1945	Succeeded by John Wand
Preceded by William Temple	Archbishop of Canterbury 1945–1961	Succeeded by Arthur Michael Ramsay