51 Facts About Geoffrey Fisher

From a long line of parish priests, Fisher was educated at Marlborough College and Exeter College, Oxford.

Geoffrey Fisher achieved high academic honours but was not interested in a university career.

Geoffrey Fisher was ordained priest in 1913, and taught at Marlborough for three years; in 1914, aged 27, he was appointed headmaster of Repton School where he served for 18 years.

In 1944, the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple died suddenly, and Geoffrey Fisher was chosen to succeed him.

Geoffrey Fisher worked continually to build bridges to other Christian churches, and in 1960 became the first Archbishop of Canterbury to meet a Pope since the English Reformation, more than four centuries earlier.

Geoffrey Fisher overhauled the administration of the Church of England, strengthened international ties with other Anglican churches, and spoke out on a range of topical issues, from divorce to homosexuality, and the Suez crisis to nuclear disarmament.

Theologically, Geoffrey Fisher was nearer the Evangelical wing of the Church than the Anglo-Catholic, but strongly believed that neither had a monopoly of religious truth.

Geoffrey Fisher was born at the rectory, Higham on the Hill, Leicestershire, youngest of the ten children of the Rev Henry Geoffrey Fisher and his wife Katherine, nee Richmond.

Geoffrey Fisher was greatly influenced by the headmaster, Frank Fletcher, an inspiring teacher, under whose guidance he did well both academically and in sport.

From Marlborough, Geoffrey Fisher won a scholarship to Exeter College, Oxford, going up in October 1906.

Geoffrey Fisher disapproved of those in either camp who believed they had a monopoly of the truth.

Geoffrey Fisher rowed and played rugby for the college and distinguished himself academically, leaving with a triple first.

Geoffrey Fisher said that he did not want "to go on asking questions to which there is no answer".

Geoffrey Fisher accepted an invitation from Fletcher to return to Marlborough as a member of the teaching staff, remaining there for three years, during which time he went to Wells Theological College during the long summer vacation in 1911, and was ordained deacon in 1912, and priest in 1913.

Geoffrey Fisher then encouraged Fisher to apply for the resulting vacancy at Repton, as did Fletcher.

Geoffrey Fisher's application was successful and he took up the headmastership in June 1914, at the age of 27.

Geoffrey Fisher was characterised by The Times as combining "generous humanity and a completely unaffected manner with a passion for order and efficiency".

Geoffrey Fisher was in charge of Repton for 18 years, during which he improved the facilities, instilled firm discipline and modernised the curriculum.

Geoffrey Fisher became an advocate for rationalisation in many aspects of church life.

Geoffrey Fisher pointed out the discrepancies in the remuneration of the clergy, with some of them extremely poorly paid; he drew attention to the lack of a consistent appointment system; he intervened to save the Church Training College in Chester from threatened closure; strengthened the financial administration of the diocese; and campaigned for financial support of church schools, overseas missions and the widows of clergy.

Geoffrey Fisher was at the forefront of the Industrial Christian Fellowship Mission, and his commitment often took him to the slums of Birkenhead.

Chamberlain was reassured, and recommended to George VI that Geoffrey Fisher should succeed Winnington-Ingram.

The King approved the appointment, but Geoffrey Fisher hesitated when offered it.

Geoffrey Fisher saw the great difficulties the turbulent diocese presented, and doubted his ability to unite it.

The Second World War had broken out shortly before Geoffrey Fisher took up his London post, and from September 1940 the city suffered nightly bombing.

Geoffrey Fisher took the lead in the church assembly and in the House of Lords and the resulting measure was largely his work.

Webster writes that Geoffrey Fisher showed courtesy, skill, and determination in "defeating ultra-conservative attitudes which would have prevented any episcopal intervention even in severely blitzed areas".

Geoffrey Fisher was frustrated by the refusal of some Roman Catholics to say even the Lord's Prayer with Protestants.

Geoffrey Fisher sought to pursue the principle of apostolic authority to bring all parishes in the diocese back into conformity, but the matter was not resolved when he ceased to be Bishop of London in 1945.

Temple had hoped Geoffrey Fisher would be his successor, valuing his precision and administrative skill.

Garbett, too, approved; he and Geoffrey Fisher were close personal friends.

Geoffrey Fisher put considerable effort into revising the Church of England's canon law.

Geoffrey Fisher met resistance from liberals in the church, who regarded his canon law reforms as unduly bureaucratic and calculated to institute a regime of "prosecutions and petty persecutions".

Geoffrey Fisher officiated at the marriage of Princess Elizabeth in Westminster Abbey in 1947, and after her accession to the throne he led the coronation service in 1953, and crowned her as queen.

The princess decided not to marry Townsend, and although she stated that her decision had been made "entirely alone", mindful of the Church's teaching on the indissolubility of marriage, it was rumoured that Geoffrey Fisher had influenced her in taking a course widely regretted among the British public.

One of Geoffrey Fisher's aims during his 16 years as archbishop was to make the position of the Church about the marriage of divorced people widely understood and accepted.

Geoffrey Fisher's efforts led to the prospect of union with the Methodists, and his visit to Rome in 1960 to meet Pope John XXIII.

The Guardian reported that Geoffrey Fisher was received in the Vatican "not as a bishop on pilgrimage but as the Father in God of the entire Anglican Communion"; the visit marked the end of centuries of hostility between Canterbury and Rome.

Geoffrey Fisher began in 1946 with a visit to Canada and the United States, during which he established or strengthened links between the English and the North American episcopates.

Geoffrey Fisher arranged for the Anglican Communion to have a chief executive officer, the first of whom was Bishop Stephen Bayne of the US.

Geoffrey Fisher had been a pupil under Fisher at Repton, and in the words of a biographer, Fisher "still played the headmaster" to Ramsey even after he became an archbishop.

Matters were exacerbated by his suspicion of the British press, and his dislike was frequently reciprocated, causing Geoffrey Fisher to receive hostile press coverage on occasion.

Geoffrey Fisher clashed with the Conservative governments of Anthony Eden and Harold Macmillan over the Suez crisis of 1956 and Macmillan's introduction of premium bonds and his assertion that Britain had "never had it so good".

Geoffrey Fisher preferred the evangelical Donald Coggan, Bishop of Bradford, to the more obvious choice, Ramsey.

Macmillan, with whom Geoffrey Fisher got on least well of the four prime ministers with whom he had to deal during his time in office, was not swayed by his arguments.

Geoffrey Fisher was made a life peer, with the title of Baron Geoffrey Fisher of Lambeth, of Lambeth in the County of London.

Ramsey, though hurt, contented himself with observing, "The trouble with Geoffrey Fisher is that he could not get episcopacy out of his system".

Geoffrey Fisher died on 15 September 1972 and was buried in the churchyard at Trent on 20 September.

Geoffrey Fisher received honorary degrees from Cambridge, Columbia, Pennsylvania and Princeton, London, Manchester, Edinburgh, Yale, British Columbia, Northwestern University, Evanston, General Theological Seminary, New York, Trinity College, Dublin, and Assumption University of Windsor, Ontario.

Geoffrey Fisher was prelate of the Order of St John of Jerusalem.

Geoffrey Fisher was made a freeman of the cities of London and Canterbury and of Croydon.