10 Facts About Greevz Fisher

John Greeves Fisher was born in Youghal, Ireland, in 1845.

In 1887 he married Marie Clapham, a suffragist and fellow freethinker who Greevz Fisher met at a secularist meeting in Leeds.

Greevz Fisher campaigned for the abolition of illegitimacy, and was a staunch advocate of birth control, publishing and distributing free literature on contraception.

Greevz Fisher was considered among the leading individualists, alongside figures such as Auberon Herbert, Wordsworth Donisthorpe, Joseph Hiam Levy, and Henry Seymour.

In 1892, Greevz Fisher offered himself as a 'Liberty candidate' for East Bradford.

Greevz Fisher's platform included "voluntary taxation, no compulsory education, liberty for Ireland with no government, the abolition of professional monopolies, and female freedom".

An example of this can be seen in a letter Greevz Fisher wrote to The Phonographic Magazine, in which he advised language reformers to: "selekt the simplest spelling praktikabel for any word when in doubt az to the kustomary form".

Knowledgeable on natural history, Greevz Fisher was President of The Yorkshire Naturalists' Union in 1930.

Greevz Fisher died on 18 May 1931, survived by Marie and their five children.

On his death, the Leeds Mercury mourned the loss of one of the city's "best known and most distinctive personalities", describing how Greevz Fisher still cycled to and from his business into his 80s.