Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 19.djvu/81

Fisher  a contributor to the 'European Magazine,' the 'Asiatic Journal,' and to several religious periodicals. He was one of the projectors of the 'Congregational Magazine,' and from 1818 to 1823 conducted the statistical department of that serial. When elected a guardian of Shoreditch, in which parish he resided, he assisted John Ware, the vestry clerk, in the compilation of a volume entitled 'An Account of the several Charities and Estates held in trust for the use of the Poor of the Parish of St. Leonard, Shoreditch, Middlesex, and of Benefactors to the same,' 8vo, London, 1836. He was also zealous in the cause of anti-slavery. In 1825 he published 'The Negro's Memorial, or Abolitionist's Catechism. By an Abolitionist,' 8vo, London. He was a member, too, of various bible and missionary societies. A few of his letters to Thomas Orlebar Marsh, vicar of Steventon, Bedfordshire, are in the British Museum, Addit. MS. 23205. His collections of topographical drawings and prints, portraits and miscellaneous prints, books, and manuscripts, were sold by Evans on 30 May 1837 and two following days.  FISHER, WILLIAM (1780–1852), rear-admiral, second son of John Fisher of Yarmouth, Norfolk, was born on 18 Nov. 1780, and entered the navy in 1795. After serving in the North Sea, at the Cape of Good Hope, and in the Mediterranean, and as acting lieutenant of the Foudroyant on the coast of Egypt, he was confirmed in the rank on 3 Sept. 1801. In 1805 he was lieutenant of the Superb during the chase of Villeneuve to the West Indies; and in 1806 was promoted to be commander. In 1808 he commanded the Racehorse of 18 guns in the Channel, and in the same ship, in 1809–10, was employed in surveying in the Mozambique. In March 1811 he was promoted to post-rank, and in 1816–17 commanded in succession the Bann and Cherub, each of 20 guns, on the coast of Guinea, in both of which he captured several slavers and pirates, some of them after a desperate resistance. From March 1836 to May 1841 he commanded the Asia in the Mediterranean, and in 1840, during the operations on the coast of Syria [see ], was employed as senior officer of the detached squadron off Alexandria, with the task of keeping open the mail communication through Egypt. For this service he received the Turkish gold medal and diamond decoration. He had no further service afloat, but became, in due course, a rear-admiral in 1847. During his retirement he wrote two novels : 'The Petrel, or Love on the Ocean' (1850), which passed through three editions, and 'Ralph Rutherford, a Nautical Romance' (1851). He died in London, on 30 Sept. 1852. A man who had been so long in the navy during a very stirring period, who had surveyed the Mozambique, and captured slavers and pirates, had necessarily plenty of adventures at command, which scarcely needed the complications of improbable love stories to make them interesting; but the author had neither the constructive skill nor the literary talent necessary for writing a good novel, and his language throughout is exaggerated and stilted to the point of absurdity. Fisher married, in 1810, Elizabeth, sister of Sir James Rivett Carnac, bart., governor of Bombay, by whom he had two children, a daughter and a son.

 FISHER, WILLIAM WEBSTER, M.D, (1798?–1874), Downing professor of medicine at Cambridge, a native of Westmoreland, was born in or about 1798. He studied in the first instance at Montpellier, where he took the degree of M.D. in 1825 (D.M.I. 'De l'inflammation considérée sous le rapport de ses indications,' 4to, Montpellier, 1825). Two years later he was entered at Trinity College, Cambridge, of which his brother, the Rev. John Hutton Fisher, was then fellow and assistant-tutor. Subsequently he removed to Downing College, where he graduated as M.B. in 1834. Shortly afterwards he succeeded to a fellowship, but the Downing professorship of medicine falling vacant in 1841, Fisher was elected and resigned his fellowship. He, however, held some of the college offices. In 1841 he proceeded M.D. His lectures were well attended. He acted for many years as one of the university examiners of students in medicine, and was an ex officio member of the university board of medical studies. In addition to fulfilling the duties of his professorship, Fisher had a large practice as a physician at Cambridge. He was formerly one of the physicians to Addenbrooke's Hospital, and on his resignation was appointed consulting physician to that institution. Although for some time he had relinquished the practice of his profession, he regularly delivered courses of lectures until 1868, since which time they were read by a deputy, P. W. Latham, M.D., late fellow of Downing. Fisher was a fellow of the Cambridge