William Wordsworth Fisher

Admiral Sir William Wordsworth Fisher was a Royal Navy officer who captained a battleship at the Battle of Jutland and became Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Fleet. Arthur Marder wrote that he was "the outstanding admiral of the inter-war period". Fisher was born at Blatchington in Sussex, the son of historian Herbert William Fisher and his wife Mary Louisa Jackson (1841–1916). He joined the Royal Navy in 1888 and trained in HMS Britannia. As a midshipman he served in HMS Raleigh, flagship of the Cape of Good Hope and West Africa Squadron, for three years from 1890 to 1893, before joining HMS Calypso in the Training Squadron. After examinations and courses, and now a sub-lieutenant, he joined the protected cruiser HMS Hawke in the Mediterranean Fleet in January 1896. The ship was a byword for smartness. According to Fisher's biographer "she was remembered as the ship whose stream anchor was kept burnished like polished silver". He left her as a lieutenant with highly appreciative reports from his captains and was selected to qualify in gunnery.