Geoffrey Francis Fisher

Geoffrey Francis Fisher 1887-1972, archbishop of Canterbury (1945-61). He was educated at Oxford and ordained a priest in 1913. He served as assistant master of Marlborough College (1911-14) and as headmaster of Repton School (1914-32). In 1932 he became bishop of Chester; from 1939 to 1945 he was bishop of London. As archbishop of Canterbury (1945-61) he traveled widely in the interest of church unity. His visit to the pope in 1960 was the first by the archbishop of Canterbury since the Reformation. He was president of the World Council of Churches from 1946 to 1954. Upon his retirement in 1961 he was raised to the peerage.

Fisher, Geoffrey Francis (1887–1972), Abp. of Canterbury from 1945 to 1961. As Bp. of London (1939–45) he showed great administrative skill in dealing with the pastoral reorganization necessitated by war damage and as Chairman of the Churches' Main War Damage Committee. In 1946 he preached an influential sermon on reunion at Cambridge, and in 1960, when he travelled to meet the Oecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople and Pope John XXIII, he was the first Abp. of Canterbury to visit the Vatican since 1397. He encouraged the formation of new Provinces and so divested himself of authority over the African and Asian parts of the Anglican Communion.

Fisher, Geoffrey (1887–1972). Archbishop of Canterbury. Born in Leicestershire of a clerical family and educated at Exeter College, Oxford, Fisher taught at Marlborough. After succeeding William Temple as headmaster of Repton (1914–32), he was successively bishop of Chester (1932), bishop of London (1939), and archbishop after Temple's sudden death (1945). His considerable administrative skills were evident in London especially during the blitz and at Canterbury where he accomplished the most substantial canon law reform since Bancroft. As archbishop, he was the first to travel world-wide in the Anglican Communion and the first since the Reformation to visit the pope. Headmasterly in manner, both as bishop and archbishop, he took a central position between Anglo-catholics and evangelicals, thus assuaging earlier antagonisms. On retirement to Trent village in Dorset (1961) he was active as parish curate.

Revd Dr William M. Marshall