#12989, Geoffrey Francis FISHER GCVO, PC

Geoffrey Fisher grew up in Higham on the Hill in Leicestershire, the son, grandson and great-grandson of rectors of Higham. He was educated at Marlborough and Exeter College, Oxford. He was an assistant master at Marlborough when he decded to be ordained becoming a priest in 1913.

In 1914 he was appointed Headmaster of Repton succeeding William Temple whom he later also succeeded as the 99th Archbishop of Canterbury.

In 1932 Fisher was appointed Bishop of Chester and in 1939 he became Bishop of London. When William Temple died unexpectedly in 1944 he was selected as Archbishop of Canterbury by Prime Minister Winston Churchill.  He was Archbishop 1945-1961.

He presided over the marriage of Princess Elizabeth and later at her coronation in 1953 as Queen Elizabeth II. He is remembered for his visit to Pope John XXII in 1960 - the first meeting between an Archbishop of Canterbury and a Pope since the English Reformation. He retired in 1961. He advised the Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, that he did not consider Michael Ramsey, who had been his pupil at Repton, a suitable successor. According to Rev. Victor Stock the conversation went like this:

Fisher said "I have come to give you some advice about my successor. Whomever you choose, under no account must it be Michael Ramsey, the Archbishop of York. Dr Ramsey is a theologian, a scholar and a man of prayer. Therefore, he is entirely unsuitable as Archbishop of Canterbury. I have known him all my life. I was his Headmaster at Repton."

Macmillan replied: "Thank you, your Grace, for your kind advice. You may have been Doctor Ransey's headmaster, but you were not mine."

Ramsey was appointed.

The Archbishop and Rozamund had 6 sons, Henry, Francis, Charles, Humphrey, Robert and Temple.