Fisher, John Arbuthnot Fisher, 1st Baron (ärbŭth`nət), 1841–1920, British admiral. Entering the navy in 1854, he specialized in gunnery and in 1872 was responsible for instituting the developmental work that perfected the torpedo. He was director of ordnance and torpedoes at the admiralty (1886–90), third sea lord and controller of the navy (1892–97), and commander in chief of the Mediterranean fleet (1899–1902). As second sea lord (1902–3) he reorganized and improved the method of training naval officers. Returning to the admiralty as first sea lord (1904), Fisher redistributed British naval forces to meet the newly recognized threat from Germany. In 1905 he began construction of the Dreadnought (see battleship battleship, large, armored warship equipped with the heaviest naval guns. The evolution of the battleship, from the ironclad warship of the mid-19th cent., received great impetus from the Civil War.
..... Click the link for more information. ) and thereafter pressed hard for an expanded program of naval construction. He encouraged the development of submarines and supervised the conversion of the navy from coal-fired to oil-fired steam power. Created a baron in 1909, Fisher resigned as first sea lord in 1910 but returned to that position after the outbreak (1914) of World War I. He advocated an amphibious strike against Germany in the Baltic but opposed the Dardanelles expedition and resigned (1915) because of it. His reforms proved crucial to Britain's wartime naval supremacy.

Bibliography

See his correspondence, ed. by A. J. Marder (3 vol., 1952–59); biographies by R. H. Bacon (1929), R. A. Hough (1969), R. F. Mackay (1973), and J. Morris (1995); A. J. Marder, From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow (5 vol., 1961–70).

Fisher (of Kilverstone), John Arbuthnot Fisher, 1st Baron

(born Jan. 25, 1841, Ceylon—died July 10, 1920, London, Eng.) British admiral and first sea lord. He entered the navy at 13 and saw combat in Crimea, China, and Egypt. Promoted to the Admiralty board in 1892, he became first sea lord in 1904. He reorganized and strengthened the British navy to counter the rapid expansion of the German navy, and his reforms and innovations—including the conception of the battleship Dreadnought, which revolutionized naval construction—ensured the Royal Navy's dominance in World War I. He retired in 1910; recalled in 1914 by Winston Churchill, he resigned the next year in protest against the Dardanelles Campaign.