Fisher, Charles

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: C. M. Wallace, “FISHER, CHARLES,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 10, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/fisher_charles_10E.html
  • DCB profile notes:
    • Lawyer, politician, and judge; b. 15 Aug. or 16 Sept. 1808 at Fredericton, N.B., eldest son of Peter Fisher and Susanna Williams; d. 8 Dec. 1880 at Fredericton.
    • Peter Fisher, a merchant and lumber operator of loyalist ancestry, is noted for his Sketches of New Brunswick (1825), the first historical study published in the province. More a description than a history, the book was highly critical of those big businessmen who exploited the province while contributing nothing to its progress. Charles Fisher seems to have been influenced by his father’s point of view on this subject.
    • Charles Fisher was educated at the Fredericton Collegiate School and at King’s College (University of New Brunswick), where he received a ba in 1830. He turned to the study of law under the attorney general, George Frederick Street, was admitted attorney to the New Brunswick bar in 1831 and, after a stay at one of the Inns of Court in England, became a barrister in 1833. He started his practice in Fredericton where, in September 1836, he married Amelia Hatfield, by whom he had four sons and four daughters.
    • Almost as soon as he was admitted to the bar, Fisher turned to politics, running unsuccessfully for York County in the 1834 election. Three years later he entered the assembly as a colleague of Lemuel Allan Wilmot, also from York. For the next 10 or 12 years these two were the backbone of the New Brunswick reform movement, working mainly for responsible government. Wilmot has gone into the history books as the great man in the movement, but Joseph W. Lawrence, an acute contemporary observer, quotes with approval the widely held view that “Fisher made the balls and Wilmot fired them.” Fisher certainly understood the issues behind the constitutional changes being demanded, and may well have worked out the arguments which the more volatile Wilmot presented.
    • FOf all those who participated in the struggle both for responsible government and for confederation, Fisher has received the least attention and has never had a biographer. Historians have been content to incriminate the “corrupt Charles Fisher” with his “bad reputation, deserved or not.” One statement is quoted widely as the final word on Fisher. The Duke of Newcastle [Henry Pelham Clinton] wrote: “I am not ignorant that Mr. Fisher is one of the worst public men in the British North American provinces and his riddance [1861] is a great gain to the cause of good government in New Brunswick.” This statement, the crown lands scandal, and his apparent willingness to disregard principles in 1848 seem to be the major reasons for the denigration of Fisher. His not entirely attractive personality may also have contributed.
  • Grandson of Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory –https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=2813
  • Find a GRAVE: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/26708889/charles-fisher