Fisher, William Shives

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: Barry Cahill, “FISHER, WILLIAM SHIVES,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 16, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/fisher_william_shives_16E.html
  • DCB profile notes:
    • Merchant and manufacturer; b. 20 Feb. 1854 in Fredericton, only surviving child of William Fisher and Catherine Amelia Clawson, née Valentine; m. 14 June 1881 Mabel Shaw (1860–1940) in Portland (Saint John), and they had three sons and one daughter; d. 15 Oct. 1931 in Saint John.
    • A fourth-generation loyalist on his father’s side, W. S. Fisher was named for his mother’s brother-in-law, William Shives, who appears to have raised him. Fisher was born into a tradition of business and public service. His father was a Fredericton tradesman and shipping agent who served from 1872 to 1884 as one of New Brunswick’s two Indian superintendents; his uncle Charles Fisher was the province’s first premier under responsible government and a father of confederation. In 1870 he went to work as a bookkeeper for merchant Adam Young, and four years later he took over the business. In 1878 he and Robert Bickerdike Emerson formed a joint-stock company, Emerson and Fisher Company Limited, which made and sold hardware, stoves, mantels, grates, and, later, automotive equipment. Fisher became vice-president and secretary and would succeed Emerson as president upon his death in 1921.
    • Emerson and Fisher was involved not only in manufacturing but also in wholesale and retail marketing. By 1888 it was prospering so well that its owners decided to expand their business through an ambitious project of horizontal integration. From E. Cogswell and Company they acquired as a going concern the Dominion Foundry Company’s plant in Sackville, a bustling university community in southeastern New Brunswick. The factory, established in 1872, was situated near the Intercolonial Railway station and the public wharf, and to operate it the Enterprise Foundry Company Limited was formed with Fisher as president. He would hold the post for the last four decades of his life; under the guidance of Fisher and his three sons, the company became a major local employer, manufacturer, and wholesaler with its own sales organization and a national distribution network.
    • A highlight of Fisher’s term was his leadership of a delegation that undertook a fact-finding mission to the Caribbean; he opposed free trade with the United States but would dream all his life of joining Canada and the British West Indies in a political and economic union, a course of action that many Atlantic Canadian businessmen supported as a potential counterweight to American wealth and power. Fisher’s outstanding success as an industrialist earned him recognition from the corporate elite. 
    • Fisher, who believed strongly in the relationship between workforce development and industrial expansion, promoted vocational and technical training and education in the industrial arts. He also supported any cause that would enhance social services and especially child welfare, thanks to an evangelical commitment that stemmed from his devout low-church Anglicanism. He was president of the board of the Associated Charities of Saint John, founding president of the New Brunswick Tourist Association, and financial patron of the 1921 reprinting of his grandfather Peter Fisher’s 1825 work, Sketches of New-Brunswick.
  • Great Grandson of Proven United Empire Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory: https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=2813
  • Find a GRAVE: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/152065586/william-shives-fisher