FISHER, William (1607-66), of Wisbech, Cambs.

Fisher’s father, Anthony, was a landowner whose estates, although centred on Wisbech in Cambridgeshire, extended across the county border into Lincolnshire and Norfolk. One of his son’s political opponents later claimed that Anthony Fisher had inherited only four acres of land and that he had built up his wealth through usury and by fraudulently passing off hempseed oil as rapeseed oil.28Whinnell, Matters of great Concernement, 17. What is certain is that he was sufficiently wealthy to leave cash bequests amounting to almost £2,000 when he died in 1645.29PROB11/194/379. He was presumably descended from the Fisher family who had lived at Tydd St Giles, five miles to the north of Wisbech, from the mid-thirteenth century until the early sixteenth century.30[F.O. Fisher], De Stemmate Piscatoris (1910), 3-102; VCH Cambs. iv. 225. The future MP seems to have lived in obscurity before the 1640s, but the fundamental and very disruptive impact on his estates doubtless explains why William attended several meetings of the local sewers commission during these years.31Norf. RO, Hare 5136; Hare 5125; Cambs. RO, R.59.31.9.1A, fo. 179; National Art Lib. V. and A. MSL/1921/320; Beds. RO, X171/9; J1053; Norf. RO, DB 9/35, p. 155; DB 9/37, f. 49. Although not yet a member of the corporation, he was sent by it to London in 1638 to argue that the town’s Ship Money assessment ought to be reduced and it was probably for that reason that he borrowed some of the corporation records.32Wisbech and Fenland Museum, Wisbech corp. recs. 1616-91, ff. 87v, 89.

On the outbreak of hostilities in the summer of 1642 Fisher was one of the three men to whom the Wisbech corporation gave the three new muskets which represented a sizable proportion of its total armoury.33Wisbech and Fenland Museum, Wisbech corp. recs. 1616-91, f. 101v. At that stage, this was probably a question of self-defence rather than taking sides. As a captain in the local militia Fisher was used by the chief justice of the Isle of Ely, John Godbold*, to enforce his decision that a proclamation against Parliament’s commander, Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex, be read at the Ely assizes in August 1642.34Whinnell, Matters of great Concernement, 15. Later that year Fisher joined the town corporation for the first time, being chosen as one of the ten capital burgesses.35Wisbech and Fenland Museum, Wisbech corp. recs. 1616-91, f. 102. For the time being Fisher was routinely re-elected each year.

Between 1643 and 1648 Parliament appointed him to the local assessment commissions covering the Isle of Ely, and also to the commission for the sequestration of delinquents within Cambridgeshire.36A. and O. This, in part, reflected his membership of the committee for the Isle of Ely, the body which Henry Ireton*, as deputy-governor, used to mobilise the Isle for war.37LJ vi. 29a. In December 1643 the Committee for Advance of Money directed Fisher, George Glapthorne* and other members of this committee to assist with their revenue collection in the Ely area.38CCAM 29-30. The following year Fisher, Ireton and Glapthorne signed a couple of routine warrants on behalf of the Ely committee.39SP16/539/2, f. 124. In November 1645 Fisher served as the town bailiff of Wisbech, the town’s senior office and one which had formerly been held by his father.40Wisbech and Fenland Museum, Wisbech corp. recs. 1616-91, ff. 113-115, 120; N. Walker and T. Craddock, The Hist. of Wisbech and the Fens (Wisbech, 1849), 543-4.

By 1644 Fisher’s role as sequestrations commissioner had become a subject of controversy. Rivalry between commissioners, including Fisher, who had been appointed in March 1643 and those who had been added since divided the leading parliamentarians within the Isle. Headed by James Whinnell, the latter argued that their colleagues had been soft on delinquency. They singled out Fisher and Viscount Saye and Sele’s son Richard Fiennes for particular criticism. Fisher was an easy target as a number of his relatives were royalists and his brother John was serving as a major in the king’s army.41Whinnell, Matters of great Concernement, 18; P.R. Newman, Royalist Officers in Eng. and Wales (New York, 1981), 131. Twice during the early months of 1644 Fisher had imprisoned Whinnell.42Whinnell, Matters of great Concernement, 6, 8, 10-11. The latter now wanted revenge. In late July or early August Whinnell arrested Fisher, although he was soon released after his cousin Sir Anthony Earlsby complained to the Commons’s Committee for Examinations.43Whinnell, Matters of great Concernement, 11. Whinnell then compiled articles against Fisher, claiming among other things that Fisher had been reluctant to use his position as militia captain to assist Parliament, that he had told his men not to defend Wisbech against the royalists if ever they attacked, that he had been too sympathetic to delinquents in his work as a sequestration commissioner and that he had discouraged others from lending money to Parliament.44Whinnell, Matters of great Concernement, 13-14. Nothing came of any of these allegations, but when Whinnell was imprisoned by the House of Lords in November 1645 for questioning Saye’s loyalty to Parliament, he blamed Fisher and Richard Fiennes for organising the case against him.45Whinnell, Matters of great Concernement, 25, 36-7. The pamphlet attacking the pair which Whinnell published in 1646 reveals that those linked to Fisher included John Thurloe*, who was implied to have been instrumental in having Fisher added to the commission of the peace.46Whinnell, Matters of great Concernement, 17.

In a petition from the inhabitants of Wisbech, organised by Fisher and John Hobart in early 1647, local concerns overrode wider considerations. The main request was that their tax arrears (based on original over-assessments, as they argued) should be written off because the land around Wisbech had been flooded during the previous winter. The Commons agreed that no arrears should be required for the time being from those whose lands had been affected, but their more general complaints were referred back to the Eastern Association.47LJ ix. 32a, 34b, 41a; CJ v. 103b-104a.

Fisher’s involvement in county government in the Isle of Ely probably came to an abrupt end in 1649, almost certainly because of his disapproval of the execution of Charles I and refusal to serve the new republican regime. He was removed from the commission of the peace and omitted from assessment commissions under the Rump; in June 1649 the fen office at Ely decided to confiscate some plans from him.48W.M. Palmer, ‘The Fen Office documents’, Procs. Camb. Antiq. Soc. xxxviii. 122-3. (It may have been in this connection that Fisher borrowed some sewer records from the Wisbech corporation in April 1652.49Wisbech and Fenland Museum, Wisbech corp. recs. 1616-91, f. 124v.) He was nevertheless able to persuade the Bedford Level Adventurers in late 1650 and early 1651 to provide funding of £250 for a new bridge at Wisbech.50Cambs. RO, R.59.31.9.4, ff. 71v, 90. When the council of state consulted him and other local gentlemen in June 1652 about a petition from Cornet Michael Morfield, it probably did so because of his previous experience.51CSP Dom. 1651-2, p. 299. Until 1659 Fisher held no public offices in the gift of the government or Parliament except that of assessment commissioner for the Isle of Ely (appointed June 1654) and as sheriff for Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire (appointed Nov. 1653), a job which could be more a burden than an honour.52An Ordinance for an Assessment (1654); List of Sheriffs, 15. It fell to him to preside over the parliamentary elections in June and July 1654.53C219/44, pt. 1: Cambs. indentures, 1654. It was probably during his time in this office that he donated £6 to the Wisbech corporation, which was used to buy 14 volumes for the use of the townspeople and which, swelled by donations from other local gentlemen including Thurloe, Glapthorne and Lawrence Oxburgh alias Hewer*, formed the nucleus of the town’s public library.54Wisbech and Fenland Museum, Wisbech town library catalogue, 1660-1830, p. 358; HMC 9th Rep. i. 294.

As one of the Wisbech capital burgesses, in early 1656 Fisher received the money due to the borough from the council of state as repayment for their loans to Parliament during the civil war, including the sum requested in the 1647 petition.55Bodl. Rawl. A.30, p. 145; CSP Dom. 1655-6, p. 120. At about the same time, he was among trustees appointed by Saye to administer the charity he had set up for the benefit of the poor of the town.56HMC 9th Rep. i. 298; Reports…concerning Charities, vi. pt. i. 294. It is quite possible that Fisher had the support of his colleagues on the Wisbech corporation when he came to stand for Parliament later that year.

Fisher’s candidature in 1656 was a move to embarrass Hezekiah Haynes*, the unpopular deputy major-general for the eastern counties. Haynes’s priority was to secure the re-election of John Thurloe, now the secretary of state, for the Isle of Ely seat, but some of Thurloe’s supporters persuaded Haynes that he too should stand. Several days before the poll, Haynes travelled to Wisbech to win over the electors, but en route he encountered Fisher’s son, who told him that his father was determined to stand. Haynes later heard that Fisher, ‘no longer able to live under a cloud’, objected to him because he was ‘a stranger, a soldier, and elected in another place’, and concluded that Fisher could not be persuaded to withdraw.57TSP v. 352-3. One rumour suggested that Fisher was so confident that he planned to stand against Thurloe for the senior seat. In the event, Haynes probably withdrew before the poll on 28 August, allowing Fisher to be elected with Thurloe.58TSP v. 352-3, 365.

Somewhat surprisingly, given Fisher’s open opposition to the major-generals and Thurloe’s personal interest in the matter, Fisher was not one of those MPs who were then prevented from sitting in this Parliament. Perhaps their former friendship still counted for something. However, Fisher was named to no committees and seems never to have spoken. Most surprising of all was his omission from the committee named to consider the bill to confirm the status of the Ely liberty.59CJ vii. 460b-461a, 461b.

Perhaps Thurloe was cautious about clashing with Fisher, given that he was now second in importance only to Thurloe himself among the residents of Wisbech. The following year, just after Thurloe had been elected as one of their number, the ten capital burgesses chose Fisher to serve a second term as town bailiff.60Wisbech and Fenland Museum, Wisbech corp. recs. 1616-91, f. 135. (As such, he was appointed as one of the trustees to administer the bequest left by the Cambridge apothecary, John Crane, to assist the young men of the town.61Wisbech and Fenland Museum, Wisbech corp. recs. 1616-91, ff. 130, 131; ‘Lands at Fleet, 1658’, Fenland N. and Q. vii, 280; Endowments of the University of Cambridge ed. J.W. Clark (Cambridge, 1904), 568.) However, it may have been Thurloe’s influence which produced the upset in the corporation elections the following year. Fisher was among five capital burgesses who failed to get re-elected.62Wisbech and Fenland Museum, Wisbech corp. recs. 1616-91, f. 137. For Fisher, elected continuously since 1642, this was a major humiliation. The replacements may then have given Fisher a tough time when he came to submit the accounts for his year as bailiff.63Wisbech and Fenland Museum, Wisbech corp. recs. 1616-91, f. 141v. Nevertheless, in January 1659 Fisher headed the list of Wisbech residents who signed the indenture approving the election of Thurloe as the town’s first and only MP.64C219/46: Wisbech indenture, 10 Jan. 1659.

The creation of the new militia commission for Cambridgeshire in March 1660 marked the beginning of Fisher’s re-admission to county office.65A. and O. He was later appointed to the commission of the peace and to the subsidy commission.66SR. It seems likely that he welcomed the return of Charles II in May. Thomas Dawlling then accused another resident of Wisbech, John Neale junior, of having made uncomplimentary remarks about the clergy and the king while visiting Fisher’s house in early April, but there is no reason to suppose that Fisher shared these views.67Ely Episcopal Recs. 114. He was re-elected as a capital burgess in November 1662 in what may have reflected a shift towards those local men willing to work with the new regime.68Wisbech and Fenland Museum, Wisbech corp. recs. 1616-91, f. 148.

Fisher died in 1666 and was buried at Wisbech on 8 April.69Wisbech St Peter par. reg. Under the terms of his father’s will, the lands Fisher had inherited in 1645 passed to his eldest son, Anthony. Having presumably already made arrangements for his other children, in the will he made shortly before dying Fisher made provision for his youngest son, William. The lands William received in south Lincolnshire and west Norfolk, all in the immediate vicinity of Wisbech, were those Fisher had himself acquired. The will lacked anything resembling a religious preamble.70PROB11/321/140. He was the only member of the family ever to sit in Parliament.