Name
Harold Fisher (DSO)
1877
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
15/12/1914
37
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Captain
Manchester Regiment
1st Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
1914 (Mons) Star, British War and Victory Medals
Mentioned in Despatches, Distinguished Service Order
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
BEUVRY COMMUNAL CEMETERY
2.
France
Headstone Inscription
None
UK & Other Memorials
Hemel Hempstead Town Memorial, Haileybury College Cloister Wall Memorial, Hertford Heath, St Mary's Church Memorial, Debden, Essex
Pre War
Harold Fisher was born on 3 Mar 1877 in Fulham, London, the son of the Rev Canon Frederic H. Fisher, Vicar of All Saints, Fulham and Agnes Fisher and one of 10 children.
On the 1881 Census the family were living at The Vicarage, All Saints, Fulham, where his father was the parish priest. By the 1891 Census Harold was attending Conyngham House, a private school at 146 High Street, Ramsgate, Kent. Only eleven pupils were listed, two of which were his brothers Richard and Edmund. He then went to Haileybury College, Herts from 1891 to 1895. The College was originally founded as the East India Company Training College and was intended to prepare young men to serve the British Empire, principally in India. Upon leaving the College he enlisted with the Suffolk Artillery Militia for three years.
Harold joined the Manchester Regiment from the Militia and was gazetted 2nd Lieutenant on 4 May 1898 and promoted to Lieutenant on 6 May 1899 and Captain 14 July in 1901. He served in South Africa 1899–1902 (Defence of Ladysmith) and was mentioned in despatches (8 Feb 1901 and 10 Sep 1901). He was awarded a DSO in 1901.
On the 1911 Census he was listed as a Captain in the Manchester Regiment at Ashton under Lyme Military Barracks, Hartshead, Lancs.
His father died in 1915 in London, having been living at Church Croft, Hemel Hempstead, Herts. His mother had died in 1898 in Saffron Walden.
Wartime Service
Harold was a regular soldier with the 1st Battalion, Manchester Regiment which was stationed in Jullundar, India at the outbreak of war. They sailed from Karachi on the SS Edavana on 29 August 1914, arriving in Marseilles on 26 September.
On 26 October he was in trenches near Festubert when the Battalion were subjected to heavy shelling and suffered their first casualties. They then moved to trenches north of La Bassée Canal on 10 December and on 15 December the war diaries recorded that Captain Fisher was killed at about 9am. He was shot by a sniper whilst observing from a post on the railway, cut through the previous day.
He was 37 years old when he was killed in action and is buried at Beuvry Communal Cemetery, France.
(N.B. Medal card suggests he was in France from 27 August 1914, but the 1st Battalion were stationed at India and did not sail until 29 August)
Additional Information
His brother Edmund Carr Fisher applied for Harold's medals and also received his pay owing of £112 8s 5d. Harold is commemorated on a memorial tablet in the church of St Mary the Virgin and All Saints, Debden, Saffron Walden, Essex, where his father had been Rector from 1890 to 1903, prior to moving to Hemel Hempstead.
Acknowledgments
Brenda Palmer
Malcolm Lennox, Karen Smith - Acting Director of External Relations www.haileybury.com/honour, www.ukphotoarchive.org.uk, www.hemelheroes.com.
