Joseph R. Fisher

Joseph Robert Fisher
B.L.
Born 1855
Raffrey, Co. Down, Ireland
Died 26 October 1939
Hampstead, London
Occupation Newspaper editor, Barrister, writer
Nationality British
Education Royal Belfast Academical Institution, Belfast
Alma mater Queen's University of Ireland (B.A. 1876)
Notable works Finland and the Tsars; Law of the Press
Spouse None

Joseph Fisher was a barrister, a newspaper editor, and an author. However, Fisher's most prominent role was his appointment as Unionist commissioner on the Irish Boundary Commission.

Early Life and Career

Fisher was born in Raffrey, County Down, Ireland, in 1855, the third son of clergyman Ringland Fisher, minister of the local Presbyterian church.[1] He was educated at Royal Belfast Academical Institution, Belfast, and Queen's University, Galway,[2] graduating with a B.A. in 1876.[3] Fisher was foreign editor of the London Daily Chronicle until 1881 and assistant editor of the London Standard thereafter. He was called to the Bar at a relatively late age in 1888[4] and practiced until 1900, when he returned to Belfast.[5] In early 1900, Fisher became editor of the Northern Whig,[6] a liberal unionist daily paper, and remained in that position until the First World War.[7]

The Irish Boundary Commission

Fisher's most controversial role came in 1924 when he was appointed to the Irish Boundary Commission. Article 12 of the Anglo-Irish Treaty stipulated[8] that the commission was to have three members but the Ulster Unionist government of Northern Ireland refused to appoint the commissioner[9] required of it, wishing to concede "not one inch"[10] of the territory of the six parliamentary counties that had seceded. The Labour government in Great Britain[11] and the Irish Free State government legislated[12] to allow the British government to impose a representative on behalf of the Unionists. Fisher had a reputation of being a staunch[7]:887 but liberal[13] unionist.[10] Ramsay MacDonald announced[14] Fisher's appointment on 18 October 1924.[10]

The three commissioners set to work and spent most of 1925 visiting communities near the six-county border[9]:330 and taking written and "in camera" verbal hearings.[15] The British government's commissioner Justice Richard Feetham interpreted the commission's mandate narrowly and thus, with Fisher's Unionist vote, there was a two-to-one majority in favour of only minor changes to the border. On 7 November 1925 an English conservative newspaper, The Morning Post, published leaked notes of the negotiations, including a draft map that suggested that parts of east Donegal would be transferred to Northern Ireland.[15] This was seen as a grave embarrassment in Dublin.

According to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Fisher was responsible for the leak. Fisher had told Florence Reid, the wife of D. D. Reid, M.P., the leader of the Ulster Unionists in the Westminster parliament, that the report would make no major changes. He had also written to Edward Carson, former leader of the Irish Unionist Alliance, assuring him that Carson's ‘handiwork’ in creating Northern Irish state would survive.[3][16] As a Unionist newspaperman, Fisher would seem in any case the obvious source of the information and the Irish government seems to have suspected Fisher of being the source.[17][18]

Fisher's alleged press leak effectively ended the Commission's work.[19] The Irish government's commissioner, Professor Eoin MacNeill resigned two weeks later, on 20 November[20] but Fisher and Feetham, the remaining commissioners, continued their work without MacNeill.[16]

This caused the boundary negotiations to be swept into a wider agreement concluded on 3 December 1925 between the British and Irish governments. The publication of the Commission’s award would have an immediate legal effect, so the Free State government quickly entered into talks with the British and Northern Ireland governments.[16] Further, the Irish Free State's trade deficit was growing and it was unable to meet existing levels of social spending, but it was also faced with its obligations under Article 5 of the Treaty to pay a pro-rata share of the public debt of the United Kingdom.[21] The Conservative government that had replaced Ramsay MacDonald's short Labour-Liberal coalition wanted to avoid Irish disputes.[22] The December agreement resolved the financial obligations of the Treaty in exchange for leaving the border unchanged. Early that evening, Fisher and Feetham were briefed by the three prime ministers together with Winston Churchill, as Chancellor of the Exchequer.[23] The two remaining commissioners expressed their view of the problems that would result from a failure to adjust what they saw as the border's more absurd anomalies, in particular protestant east Donegal (for which "Derry was the market town"); Pettigo and Belleek, County Fermanagh (both of which straddled the border); and the Drummully and Clones areas of County Monaghan, parts of which were accessible by road only from Northern Ireland.[24] The politicians requested of the commissioners that the report be "burned or buried". This inter-governmental discussion about suppressing the report, and the report itself, remained a secret until 1969.[7]:330 Ultimately the agreement to make no changes was concluded by the three governments and the Commission rubber-stamped it. The publication, or not, of the Commission's report became a legal irrelevance but remained controversial ever after.

Later life

Aged 70 at the end of the Commission's work, Fisher retired to London; his address was in barristers' chambers in Essex Court, Middle Temple. He died, unmarried, on 26 October 1939 at 12 Lancaster Drive, Hampstead,[3] close to the Swiss Cottage Tube station.

Books and other Publications

References

  1. ↑ Taylor, McComas (2011). "HE NEVER FALTERED: In search of Reverend Joseph Ringland Anderson" (PDF). Retrieved 2014-09-20.
  2. ↑ "The Queen's University Calendar". The Queen's University Calendar. Dublin: Alexander Thom and Hodges, Foster & Co. 1874. Retrieved September 11, 2014.
  3. 1 2 3 Legg, Marie-Louise (2004). "Fisher, Joseph Robert (1855–1939)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Retrieved 2014-09-11.
  4. ↑ Register of Admissions to the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple (from the Fifteenth Century to 1944) by H.A.C. Sturgess. Butterworth & Co., 1949. Three volumes.
  5. ↑ Addison, Henry Robert (1903). Who's Who. 55. London: A & C Black.
  6. ↑ "The Bookman". The Bookman. Great Britain: Hodder & Stoughton. 17: 145. 1900. Retrieved September 11, 2014.
  7. 1 2 3 Stubbs, John O. (1990). "The Unionists and Ireland, 1914-18". The Historical Journal. Great Britain. 33 (4): 867–893. doi:10.1017/s0018246x00013790. Retrieved February 5, 2013.
  8. ↑ "Articles of Agreement for a Treaty between Great Britain and Ireland as signed in London". 6 December 1921. Retrieved 2014-09-20.
  9. 1 2 Gibbons, Ivan (Autumn 2009). "The First British Labour Government and The Irish Boundary Commission 1924". Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review. Great Britain: Irish Province of the Society of Jesus. 98 (391): 321–333. JSTOR http://www.jstor.org/stable/25660684.
  10. 1 2 3 "Ulster Editor on Boundary Board". New York Times. New York City. 1924-10-19. p. 1. Retrieved 2014-09-10. Mr. Fisher is believed to hold conciliatory views...
  11. ↑ Irish Free State (Confirmation of Agreement) Act 1924
  12. ↑ Treaty (Confirmation of Supplemental Agreement) Act, 1924
  13. ↑ "Fisher, Joseph R.". Who's Who. Vol. 53. 1901. p. 421. Clubs - Reform
  14. ↑ "Irish Boundary. Third Commissioner. Mr. J. R. Fisher Appointed.". Northern Advocate. 1924-10-24. p. 1. Retrieved 2014-09-10. Mr. MacDonald announced that Mr. Joseph R. Fisher has been appointed the third member of the Irish Boundary Commission
  15. 1 2 Rankin, Kieran J. (2006). "The provenance and dissolution of the Irish Boundary Commission" (PDF). Working Papers in British-Irish Studies. Ireland: Institute for British-Irish Studies, University College Dublin (79). Retrieved September 10, 2014.
  16. 1 2 3 Rankin, Kieran J. (2005). "The Creation and Consolidation of the Irish Border" (PDF). Centre for International Borders Queen’s University Belfast. ISSN 1649-0304. Retrieved 2016-09-04.
  17. ↑ "No. 345 NAI DT S1801C Speech by William T. Cosgrave at Emyvale, Co Monaghan, 22 November 1925". Difp.ie. 1925-11-22. Retrieved 2014-09-11.
  18. ↑ Extract from minutes of a meeting of the Executive Council (C.2/224) Dublin, 10 November 1925. Documents on Irish Foreign Policy No. 336 NAI DT S1801O
  19. ↑ "Irish cabinet notes, 10 Nov 1925". Difp.ie. 1925-11-10. Retrieved 2011-04-04.
  20. ↑ "Irish cabinet memo, No. 343 NAI DT S1801O, 21 Nov 1925". Difp.ie. 1925-11-21. Retrieved 2011-04-04.
  21. ↑ "Draft notes of a conference held in the Board Room, Treasury, Whitehall, London (Secret) (C.A./H./48 – 2nd Minutes), 12.00 noon, 1 December 1925 No. 359 NAI DT S4720A". Difp.ie. 1925-12-01. Retrieved 2014-09-11.
  22. ↑ Matthews, Kevin (1 March 2001). "Stanley Baldwin's 'Irish Question'". The Historical Journal. 43 (4 (Dec., 2000)): 1027–1049. Retrieved 23 September 2014.
  23. ↑ "Memo on publication of the Report, 3 Dec 1925". Difp.ie. 1925-12-03. Retrieved 2011-04-04.
  24. ↑ "LAND WITHOUT LAW Monaghan villagers left beyond the law by Garda cutbacks". TheJournal.ie. Dublin. 2011-11-21. Retrieved 2014-09-10. Drummully in Co. Monaghan can’t be reached by Gardaí – because there’s no unmarked car to cross the Fermanagh border
  25. ↑ The Encyclopædia Britannica: a dictionary of arts, sciences. Volume 10, edited by Hugh Chisholm
  26. ↑ "Fisher, Joseph R.". Who's Who. Vol. 59. 1907. pp. 600–601.

External links

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