Source: Library and Archives Canada/MIKAN 3017898

FISHER, Sir GEORGE BULTEEL, army officer and painter; b. 16 March 1764 in Peterborough, England, youngest of nine sons of John Fisher and Elizabeth Laurens; m. 7 May 1814 Elizabeth Rawlings in White Waltham, and they had one daughter; d. 8 March 1834 in Woolwich (London).

George Bulteel Fisher’s family was a distinguished one. His eldest brother, John, followed in the footsteps of his father, an Anglican clergyman, graduating from Cambridge to pursue a career in the Church of England, which culminated in an appointment as bishop of Salisbury. Dubbed “the King’s Fisher” on account of his friendship with George III, John was a well-known patron of artists, especially John Constable, and through him George developed an association with Constable. George, John, and their brother Benjamin were all competent amateur watercolourists; however, the first has received more notice. Their artistic bent may have been derived from their mother, a Huguenot heiress.

George, like Benjamin, followed a military career. He began his training, probably at about age 16, in the drawing room of the Tower of London, which focused on forming technical rather than tactical officers. Afterwards he attended the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich; he would have studied draftsmanship under Paul Sandby, chief drawing-master there from 1768 to 1796. In 1780 he and Benjamin were honorary exhibitors at the Royal Academy of Arts. Benjamin showed a view of Dominica and George one of the Isle of Wight, where their father was rector of Calbourne; the following year George showed another of the same island. Commissioned a second lieutenant in the Royal Artillery on 1 July 1782, Fisher was promoted first lieutenant on 28 May 1790 and that month was sent to Gibraltar.

Fisher departed from there in 1791 for Lower Canada, where, by his account, he “had the honour of attending” Prince Edward* Augustus. This appointment may have been obtained through the influence of his brother John, who had been the prince’s tutor from 1780 to 1785. Fisher’s travels to Gibraltar, Lower Canada, and the West Indies paralleled those of Edward Augustus from 1790 to 1794, and it may be that he was on the prince’s staff for the same period. In April 1792 at Quebec Elizabeth Posthuma Simcoe [Gwillim*], wife of the recently appointed lieutenant governor of Upper Canada, John Graves Simcoe*, noted that she had seen some beautiful views of Windsor Castle drawn by Fisher for Edward Augustus and an oil painting of his which did not please her Later that month Fisher set out from Quebec to take some views of Niagara Falls, which he showed to the Simcoes on meeting them at Carleton Island (N.Y.) on his return.

Fisher left Lower Canada for the West Indies in 1794 and was present that year at the capture of Martinique, St Lucia, and Guadeloupe under Sir Charles Grey. He was promoted captain-lieutenant on 6 March 1795. Once back in England he arranged for John William Edy to engrave and publish Six views of North America (London, 1796) after his sketches. These finely executed aquatints were originally issued in pairs dated 10 May 1795, 1 Sept. 1795, and 1 Feb. 1796; a descriptive pamphlet dedicated to Edward Augustus was published in 1796 to accompany them. Edy, a painter as well as an engraver active from about 1780 to at least 1824, deserves as much credit as Fisher for their superb quality. According to the art historian Gerald E. Finlay, the elements of the Picturesque so evident in these prints influenced a profound and immediate change in the style of a prolific contemporary painter of the Canadian landscape, George Heriot*. Equally beautiful is a larger scale aquatint by Fisher and Edy entitled View of the falls of Niagara, North America, which was probably published between c. 1795 and 1800. One extant impression was personally coloured and inscribed by Fisher for General John Hale; the general’s son John* had been aide-de-camp and military secretary to Edward Augustus at Quebec, where Fisher in all likelihood knew him. The duo of Fisher and Edy, presumably satisfied with the response to their North American prints, published six aquatints of Gibraltar scenes in 1796–97. In 1800 a Captain Fisher, believed to be George, exhibited a view of Niagara Falls at the Royal Academy of Arts. Eight years later Fisher made his last appearance there, exhibiting landscapes of Durham and Blackheath (London). He allegedly took views in Portugal with the panorama painter Robert Barker (d. 1806) for use in the latter’s exhibition room on Leicester Square in London.

Having been promoted captain in 1801, major in 1806, and lieutenant-colonel on 28 June 1808, Fisher served in Portugal and Spain during the Peninsular War, beginning in March 1809. He assumed command of the Royal Artillery following the siege of Burgos, Spain, in the autumn of 1812; however, a misunderstanding with the Marquess of Wellington resulted in his return to England in July 1813. Fisher’s successor, Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander Dickson, had only high praise for him and intimated that Wellington had acted with haste and injustice. Fisher, favourably impressed with the fine Portuguese scenery, about which he remarked to the painter Joseph Farington in 1810, painted several water-colours while there.

Fisher was an accomplished amateur artist in oil and water-colour who had the advantage of social contacts with professional artists, among whom were Constable, Farington, and possibly John Downman and Francis Towne. His penchant for lecturing about art impressed at least one subordinate officer in Portugal but failed to endear him to Constable, who confessed to being “tired of going to school.” Ten years earlier, however, Constable had praised Fisher’s North American drawings, and Fisher’s importance to Canada is undoubtedly this artistic legacy.

Fisher was promoted brevet colonel on 4 June 1814, regimental colonel on 6 Nov. 1820, and major-general on 27 May 1825. He was made kb on 21 Sept. 1831 and a knight commander of the Hanoverian Order in 1833, and he was commandant of the Woolwich garrison from 10 Feb. 1827 until his death in 1834. He received a splendid military funeral and is buried at Old Charlton (London).

W. Martha E. Cooke