Vilyam Genrikhovich Fisher - Early Life

Early Life

Fisher was born on July 11, 1903, in Benwell, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom, the second son of Heinrich and Lyubov Fisher. Revolutionaries of the Tsarist era, his parents were ethnic Germans from Russia. Fisher's father, a revolutionary activist, taught and agitated with Vladimir Lenin at Saint Petersburg Technological Institute. In 1896 he was arrested for sedition and sentenced to three years internal exile. As Fisher senior had served a sentence for offences against the Russian state, he was forced to flee to the United Kingdom, the alternative being deportation to Germany or imprisonment in Russia for avoidance of military service. While living in the United Kingdom, Fisher's father, a keen Bolshevik, took part in gunrunning, shipping arms from the North East coast to the Baltic states to help the proletariat.

Fisher and his brother, Henry, won scholarships to Whitley Bay High School and Monkseaton High School. Though Fisher was not as hard working as Henry, he showed aptitude for science, mathematics, languages, art and music, inherited in part from his father's abilities. Encouraging their son's love of music, Fisher's parents gave him piano lessons; he also learned to play the guitar. It was during this period that Fisher developed an interest in amateur radio, constructing rudimentary spark transmitters and receivers.

In 1918, at the age of 15, Fisher became an apprentice draughtsman at Swan Hunter, Wallsend, and attended evening classes at Rutherford College before being accepted into London University in 1919. Though Fisher qualified for university, the costs prohibited him from attending. In 1921, following the Russian Revolution, the Fisher family left Newcastle upon Tyne to return to Moscow.