Fisher’s character
Studio portrait of Fisher smiling
In appearance, Fisher had a large head with an intense gaze behind thick pebble glasses. He was usually scruffily dressed (he was dubbed “Piggy” at College) and persistently smoked a pipe stuffed with pungent tobacco.
He was well read, displayed an incredible breadth of knowledge beyond his chosen fields, and had an abiding interest in nature.
From childhood, Fisher was set apart from his peers due to his intelligence and his poor eyesight. Despite his vision, he was remarkably self-sufficient, but at times was absent-minded and irresponsible, abrogating care about arrangements to others.
He could also be irritable and inconsiderate and prone to short-lived passionate outbursts towards those who thwarted his desires – particularly administrators. Henry Bennett maintained that his sometimes aggressive manner was only a reflection of his pursuit of the truth and his passionate integrity.
Fisher had a need for intellectual companions with whom he could share his thoughts and sympathise with his aims, if not always his conclusions.
Fisher could at the same time be self-centred and charming and he had a sharp and appealing sense of humour. He enjoyed the company of children and displayed absolute loyalty to his friends. Fisher's stay in Adelaide was remarkable for the friends that he made.
He was a patriot and a political conservative, with a loyalty to his church and a belief in the value of the aristocracy.
On display:
- Photograph: Fisher with children, Calcutta, 1960. Fisher Papers. Series 25.2: Album of official functions … etc 1945-62
- Photograph: Studio portrait of Fisher smiling (Ramsey & Muspratt, Cambridge). Fisher Papers. Series 25.2: Album of official functions … etc 1945-62
Caricatures
Caricature drawn by A.J. Engel Terzi, 1932. Series 25.1: Family album c1900-55
Caricature drawn at Geneva following the 1949 International Biometrics Conference at the University of Geneva. Fisher Papers. Series 25.2: Album of official functions … etc 1945-62. Signed [illegible signature] “Geneva, 9/15/49. In all humility”
Anonymous caricature of Fisher writing on blackboard. Fisher Papers. Series 25.2: Album of official functions … etc 1945-62
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“ I am genuinely sorry for scientists of the younger generation who never knew Fisher personally. So long as you avoided a handful of subjects like inverse probability that would turn Fisher in the briefest possible moment from extreme urbanity into a boiling cauldron of wrath, you got by with little worse than a thick head from the port which he, like the Cambridge mathematician J. E. Littlewood, loved to drink in the evening. And on the credit side you gained a cherished memory of English spoken in a Shakespearean style and delivered in the manner of a Spanish grandee ” Fred Hoyle (1915 to 2001), Astrophysicist. Mathematics of Evolution (Acorn Enterprises, 1999)
Prize Books from Harrow School
In his last year at Harrow, Fisher selected as prize books not mathematical texts but a collection of Greek plays in translation and the collected works of Charles Darwin and Thomas Huxley, which he would read and reread throughout his life
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