The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/Fisher, George
Fisher, George, M.H.R., sometime Minister of Education and Customs, New Zealand, is the son of James Fisher and Elizabeth (McLeod) his wife, and though of Scotch descent, was born at Dublin in Dec. 1843. At nine years of age he was engaged in a printing office in Gough Square, London, and arrived in Melbourne, Vict., with his parents in Sept. 1857, where he was employed as reading boy on the Age newspaper, and subsequently on the Herald, his father being a small proprietor in the former journal. He was next employed as a compositor by Messrs. Ferguson & Moore, of Melbourne, but left that firm in 1863 to go to the Otago gold diggings in New Zealand. After working at his trade in Invercargill, Dunedin, and Christchurch, Mr. Fisher settled in Wellington, and was employed in the Government printing office till 1872, when he became a reporter on the Independent, and having learnt shorthand, obtained a footing on the New Zealand Hansard staff, which he held for eleven years, being in the meantime returned to the Wellington City Council, and holding the mayoralty of the capital for four consecutive years. In 1884 he was elected to the House of Representatives for South Wellington, and has represented East Wellington since 1887. He was Minister of Education and Commissioner of Trade and Customs in the last Atkinson Government from Oct. 1887 to April 1889, when he resigned, the vacant portfolios being taken over by the Premier. Mr. Fisher was married at Christchurch, N.Z., on March 1st, 1866, to Miss Laura Emma Tompkins.