William Bayne Fisher (b. 1916, d. 1984) [1] was an academic geographer, best know for his role as Head of the geography department at Durham University from 1954-1981, and as the first head of the Durham Graduate Society (later Ustinov College). [2] As an academic his area of expertise was the Middle East and particularly Iran.
Fisher grew up in Darwen and studied geography at Manchester University. He obtained his doctorate at the Sorbonne under Albert Demangeon, completing it in 1940 just before the German invasion of France. [1] During World War Two he worked as a meteorologist for the Royal Air Force and was posted to the Middle East, where he first became familiar with the region. Following a year at Manchester University, he worked as a lecturer at at Aberdeen University from 1947-1954, before being appointed as the Head of the Geography Department at Durham. [1]
At Durham, W.B. Fisher helped grow the department from a small institution with five academic staff, 60 students taking honours courses and 52 taking other courses. [2] By the late 1960s there was already as many as 100 honours students every year [1] and the department continued to grow to become one of the largest geography departments in the UK. [2] Academically, Fisher was known for his work in the Middle East. His major work was written in 1950, titled The Middle East: A physical, social and regional geography, which was updated over seven editions, the last being published in 1978. [3] He produced a number of other works, most of which were concerned with the political geography of the Mediterranean and Middle East. In 1972 he was awarded the Murchison Award by the Royal Geographical Society, in recognition of his work. [4]
As well as his work in geography, Fisher influenced the future direction of Durham University as a whole. In taking on a number of foreign postgraduate students, he became frustrated with the lack of support provided to these students by the university. [1] As such he founded The Graduate Society, the first organisation at Durham solely for postgraduate students, which later became a full college of the university, under the name Ustinov College. [5] His work in the Middle East also opened the possibility for the foundation of the Centre for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, which still operates as the Institute for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies.
Fisher retired from Durham in 1981, and died shortly afterwards in 1984. [1]