page_title: Geoffrey Fisher
section_title: Marriages, coronation and divorces
hierarchical_section_title: Geoffrey Fisher / Life and career / Archbishop of Canterbury / Marriages, coronation and divorces
caption_attribution_description: Title / Titre&#160;: Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II / Couronnement de la Reine Elizabeth II Creator(s) / Créateur(s)&#160;: Unknown / Inconnu Date(s)&#160;: June 2, 1953 / 2 juin 1953 Reference No. / Numéro de référence&#160;: MIKAN 3242151 collectionscanada.gc.ca/ourl/res.php?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&amp;... Location / Lieu&#160;: London, England / London, Angleterre Credit / Mention de source&#160;: Library and Archives Canada, K-0000045 / Bibliothèque et Archives Canada, K-0000045
context_page_description: Geoffrey Francis Fisher, Baron Fisher of Lambeth, GCVO, PC was an English Anglican priest, and 99th Archbishop of Canterbury, serving from 1945 to 1961.
  From a long line of parish priests, Fisher was educated at Marlborough College and Exeter College, Oxford. He achieved high academic honours but was not interested in a university career. He was ordained priest in 1913, and taught at Marlborough for three years; in 1914, aged 27, he was appointed headmaster of Repton School where he served for 18 years. In 1932, having left Repton, he was made Bishop of Chester. In 1939 he accepted the post of Bishop of London, the third most senior post in the Church of England. His term of office began shortly after the start of the Second World War, and his organising skills were required to keep the diocese functioning despite the devastation of the London Blitz.
  In 1944, the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple died suddenly, and Fisher was chosen to succeed him. He served from 1945 to 1961. One of the main themes of his time in office was church unity.
context_section_description: Fisher officiated at the marriage of Princess Elizabeth in Westminster Abbey in 1947, and after her accession to the throne he led the coronation service in 1953, and crowned her as Queen. Shortly afterwards he was drawn into a controversy when the Queen's younger sister, Princess Margaret, was romantically linked with Peter Townsend, a divorced man. The Church of England regarded marriage as a lifelong commitment and divorcés or divorcées could not remarry in church. The princess decided not to marry Townsend, and although she stated that her decision had been made "entirely alone", mindful of the Church's teaching on the indissolubility of marriage, it was rumoured that Fisher had influenced her in taking a course widely regretted among the British public. The Prime Minister's son, Randolph Churchill, commented that the rumour "has done incalculable harm to the Church of England".
  One of Fisher's aims during his 16 years as archbishop was to make the position of the Church about the marriage of divorced people widely understood and accepted. He staunchly upheld the rules that would have prevented Princess Margaret and Townsend from marrying in church, but in the words of The Guardian, he "combin[ed] that undoubted rigour with a profound compassion for all those whose lives had been ... wrecked by a disastrous marriage. That road lay over a knife-edge of perplexity and contradiction, but he trod it creatively."
caption: Fisher (front) at the Coronation of Elizabeth II, 1953. Behind him, from l.: Lord Simonds (Lord Chancellor), Lord Cholmondeley (Lord Great Chamberlain), Lord Alanbrooke (Lord High Constable of England) and the Duke of Norfolk (Earl Marshal)
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS Windows", "Image DateTime": "2004:08:23 16:15:42", "Image ExifOffset": "164", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "302", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6267", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "422", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "580"}