Thomas Fisher

Thomas Fisher (1772-1836) was an artist and antiquarian from Rochester. He had a long career with the East India Company, but in his spare time devoted himself to drawing interior church monuments in various counties in England, publishing his drawings usually in the Gentleman’s Magazine, beginning in 1789, with three of his drawings exhibited at the Royal Academy between 1804 and 1808. He as an early practitioner of lithography, and wrote articles for the Gentleman’s Magazine on it. He published several volumes of drawings of monumental remains. He was elected a member of the Royal Society of Arts in 1823 and a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1836. He was a staunch Independent, writing the series in the Congregational Magazine between 1818 and 1823 titled “Statistical View of Dissenters in England and Wales.” He was a director for the London Missionary Society, member of the Bible Society and the committee for Highbury College, and an ardent abolitionist, publishing a pamphlet titled The Negro’s Memorial, or, Abolitionist’s Catechism (1825). He also wrote some lives of missionaries.