Walter George Fish (3 June 1874 – 21 December 1947), known as W. G. Fish,

edited Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, photographic, visual, audible, or cinematic material used by a person or an entity to convey a message or information. The editing process can involve correction, condensation, orga ...

a popular English daily newspaper. He and his second wife

Margery Fish Margery Fish (née Townshend) (5 August 1892 – 24 March 1969) was an English gardener and gardening writer, who exercised a strong influence on the informal English cottage garden style of her period.

, who became a noted gardening author and plantswoman, established a cottage-style

Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lord_ ...

garden,

East Lambrook Manor East Lambrook Manor is a small 15th-century manor house in East Lambrook, Somerset, England, registered by English Heritage as a Grade II* listed building. It is surrounded by a "cottage garden" planted by Margery Fish between 1938 and her death ...

, which she further developed after his death. It remains much visited.

Early life

Born in

Accrington Accrington is a town in the Hyndburn borough of Lancashire, England. It lies about east of Blackburn, west of Burnley, east of Preston, north of Manchester and is situated on the culverted River Hyndburn. Commonly abbreviated by locals to ...

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly. The non-metropolitan county of Lancashi ...

, Fish studied at

Westminster City School Westminster City School is a state-funded secondary academy for boys, with a mixed sixth form, in Westminster, London. The school educates over 800 students, with links to more than 100 different cultures, in a central London location. The sch ...

before entering journalism.

Journalism and wartime occupations

Fish joined the ''

Daily Mail The ''Daily Mail'' is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper and news websitePeter Wilb"Paul Dacre of the Daily Mail: The man who hates liberal Britain", ''New Statesman'', 19 December 2013 (online version: 2 January 2014) publish ...

'' in 1904 and was promoted to news editor in 1906. There he quickly gained notice by providing the first reports of the murderer

Dr Crippen Hawley Harvey Crippen (September 11, 1862 – November 23, 1910), usually known as Dr. Crippen, was an American homeopath, ear and eye specialist and medicine dispenser. He was hanged in Pentonville Prison in London for the murder of his wife C ...

's arrest in Canada. During the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, he worked for the

Board of Trade The Board of Trade is a British government body concerned with commerce and industry, currently within the Department for International Trade. Its full title is The Lords of the Committee of the Privy Council appointed for the consideration of ...

, organising publicity for

coal mining Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from ...

. He was appointed a Commander of the

Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established ...

in the

1919 New Year Honours The 1919 New Year Honours were appointments by King George V to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of the British Empire. The appointments were published in ''The London Gazette'' and ''The Times'' in Jan ...

. Fish was promoted to the post of editor of the ''Mail'' in 1919. In 1922, he fell out with the newspaper's owner,

Lord Northcliffe Alfred Charles William Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe (15 July 1865 – 14 August 1922), was a British newspaper and publishing magnate. As owner of the ''Daily Mail'' and the ''Daily Mirror'', he was an early developer of popular journal ...

, threatening to sue him for libel, but he was dissuaded and ultimately continued as editor until 1930. He spent his retirement as a director of the ''Mail'' and during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

advised the Ministry of Information and Press and Censorship Bureau.Fish, Margery
, ''

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') was published on 23 September ...

Gardening

In the late 1930s, Fish and his second wife Margery Fish bought

, mainly in response to the dangers of the Second World War. There they established an innovative cottage garden that still attracts many visitors. The couple famously had clashing styles, with Walter favouring bright summer flowers and Margery preferring an informal style with many shade-loving plants and early spring flowers. These included the

snowdrop ''Galanthus'' (from Ancient Greek , (, "milk") + (, "flower")), or snowdrop, is a small genus of approximately 20 species of bulbous perennial herbaceous plants in the family Amaryllidaceae. The plants have two linear leaves and a single sm ...

, of which she built up a collection of species and varieties, making her a prominent

galanthophile A galanthophile is an enthusiastic collector and identifier of snowdrop (''Galanthus'') species and cultivars. Term The term galanthophile was probably coined by a noted British plantsman and garden writer E. A. Bowles (1865–1954), in a lette ...

. The development of the garden is detailed in Margery Fish's semi-autobiographical, semi-instructional gardening books, ''We Made a Garden'' (1956) and its successors.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fish, Walter George 1874 births 1947 deaths English newspaper editors English male journalists Commanders of the Order of the British Empire People from Accrington