[5] He was born in Orange, New South Wales, Australia to British parents, Charles Edward and Laura Isabel (née Black) Finch, educated in German-speaking Switzerland, and studied physical sciences at the University of Geneva.

[6] He began studying medicine in Paris (where he scaled the walls of Notre Dame with his brother) but decided he preferred the physical sciences.

He was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire in the 1918 New Year Honours for services in connection with the War in France, Egypt and Salonika.

[9] Finch fell out with the Everest Committee after 1922, but his pioneering work on oxygen, which he pursued with messianic zeal, remained crucial to future expeditions.

His outstanding skill in the design of instruments and experimental methods has enabled him greatly to increase the accuracy of measurements in connection with electron diffraction and cathode-ray oscillography.

By the time he returned from the front in 1917, Fisher had given birth to a son from a relationship with another man, Wentworth "Jock" Campbell, an Indian Army officer.