His parents were Mary Ann Passmore and Henry Smith Fish, a painter.

He received his education at Cave House School and from 1849 at Melbourne, where the family settled.

Afterwards, he worked in his father's painting and glazier business in Melbourne, and from around 1863, in Dunedin, to where the family relocated.

[2] On 31 January 1867, he married Jane Carr at Dunedin's St Paul's Church.

[7] Fish represented liquor interests in Parliament, and was an opponent of Women's suffrage in 1890–1893 on their behalf.