His family came from Normandy, France, in about 990 AD and are recorded as living in England during the reign of Edward the Confessor (1042–1066).
Another line from Osbernus led to Saint John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, beheaded by Henry VIII in 1535.
James Bickerton Fisher married secondly on 28 December 1886 in Oamaru Rose Louisson born in 1862 and who died in 1915 aged 53.
Rose was the daughter of Cecil Louisson an hotelier and brewer of England then Australia and later Christchurch and Palmerston North.
From this marriage there were two children: After school, Fisher trained as a solicitor with Francis James Garrick and received his call to the bar in 1868.
[4] He returned to Christchurch in 1882 and after practising by himself for some time, he became a partner in Garrick, Cowlishaw and Fisher, solicitors of Gloucester Street.