William J. Fishman

For the American film director, see Bill Fishman.

William J. Fishman (1 April 1921 – 22 December 2014) was a British academic. He was the author of several books on topics ranging from revolutionary advocacy in Europe during the late 19th and early 20th centuries to the history of the East End of London.

Fishman was born in London in 1921. The son of an immigrant tailor from Russia and his Ukrainian wife, he spent his formative years in the East End of London. At 15, he was an eyewitness to the Battle of Cable Street, and recalled,

"I was moved to tears to see bearded Jews and Irish Catholic dockers standing up to stop Mosley. I shall never forget that as long as I live, how working-class people could get together to oppose the evil of fascism."

He was educated at the Central Foundation Boys' School, Wandsworth Teachers Training College and the London School of Economics. He served in the British army in the Second World War, completing his service in the Far East. After the war he worked as a teacher and was appointed principal of Tower Hamlets College of Further Education. In 1965 he was elected to a studentship at Balliol College, Oxford. In 1967 he was Visiting Professor of History at Columbia University, New York.

He was visiting professor of history at the University of Wisconsin, Madison from 1969–70 and was awarded an Acton Society Fellowship. In 1972 he was appointed Barnet Shine Senior Research Fellow in Labour Studies with special reference to Jews at Queen Mary, University of London. He was made an honorary fellow of Queen Mary in 1999. He was Visiting Professor to the Centre for the Study of Migration at Queen Mary. On 22 December 2014, he died at the age of 93.

Books

• The Insurrectionists (1970); Publ: Methuen
• East End Jewish Radicals 1875-1914 (1974); Publ: Duckworth
• East End 1888: Life in a London Borough Among the Labouring Poor (1988); Publ: Duckworth
• Streets of East London (1992) (with photographs by Nicholas Breach);
• Into The Abyss: The Life and Work of G. R. Sims (2008); Publ: Elliott & Thompson

External links

• Centre for the Study of Migration, Queen Mary, University of London
• East End 1888 at Inpress Books UK
• Fishman's bio in the Museum of Childhood