Lewis Ross Fischer, universally known as ‘Skip’, passed away peacefully in hospital on 11 February at St John's Newfoundland after a rapid deterioration in health owing to pulmonary fibrosis, with his family at his bedside.
An American citizen who was brought up in Brooklyn, New York City, Skip had a lifelong passion for music. At age 16 he wrote the lyrics for Bobby Vinton's 1962 hit song, ‘Trouble is my Middle Name’, and worked as a disc jockey from the age of 14 at various NYC and New York State radio stations. At high school he was a talented athlete and competed in games against the future NBA All Star Center, Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Jr (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar).
Skip's undergraduate studies were undertaken at the State University of New York (Albany), where he continued as a DJ and as a reporter. He was to report on a Rolling Stones concert but was more interested in the backing band, the folk-rock trio, the Stone Poneys, whose lead singer was a young Linda Ronstadt. Subsequently Skip dated Linda for a year, although it was a long-distance relationship. While at Albany, Skip joined the Civil Rights Movement, and later moved to Canada in opposition to the Vietnam War. His postgraduate studies were undertaken at York University and the University of Toronto. He was then appointed to a post at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario, but spent most of his career at Memorial University of Newfoundland.
In 1976 he joined Memorial as an assistant professor (research) as part of the Atlantic Canada Shipping Project (ACSP). The ACSP was perhaps the first computer-aided project in maritime history, which gave rise to new quantitative methods in the aggregation and explanation of historical data.
With ACSP colleagues, David Alexander (1939–80) Keith Matthews (1938–84), Gerald E. Panting (1927–98), Eric W. Sager, and Rosemary Ommer among others, Skip published numerous articles in scholarly journals and collaborated on edited collections, including editing three volumes of collected ACSP papers and eleven volumes of Canadian shipping records. Before he retired in 2015, he had over 200 publications to his name.
Latterly Skip lectured and taught overseas, particularly in Norway where a fruitful collaboration and lasting friendship began in the late 1970s with the late Professor Helge W. Nordvik (1943–98), which led to nearly 30 articles and chapters in books on aspects of maritime labour markets, and shipbroking.
Skip was also one of the founders of the Canadian Nautical Research Society and served as its vice-president and secretary; and from January 1991 as the founding co-editor of its quarterly journal, The Northern Mariner/Le Marin Du Nord, which he edited to 2002. He was also one of the original members of the steering committee of the International Maritime Economic History Association in 1988 and co-editor of its newsletter. From this foundation arose the International Journal of Maritime History, a journal he served as editor-in-chief for almost 25 years from June 1989 to December 2013, with the help of Memorial University. Skip also founded and edited in 1992 the long-running IMEHA book series Research in Maritime History, originally at Memorial but now with Liverpool University Press, with the fifty-third volume to be published this year.
With Professor Peter Neville Davies, he organized the first International Congress of Maritime History in Liverpool in 1992 and served on the organizing committees of many others. In 2005, his contribution to maritime history was recognized by an honorary doctorate of laws from the University of Liverpool, presented by Liverpool's chancellor, Lord David Owen, a former British Foreign Secretary in the Callaghan Labour government. In 2012 a festschrift in his honour, The World's Key Industry: History and economics of international shipping, was edited by Gelina Harlaftis, Stig Tenold and Jesus M. Valdaliso.
Despite his prodigious academic achievements, and colossal contribution to the growth of maritime economic history over four decades, Skip was a paragon of humility and courtesy. He helped many younger scholars to academic success, gave advice freely and was much sought after for references, which he gave willingly. At heart he was a humanist: and to all who knew him personally, he was a steady and loyal friend in good times and in bad. He will be much missed by his friends around the world, whose lives he touched for the better, including this author.
Skip professed a wish that no funeral would take place and was cremated. Married three times, first to Virginia and then to Ann, he leaves his third wife Maggie (née Hennessey), a son, Jeremy, and two daughters, Karin and Rebecca from his first marriage, and is survived by two brothers, Bruce and Barry.