Bill Fiske, Baron Fiske

William Geoffrey "Bill" Fiske, Baron Fiske OBE (* July 3, 1905; † 13 January 1975) was a British politician. He was the first chairman of the Greater London Council (GLC ) and supervise the decimalisation of the pound sterling as president of the Decimal Currency Board.

Professional and political career

Bill Fiske was born into a middle-class family, politics played a major role. He attended Berkhamsted Collegiate School and after graduating worked for the Bank of England. After twelve years dortiger occupation he took advantage of the opportunity in 1935, with a generous pension to leave the bank and to work as a manager.

At the outbreak of World War II Fiske was convened in the administration. In 1945, he ran unsuccessfully for the Labour Party in the constituency of South Hampstead. The following year he was elected to the London County Council ( LLC). He was enthusiastic about increasing for the work at the local level, so that he put back his earlier ambitions to be a Member of Parliament. He was Parliamentary Secretary of the Labour Group. Since he was not popular with some of his colleagues, he was after the dissolution of the LLC as a candidate for the GLC, which was considered to be negligible. In the elections of 1964, he campaigned with the demand for expansion of social housing. Fiske won his constituency Labour and the entire election. After Labour in the same year won the general election for himself, Fiske was made a Knight.

In Fiske's line was occasionally friction with the Borough who would not accept it if the GLC wanted to impose measures against their will. A particular problem is the growing volume of traffic was found in the city. Fiske proposed higher parking fees for Inner London before with parking permits for residents of the affected area. He was also active for the art, advocated the construction of the Royal National Theatre and was himself a member of the Supervisory Board. However, he did not succeed during his Amszeit to keep the rent as low as he had wished. In the elections in 1967, Labour suffered a crushing defeat, and Fiske lost his constituency. He was raised in Greater London for life peer with the title Baron Fiske of Brent.

The decimalization of the pound

The then Chancellor of the Exchequer James Callaghan appointed Fiske 1966 as chairman of the Decimal Currency Board. He was commissioned to carry out the decimalization of the pound, which was then divided into 20 shillings, each shilling consisted of twelve pence. Henceforth, should be equal to 100 new pence a pound.

Fiske launched an ambitious campaign in the next five years to change to prepare in the citizens and businesses on the impact of decimalization. There were rotated and information films shown on television and distributed brochures. The date for the change, known as Decimal day or D day was set at 15 February 1971. Despite some predictions, the change would end up as a disaster, was the D day smoothly. The board was dissolved in 1971, and Fiske went into retirement. His subjects during his time in the House of Lords were the support of tenants in social housing, state control of real estate agents as well as better care of diabetes patients.