Olfert Fas Fischer

Vice-Admiral Olfert Fasvier Fischer (14 March 1700 – 7 December 1761) was a Royal Dano-Norwegian Navy officer. In addition to serving in the navy, he also became a director of the Danish Asia Company and ended his career as a vice admiral.

Personal life Born on 14 March 1700, Olfert Fasvier Fischer (his middle name was often abbreviated to Fas) was the son of the Dutch skipper and merchant Olfert Vaese who had settled in Copenhagen with his wife Alida Brunsman. He married twice, in 1720 to Sidsel Marie Hassel who died in 1737. and in 1738 with his second wife Anna Ackerman, the 18-year-old daughter of a wine merchant, with whom he had ten daughters and three sons. Of the three sons all joined the navy, but two died young including Friderich Gerhart Fischer who was lost when his ship foundered in the Atlantic. The third son was Johan Olfert Fischer who also became a Vice Admiral. In 1745 the manor house of Marienborg at Lyngby, just north of Copenhagen, was built for Olfert Fas Fischer. Today it is the official residence of the Danish Prime Minister.

Career As a cadet from the age of twelve, Fisker served under Andreas Rosenpalm in the Great Northern War until, in 1719 he was commissioned as a junior lieutenant. Promoted to senior lieutenant in 1725, he was second in command of the gunboat Friderichshald in the squadron, and the following year served in the ship-of-the-line Slesvig with the Danish squadron which, together with a Royal Navy squadron, blockaded the Russian fleet in Reval (modern day Tallinn) in 1726. and the following year to full Captain. In 1739 he became a director of the Danish Asia Company, a post he held until 1752. Rising in seniority and rank to Commodore in 1747, Fas Fischer sat on several commissions at the Danish admiralty including the Rigging Commission in 1749, and in 1751 on both the Defence Commission and that reviewing the Articles of War. In the year before he was promoted to flag rank, he was appointed as a deputy at the Danish admiralty. It was also in 1758 that Fischer was promoted to vice admiral.

Death and pensions He died on 7 December 1761 in Copenhagen and was buried in the cemetery of the German Reformed Church, Copenhagen.

His widow sought a pension from the admiralty for herself and the nine children (two sons and seven daughters) who were still minors - the youngest still a babe-in-arms. This was granted in the sum of 300 Rigs dollar annually, and on the death of their mother twenty years later the six remaining unmarried daughters received a single supplementary payment of 30 Rdl.