Col. Oakden Fisher was a very influential figure in cricketing circles in the Cardiff area during the late Victorian and early Edwardian era. He was the son of George Fisher, a Director of the Taff Vale Railway and Chairman of Cardiff Gaslight and Coke Company, with Oakden being a leading engineer with the Taff Vale Railway besides being a decent cricketer with Cardiff CC and winning selection for the Glamorganshire side in 1870 and again during 1872.
His first appearance for the county side came at Usk on 22 July 1870 when he played against Monmouthshire. He scored 4 and 0, but Glamorganshire lost by an innings.
Two years later, he featured again for Glamorganshire against Capt. Pearson’s XI at Cardiff Arms Park on 24 and 25 June, 1872. Batting at number eleven, he failed to score but did take a catch as the contest ended in a draw.
The Fisher’s mixed with the great and good of South Wales society and from the early 1880s lived at Ty Mynydd, an impressive mansion in the thriving suburb of Radyr. Their neighbours were coal magnate Sir Henry Lewis, and through the encouragement of Oakden, he financed the creation of a cricket ground and pavilion in the southern part of his home at Ty Nant. Sir Henry subsequently presented the ground to the Garth club in 1893 which he and Oakden had formed, partly so that they could enjoy healthy recreation in their suburban retreat to the north of Cardiff. The other reason was that they could enhance their political and social contacts, through staging cricket matches against teams with other teams from well-to-do suburbs in the hinterland of the coal metropolis.
Oakden was delighted when his son Harry showed prowess at cricket whilst attending Malvern School. Oakden had also been a Colonel in the Glamorgan Artillery Volunteers so it was no surprise that Harry opted for a military career and was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Wiltshire Regiment in 1899. He fought in the Boer War and was mentioned in dispatches, before becoming a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Duke of Edinburgh’s Wiltshire Regiment. He saw active service from 1915 on the Western Front, but he lost his life, whilst attached as Commander of the 12th Battalion of the York and Lancaster Regiment in the Battle of the Somme during the Autumn of 1916. On the morning of 3 October he was undertaking a reconnaissance mission with other officers to assess the Regiments next move, but at 03.45 he was shot through the head and killed instantly by a German sniper.