In October 1944 Archbishop Temple died suddenly. Cyril Garbett, the Archbishop of York, was nearly 70 and declined to succeed him at Canterbury. Many in the church hoped that the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, would appoint another reform-minded idealist such as George Bell, the Bishop of Chichester, but Churchill chose Fisher. Temple had hoped Fisher would be his successor, valuing his precision and administrative skill. Garbett, too, approved; he and Fisher were close personal friends. In his view Canterbury needed "a dynamic presence for some years, not a caretaker", and he welcomed working with Fisher. Nonetheless, after Churchill lost the 1945 general election, the Church was left, in Webster's words, with "a reforming Labour government" but "a conservative, headmasterly archbishop who, though warm-hearted, was determined to maintain the protestant establishment". According to "The Times", Garbett and Fisher cooperated in the government of the Church in an unusually close manner made possible by strong mutual regard. "Garbett had a wider knowledge of social matters and was more at home than Fisher in the disputed territory which lies between religion and politics. Fisher was happy to have his hands free for the task of refurbishing the administrative structure of the Church". His obituarist in "The Guardian" wrote, "It was a grim and testing moment for any man to take up the highest position in the whole of the Anglican communion. He at once rose to it, partly by his clear self-knowledge that he was no Temple and must never try to become one."