Fitchett, William (1841-1928)

WILLIAM Henry Fitchett, Australian journalist, minister, newspaper editor, educator and founding president of the Methodist Ladies’ College, Melbourne, was born at Grantham, the third son of William Fitchett and his wife Hannah, née Hubbard.

His father, a perfumer, hairdresser, clog and patten maker and toy-dealer, was a Wesleyan local preacher who emigrated to New South Wales with a land order for 65 acres (26 ha). He arrived at Geelong in the Larpent with his wife and five children in 1849 and died two years later.

William’s formal schooling at a Wesleyan denominational school was brief but by 1865 he was an accredited local preacher. In 1870 he married Jemima (Cara), daughter of Thomas Shaw, then matriculated at the University of Melbourne, graduating with a BA in 1875.

He was appointed founding president to Methodist Ladies’ College, Kew, in 1882.

In 1886 Fitchett was elected president of the Wesleyan Methodist Conference of Victoria and Tasmania, and in 1902 first president of the United Methodist Victorian and Tasmanian Conference.

He was a delegate at the Ecumenical Conference in Toronto in 1911.

His career as a journalist and writer began with a weekly column, ‘Easy Chair Chat’, in the Methodist Spectator and Wesleyan Chronicle (Melbourne) under the pen name ‘XYZ’ (1875-79).

He became editor of the Southern Cross, a weekly religious paper and in 1883, Fitchett became consulting editor Daily Telegraph until it was sold in 1892.

The books which made W. H. Fitchett a household name throughout the British Empire began with Deeds that Won the Empire (1897). It was placed by the Admiralty in all warships’ libraries, adopted as a holiday-task book in some English public schools. He wrote many more, including novels.

In 1899 he was awarded an honorary LL.D. by Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada, ‘for his great literary achievement’. He was a trustee of the Public Library, Museums, and National Gallery of Victoria for thirty-five years.

He died following a haemorrhage of a duodenal ulcer and was buried in Boroondara cemetery. His estate, valued for probate at £14,852, included a large library.