William Henry FITCHETT

FITCHETT, WILLIAM HENRY (b. Grantham, Lincolnshire, England, 9 Aug 1841; d. Kew, Vic, 26 May 1928). Methodist clergyman, writer and educator.

In June 1849, Fitchett's parents, William and Hannah, with their five surviving children, emigrated to Vic and settled in Geelong, as one of a group of Wesleyan families recruited by J D Lang (q.v.), who wished to populate the colony with God-fearing Protestant yeomanry. Following a brief education at a Wesleyan denominational school, Fitchett tried his hand in business and farming. After a further stint as a jackeroo in Qld, in 1863 he returned to Ballarat where he established a labour mart. Fitchett had been converted in 1857 under the influence of the Rev William Hill, who had conducted revival services at Geelong. By 1865 he was an accredited local preacher; in 1866 he entered the Wesleyan ministry and was stationed at Mortlake (1866-67), Echuca (1868-69), South Yarra (1870-72), Lonsdale Street, Melbourne (1873), Carlton (1874-75), Bendigo (1876-78), and Hawthorn (1879-81). He subsequently said of his church: 'The Methodist Church is a family with the warm fellowship of the fireside—not a group of people sitting in pews like passengers in a bus unknown to one another'. In 1882, Fitchett was appointed to the Methodist Ladies College, Kew, as its founding president. Here, assisted by his wife, he supervised the spiritual life of the college and boarding house. Fitchett believed that education must be wedded 'indissoluble with Christianity', and that increasing opportunities for women meant that the churches should guarantee both Christian oversight and educational thoroughness in the education of their daughters. His association with the college continued until his death in 1928.

In 1866 Fitchett was elected president of the Wesleyan Methodist Conference of Victoria and Tasmania, and in 1902 the first president of the United Methodist Victorian and Tasmanian Conference. In 1904, in recognition of his contribution to the reunification of Methodism's five branches, he was elected first president of the General Conference of the Methodist Church of Australasia. Known in private life for an affable manner and a chuckling sense of humour, in public affairs, he could be a great hater, with a fighting instinct and a love of unblunted truth which sprang from his conviction that he was always right. He wrote of himself in 1876: 'Perhaps as a minister I ought to be ashamed of possessing so unspiritual a piece of moral furniture as a "combatative instinct", but I am not ... In a world in which God has many enemies, it's a good man's business to have a few ... It needs a medicine of sharp pens and strong speech, and firm hands, and resolute wills, and unblunted truth'.

Along with his college and ecclesiastical work, Fitchett pursued a vigorous career as a journalist, editor and author. For 40 years he edited the Southern Cross, an interdenominational weekly which became his pulpit. Altogether, he published 22 books, including Deeds that won the Empire (1897), first serialised in the Melbourne Argus, which sold over 250 000 copies when published, a phenomenal Australian success. Regarded as one of the greatest writers of descriptive prose of his period, he said of his stories that 'the art which produced them was simply the barrister's art of putting up a case quickly and easily ... There was no attempt at fine writing, no pretence of original research ... with short words and short sentences, always seizing on the most picturesque incidents and translating the whole story, as far as possible, into personal terms'.

Writing in 1886, Fitchett claimed that a Methodist preacher could be recognised in any pulpit 'by which may be called his theological accent. There is never any uncertainty in his teaching'. (What Methodism Stands For) He saw Methodist doctrine as untheological and practical, linked to no exact creed, but linked with spiritual life and tested by the verification of life. For him, events were the interpreters of Providence. He saw no conflict between the scientific advances of the time and Methodist teaching, claiming that he had never met with a new reading of modern thought which had not been anticipated by the teaching he had found in Methodism. While admitting that there was much in the Higher Criticism that was true, there was far more, in his view, that could not survive the test of common sense. The 'plain man', Fitchett assured his readers, need not share the alarm of those nervous souls to think that the Christian faith was to be destroyed by 'a little ink from a German inkpot'.

ADB 8; C Irving Benson, 'The Life and Times of Dr William Henry Fitchett', Heritage (Methodist Historical Society of Victoria), October 1960.

SELECT WRITINGS: The Unrealised Logic of Religion. A Study of Credibilities (London, 1905); Wesley and His Century: A Study in Spiritual Force (London, 1912); What Methodism Stands For (Sydney, 1914); Where the Higher Criticism Fails (London, 1927)

SUSAN E EMILSEN