CAREER OF NEW BISHOP

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21096, 22 February 1934, Page 8

CAREER OF NEW BISHOP

♦ ADMINISTRATIVE ABILITY FORMER REPRESENTATIVE FOOTBALLER ITHE PRESS Special Service.! j ■, j ' DUNEDIN. February 21. Archdeacon William Alfred Robertson Fitchett, who has been i chosen by the Synod of Otago and Southland as bishop-elect of the See of Duncdin, but who has not yet notified his acceptance of the position, is an outstanding figure in the Anglican Church of the Dominion. Over a long period of years he has taken a prominent part in the administration of this diocese and in the larger government of the church in the province of New Zealand. A son of Dean Fitchett, who for more than 50 years was one of the leading ecclesiastical personalities in Dunedin, he was born in Christchurch in 1872. After attending the Albany Street School, he went to the Otago Boys' High School for five years, and later went to England, where in 1899 he held the office of curate of St. Peter's, Bury. While in England he read at Selwyn College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1898, and M.A. in 1902. Later in the same year he came to New Zealand, and after a short period of service at St. Thomas's Church. Wellington, he was appointed vicar of the parish of Dunstan. He was stationed there from the latter part of 1902 until 1911, when he came to St. John's. Roslyn, where he has remained until the present. He became Archdeacon of Dunedin in 1915. Many Offices Held Among offices in the administration of the church which he has held are those of member of the General Synod of New Zealand, member of the standing committee of the General Synod, member of the Provincial Pension Board and of the Dunedin Diocesan Pension Board, and member of the Dunedin Diocesan Board of Nomination. He also occupies a seat on the Selwyn College Board, on the Otago High School Board of Governors, and the University Council. He was editor and manager of the "Church Envoy" for 18 years, a position which he relinquished in 1931, and he was also editor of the '"New Zealand Churchman" from 1920 to 1926. Testimony to the administrative ability of the bishop-elect, and of the confidence which he enjoys in the courts of the church, is afforded by the fact that between 1907 and 1933 he introduced no fewer than 38 bills into the Duncdin Diocesan Synod, and secured the passage of all of them. In his younger days the bishopelect played football for the Alhambra Club as a three-quarter, and in 1894 he gained representative honours for the province of Auckland. He was married in 1905 ?■„• i! y ' , the da ut!hter of Mr Ratchile Taylor, of England