NOTED CHURCHMAN DEAD

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 642, 19 April 1929, Page 14

NOTED CHURCHMAN DEAD

DEAN FITCHETT, DUNEDIN A BRILLIANT SCHOLAR Press Association DUNEDIN, To-day. The death has occurred of the Very Rev. Dean A. R. Fitehett, aged 93. Vicar of All Saints’ for 49 years. He retired last year. Dean Fitehett w r as one of the bestknown Anglican churchmen and one of the most brilliant classical scholars in New Zealand. Among the Birthday honours conferred on New Zealanders last year, none had greater significance than that bestowed on one of the most noted churchmen of the Dominion, the Very Rev. Dean Alfred Robertson Fitehett, Vicar of All Saints’ Church, Dunedin. He was made a C.M.G. He held a power in Dunedin quite apart from his church work, and in the church itself he always took a leading part in the Diocese of Otago, and in the wader work of the church in the Province of New Zealand. He was the “father” of the General Synod, having represented the Dunedin Diocese on that body for over 45 years. His preaching never failed to command attention, for he was a man of sound scholarship and great literary attainment, while as a lecturer and journalist he had a prominent reputation. lie was a • clever musician, one who understood music from the historical and technical viewpoints. At Otago University, Dean Fitehett graduated B.A. in IS7B, and the following year was appointed Vicar of all Saints’. He graduated M.A. in ISS2, and later obtained his D.D. degree at the Trinity University, Toronto. In 1894 he was created Dean of Dunedin. JTe was appointed a member of the Otago High Schools’ Board of Governors, and was subsequently elected

chairman of the board. He once held locum tenens for one year the chair of classics at Otago University, and for many years was lecturer in classics at Selwyn College. The dean was commissary to the Right Rev. SI T. Nevill, Bishop of Dunedin and Primate of New Zealand, in 1906, 1911, and 1919, and was appointed commissary to Bishop Richards in 1921. The dean's sons are particularly well known in the South Island. The Yen. Archdeacon W. A. R. Fitehett is Vicar of St. John’s, Roslyn, a subul) of Dunedin, ‘while Dr. Frank Fitehett is a professor in the Otago Medical School.