When History Walks the Halls

The Legacy of Reverend Fitchett

More than a century after Reverend William Henry Fitchett advocated for girls’ education in colonial Australia, his legacy is still walking the halls of MLC: his great-great-great-granddaughter is current Year 12 student Mila Van der Sluys.

Mila is a direct descendant of Reverend Fitchett through her maternal grandmother, Margaret Fitchett (Cross 1957). Margaret married Peter Fitchett, the great-grandson of Reverend Fitchett. Together, their stories reveal how one man's belief in the importance of educating young women has quietly carried through generations – not only within one family, but through the lives of thousands of women shaped by the school he helped establish.

For Margaret, the path to MLC was almost accidental. Her cousin Margaret Porter (Eason 1957) was already enrolled at the school, which ultimately tipped the decision for her to attend.

“You went to school because you went to school,” she reflects. It was not until 1978, more than twenty years after graduating, that Margaret truly felt the weight of where she had studied. Margaret went into the Assembly Hall, a building that had been constructed during her own years at the school, meeting a handful of old classmates for the first time since leaving in 1957. But something shifted that evening.

Not long after, a friend gave Margaret a copy of We Dreamt of a School, and she began to piece together what Reverend Fitchett had actually built. She learnt that he had also founded a magazine called Every Woman's Journal and that his family had run Fitchett Brothers Print. He had clearly cared, deeply and practically, about women's lives beyond the domestic.

It emerged that after arriving in Australia, Reverend Fitchett had worked as a jackaroo and put himself through school with no formal support. He had two daughters (and four sons), and he wanted them educated. At a time when Wesley had already established a school for boys, he made the case for a school for girls.

For Mila, the family connection was always a background detail – a “fun fact” as she puts it – until the moment she toured MLC before enrolling. Standing in the school for the first time, she felt something unexpected: “Wow! My ancestor helped make this.” When she started in Year 7, she was placed in Fitchett House, which felt fitting, but she kept the family connection largely to herself. That changed this year. A couple of her friends found out and announced it during a house assembly. “She’s related to Fitchett!” they cried, and the house coordinator’s reaction made it clear that this was no small detail.

Mila’s mother, Penny, emailed the school, and what followed was an invitation that Mila describes as “super cool”: on Founders Day, she was asked to stand with the College Prefects and help open the gates. Looking out across the thousands of students streaming onto the school grounds, the scale of what Reverend Fitchett had set in motion suddenly became very real.

“When I go into the Assembly Hall and see the photos, I realise there are 2000 girls here because of something he helped start,” she says. “Four generations ago, he managed to change so many people’s lives. He gave girls that opportunity. And I’m really proud that it was girls’ education he focused on.” She pauses. “It’s amazing that I get to be part of that.”

What began as one man’s conviction that his daughters and other young women deserved an education has continued to shape lives for more than a century. Schools like MLC become woven into the fabric of families: through daughters and mothers and grandmothers, through friendships formed and futures made possible. The strongest legacies are not simply remembered through names on buildings or portraits on walls. They are lived.

As Mila prepares to finish Year 12, she reflects on six years at a school she has come to love. “MLC has prepared me really well for the world,” she says. “And I’m excited to become a world-ready woman.”

Her great-great-great-grandfather, who arrived in Australia as a young migrant with nothing but determination and a belief that girls deserved a chance, would likely have agreed.