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Darwin Correspondence Project

Alfred Robertson Fitchett

1836–1929

Clergyman and scholar. Ordained a Wesleyan minister, 1863; minister in Wanganui, New Zealand, 1864–7; minister of Trinity Methodist Church, Dunedin, 1867–78; editor of the Christian Obverver, 1870–6; minister, Durham Street Wesleyan Methodist Church, Christchurch, 1878–9. Studied at Melbourne and Otago; BA 1878; MA 1882. Resigned as a Methodist minister and ordained as an Anglican priest, 1879. Incumbent, All Saints, Dunedin, 1879–1928; dean of St Paul’s cathedral church, Dunedin, 1894–1928. Lectured in classics at Selwyn College, Dunedin. Published a controversial pamphlet, The ethics of evolution (Fitchett 1876), which supported CD’s theories and argued against a literal interpretation of Genesis.

Sources

Blain comp. 2003

Fitchett 1876

Bibliography

Fitchett, Alfred Robertson. 1876. The ethics of evolution, or, The relation of the doctrine of development to theism and Christianity: a lecture delivered on behalf of the Dunedin Athenaeum. Dunedin: Mills, Dick, Steam Printers.

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