The eldest son, Thomas Hodges (1822–1907), became a Roman Catholic and eventually was attached to the Marist Church, Notre Dame de France, in Leicester Square, London.
[1] In 1852, after trial work there in the previous year, he joined the staff of the Borough Road Training College, soon after became vice-principal, and in 1856 succeeded to the principalship on the retirement of James Cornwell.
[1] The district assigned to Fitch was the county of York, with the exception of certain portions of the north and the west.
[1] Occasionally detached for special duties in the later period of his public service, he prepared in 1888, after a visit to America, a report on American education under the title Notes on American Schools and Training Colleges ; in 1891 a memorandum on the Free School System in the United States, Canada, France, and Belgium ; and in 1893 Instructions to H.M.
He took an active part in the establishment of the Girls' Public Day School Company in 1874, and was foremost among those who secured, in 1878, the new charter for the University of London which placed women students on equal terms with men.
The book established Fitch's position in England and America as an expert on school management, organisation, and method.
[1] The National Home Reading Union established by John Brown Paton and Alexander Hill, Master of Downing College, owed much to Fitch's account of The Chautauqua Reading Circles, which he contributed to the Nineteenth Century after his return from America in 1888.
In 1895, he was a member of departmental committees of the board of education on industrial and naval and dockyard schools.
He died at his residence, 13 Leinster Square, Bayswater, London, on 14 July 1903, and was buried at Kensal Green.
[1] In 1856, Fitch married Emma, daughter of Joseph Barber Wilks, of the East India Company.