William Henry Fitchett (9 August 1841[1] – 25 May 1928) was an Australian journalist, minister, newspaper editor, educator and founding president of the Methodist Ladies' College, Melbourne.

Fitchett first worked in a quarry near Geelong, then became a jackaroo on a station in Queensland, and largely self-educated, entered the Methodist ministry in 1866.

Fitchett's first parish was at Mortlake, Victoria, and for 16 years he was a circuit minister at Echuca, Bendigo, South Yarra and Hawthorn.

In 1878 he moved and carried a resolution at the Methodist conference that a committee should be appointed to seriously consider the question of starting a secondary school which would do for girls what Wesley College was doing for boys.

[3] Fitchett at this time had already entered journalism, having during the seventies contributed a regular column to the Spectator, the Methodist church paper, signed XYZ.

Similar volumes (many under the pseudonym "Vedette")[5] followed in steady succession: Fitchett also produced four volumes of fiction: Also four books on religion: Other literary work included the editorships of the Australasian Review of Reviews (which he quit over an argument with the proprietor, W. T. Stead), and of Life, a popular magazine first published in 1904 by Fitchett Bros. Pty.

First and foremost he was principal of a great school for girls steadily expanding, with problems continually arising which required his careful attention.