William Roby Fletcher
William Roby Fletcher (6 April 1833 – 5 June 1894) was a Congregational minister and, from 1890, the vice-chancellor of the University of Adelaide.
He was born in Manchester, England, the son of the Rev. Richard Fletcher, a well-known Congregational minister who worked in Manchester and later in Melbourne, where he died in 1861.
Fletcher was educated at Silcoates School in Yorkshire. In 1849 he entered the University of Bonn, and in 1850 he studied at the Lancashire Independent College and Owens College (later Victoria University, Manchester). He earned a BA from London University in 1853, won the London University prize for scripture in 1854, and completed an MA with a gold medal in 1856.
He sailed to Sydney and then moved to Victoria, working as his father’s assistant in St Kilda and Sandhurst (now Bendigo). In 1866 he moved to Richmond, Melbourne, and became a professor at the Congregational College of Victoria.
After a world tour, he became the minister of Stow Memorial Church in Adelaide in March 1876 and served there with distinction until 1890, when he resigned to travel again. From 1878 he was a member of the University of Adelaide council, and he was made an honorary MA in 1877.
During the illness of Professor Davidson and after his death, Fletcher acted as the Hughes Professor of English Language and Literature and Mental and Moral Philosophy. In 1890 he was elected vice-chancellor of the University of Adelaide.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 01:51 (CET).