It's a family affair
- Wits Alumni Relations
December graduation highlights one household’s connection with Wits for four generations.
Graduation stories are often family stories. On 14 December 2023, the final day of the 2023 graduation season, three members of one family fortuitously participated in the graduation procession.
Prof Anne Fitchett (BArch 1981, MSc Building 2002, PhD 2009) and her daughter Prof Jennifer Fitchett (BSc Hons 2012, MSc 2013, PhD 2015) witnessed Jennifer’s younger sister Dr Margaret (Meg) Fitchett (MBBCh 2014) graduate with her MMed in emergency medicine.
Anne has been an associate professor in the School of Civil and Mining Engineering, and concurrently served as the assistant dean for undergraduates in the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment since 2004, while Jennifer is professor in the School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies.
The special association between the family and Wits was further marked at the occasion by four generations of the Whyte-Williams-Fitchett families now having graduated from all five of the university’s faculties.
Early links
In the early 1930s, Anne’s grandfather William George Whyte (1905-1986) worked for the architectural firm Emley and Williamson who designed the William Cullen 雷速体育_雷速体育直播 along with Cowin, Powers and Ellis. The design of the building was inspired by the Petit Trianon in the gardens of Versailles and was opened by Prince George, Duke of Kent, on 12 March 1934.
William’s daughter, Evelyn, studied architecture in the late 1940s, and met her husband, Harold Williams (Dip Town Planning 1969) at Wits. Harold was project architect for SA Breweries, Partner at Powell, Whyte and Partners Architectural Firm, as well as town planner and architect at the Johannesburg City Council.
In the 1960s, he graduated with a diploma from Wits in Town and Regional Planning, one of the first cohort of students in the programme. Evelyn and Harold had three children, David (BCom 1978, LLB 1982), Anne and Elizabeth (BA FA 1982).
David worked in the banking sector and practised as an advocate of the Johannesburg Bar.
Elizabeth followed her fine art degree with a stained-glass apprenticeship in the UK. She taught art for many years at Curzon Combined School in Buckinghamshire, UK a