Sir Joshua Girling Fitch (13 February 1824 – 14 July 1903) was an English educationist. Life Fitch was the second son of Thomas Fitch, of a Colchester family. He was born in Southwark, London. 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. The third son, William John (1826–1902), was headmaster of the Boys' British School, Hitchin, from 1854 till 1899. From a private school Joshua passed to the Borough Road school, Southwark, where he became a pupil teacher in 1838 and a full assistant in 1842. About two years later he was appointed head-master of the Kingsland Road school, Dalston. Studying hard in his spare hours, he in 1850 graduated B.A. in the University of London, and in 1852 proceeded M.A. (in classics). 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 Dr. James Cornwell. He proved himself a brilliant teacher, especially stimulating his pupils by his lectures on 'Method' and by his enthusiasm for literature. Through life, he laid stress on the importance to the teacher of literary training. After contributing to some of Cornwell's educational treatises, he entered in 1861 into the political arena with Public Education : Why is a New Code needed ? In 1862, he helped in the organisation of the education section of the International Exhibition, and in 1803 Lord Granville, lord president of the council, who on a visit to Borough Road was impressed by Fitch's power as a teacher, made him an inspector of schools. The district assigned to Fitch was the county of York, with the exception of certain portions of the north and the west. His three reports on the Yorkshire district admirably describe its educational condition then. From 1865 to 1867, as assistant commissioner for the schools inquiry commission, he inspected the endowed and proprietary schools in the West Riding of Yorkshire and in the city and ainsty of York, as well as other endowed schools in the North and East Ridings of Yorkshire and in Durham, and his reports were most thorough and suggestive. In 1869, he acted as special commissioner on elementary education in the groat towns (Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool, and Leeds), and