Josephine (Grey) Butler
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Josephine Elizabeth (Grey) Butler (1828 - 1906)

Josephine Elizabeth Butler formerly Grey
Born in Milfield House, Northumberland, Englandmap
Ancestors ancestors
Wife of — married 1852 in Hexham, Northumberland, Englandmap
Descendants descendants
Died at age 78 in 2 Victoria Buildings, Wooler, Northumberland, Englandmap
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Profile last modified | Created 19 Aug 2015
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Biography

Notables Project
Josephine (Grey) Butler is Notable.
This profile is part of the Gray Name Study.

Notes made by a close family member: "Josephine was one of the nine children of John Grey of Northumberland, himself a campaigner against social evils, particularly the slave trade. She was beautiful, Talented, intense and a tornado of energy. She did not however take up her work till she was 38 after the birth of her fourth child and did so, she said, to assuage her grief at the loss of her small daughter, Eva, who was killed falling over the bannisters of their Cheltenham home. Visits to the Great Workhouse of Liverpool and the town's terrible Prison Reformatory for Women drove her to campaign for nearly 20 years against the form of State control of prostitutes embodied in the Contagious Diseases Act of 1869. She spoke at public meetings all over the country, addressing as many as 250 meetings in 1873.

She also fought for better education for women which would provide them with new and better means of earning their living and she helped destitute girls by sheltering them temporarily in the attics of her Liverpool house. At a time when prostitution was a subject which a 'lady' could hardly mention, George Butler's support of his wife was loyal and even gallant. He accompanied her to meetings where she was often in physical danger. The windows of her hotel were smashed after a meeting in Colchester (1870) and she was forced to hide, disguised in a shawl, in a wharf-shed. George was shouted down at a Church Congress in 1871 when he produced a paper on the evils of State regulation of vice. He made an admirable impromptu speech supporting his wife at a Paris Conference, speaking in fluent French. They were apparently a devoted couple and among her many writings is a memoir of her husband written after his death.

Such a character was obviously difficult to absorb into the mild and ordered world of the Butlers and the connection cannot have been an asset to the head­-masters of Harrow and Haileybury. Arthur and Montagu Butler seem to have been tolerant or at any rate understanding but Spencer Butler was very disapproving. He would not allow either of his two daughters to stay alone in Josephine's house at Liverpool. lt was rumoured, quite inaccurately, that all her maids were reformed or nearly reformed prostitutes. In my own youth there was a suggestion - little more than a hint - that little Eva would not have fallen over the bannisters to her death if her mother had minded her own business and stayed at home to look after her. This was a monstrous accusation since it was the death of the little girl which drove her mother into outside work. It reflects in a vivid way the attitude of the respectable at the time."

"Josephine Butler was one of the most revolutionary social reformers of the nineteenth century. She challenged the inconsistent and hypocritical standards of her time which unjustly disadvantaged women and she campaigned against the sexual exploitation of vulnerable women and children, working for legislative reform to provide them with some degree of protection, equality and justice." [1]

There are several biographies of Josephine Butler, an account of her life and work by Dame Millicent Fawcett, a biography edited by George and Lucy Johnson (1909) and "Portrait of Josephine Butler" by her grandson Arthur Stanley George Butler, known as Andrew (1954). Some 80 pamphlets and speeches, half of them in French, with her "Personal Reminiscences of a Great Crusade" ( 1901) translated into French, German, and Russian are in the Fawcett library in London. Her very numerous letters to her children, grandchildren and her "Recollections of George Butler' are in the Northumberland Record Office. Ann Seely has the portrait used as a basis for the stained glass window in Liverpool Cathedral. A book has been published using her letters: "Josephine Butler" by E. Moberley Bell, 1962.

Sources

  1. (Josephine Butler Memorial Trust)
  • Notes attached to Butler family tree in possession of NW Smith and passed down to BW Smith
  • Baptisms (PR) England. Kirknewton, Northumberland. 30 May 1828. GREY, Josephine Elizabeth. GS Film no. 0252590-0252591. familysearch : accessed 11 February 2020.
    • Parents: John Grey and Hannah
  • Census. 1851. England and Wales. Dilston, Northumberland. Grey, Josephine E [Daughter]. HO107. PN: 2414. FL. 344. p. 13. familysearch : accessed 11 February 2020.
    • Residence: Dilston House
  • Judith R. Walkowitz, ‘Butler , Josephine Elizabeth (1828–1906)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2006 accessed 7 Aug 2017. This is a subscription site but access is free to readers of British libraries whose library subscribes.
  • Wikipedia biography [1]




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Rejected matches › Elizabeth Butler (1830-1906)