Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Josephine Butler
-
Standard Name: Butler, Josephine
Birth Name: Josephine Elizabeth Grey
Married Name: Josephine Elizabeth Butler
Used Form: an English mother
Used Form: the author of the Memoir of John Grey of Dilston
Social reformer JB
is primarily remembered for her unrelenting efforts in the campaign against the Contagious Diseases Acts during the second half of the nineteenth century. She was both a gifted orator and a prolific writer on the many causes she espoused. Author of nearly forty pamphlets, she also composed books of political and personal writings: essays, biographies of people whose lives influenced her own, and an autobiography. Almost all of her writings address questions of social and political import—the repeal campaign, the double sexual standard, women's rights, and religious issues.
Petrie, Glen. A Singular Iniquity: The Campaigns of Josephine Butler. Macmillan.
HM
was one of the first to be aware of the movement towards regulating prostitution in Britain by means of instituting in military districts the arrest and medical examination for syphilis of women who were...
Publishing
Jessie Boucherett
It was no doubt in connection with this essay that JB
also contributed, in July this year, another, entitled Employment of Women, to Josephine Butler
's short-lived periodical Now-a-Days.
Publishing
Menella Bute Smedley
During the same year she contributed a serial story, Lucy Ferrars, to a feminist journal sponsored by Josephine Butler
. MBS
's serial spanned two successive titles of this journal, appearing in issues of...
Publishing
Julia Wedgwood
JW
contributed Female Suffrage, Considered Chiefly with Regard to its Indirect Results to Woman's Work and Woman's Culture, a volume of feminist essays edited by Josephine Butler
.
From the time she was fifteen, SG
had supported Josephine Butler
's crusade against the Contagious Diseases Acts of 1864, 1866, and 1869. (She admired Butler but never met her.) The medical knowledge SG
gleaned...
FMR
became deeply interested in political debates and struggles around the issue of home rule for Ireland, and went so far as to carry secret messages back and forth between England and Ireland. This...
In addition to her other political activities, Chant was heavily involved in the activities of the National Vigilance Association
. She edited its journal, the Vigilance Record, and took a leading role (alongside Millicent Garrett Fawcett
politics
Flora Annie Steel
FAS
continued her advocacy for Indian causes after her return to England, through the medium of letters to the Times. She wrote in January 1897 to support Indian cottage industry by seeking customers for...
Occupation
Susan Miles
The Robertses were succeeding a clergyman who also had liberal views. He had caused some offence by holding the funeral of Emily Davison
, the suffragist who was killed on the Derby racecourse.
Miles, Susan. Portrait of a Parson. George Allen and Unwin.
56
Here...
Occupation
Sarah Grand
When the mayor, Cedric Chivers, grew increasingly ill in 1928-9, SG
took over most of the mayor's civic duties. For example, in June 1928 she presided over a meeting for the Social Hygiene Council
at...
Literary responses
Christabel Pankhurst
Nearly twenty years later Sylvia Pankhurst
accused this book of sensationalism and of preaching the sex war deprecated and denied by the older Suffragists.
Purvis, June, and Maureen Wright. “Writing Suffragette History: the contending autobiographical narratives of the Pankhursts”. Women’s History Review, Vol.
14
, No. 3/4, pp. 405-33.
419
In the later twentieth century it was dismissed by a...
Leisure and Society
Algernon Charles Swinburne
Stories of ACS
's extreme drinking habits and talk of his immoral personal life (largely sparked by the scandal associated with his publications) spread. Though many tales were untrue, he is said to have sometimes...
Intertextuality and Influence
Mary Stott
Here MS
writes grippingly of her own life, and illuminatingly about myriad subjects of public or cultural interest: the lives, customs, and deaths of newspapers, the conspiracy of silence about sex which had not dissipated...
Timeline
15 October 1874: James Stansfeld gave a speech at Bristol...
Building item
15 October 1874
James Stansfeld
gave a speech at Bristol strongly in favour of the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts.
August 1885: The most powerful social purity organization,...
May 1888: Josephine Butler edited, in London, the first...
Building item
May 1888
Josephine Butler
edited, in London, the first issue of The Dawn: An Occasional/Quarterly/ Sketch of the Progress of the Work of the British, Continental and General Federation for the Abolition of the State Regulation...
October 1892: F. A. Atkins edited the first issue of The...
Building item
October 1892
F. A. Atkins
edited the first issue of The Young Woman, a magazine for girls interested in religion, published in London.
October 1896: The Dawn, a quarterly edited by Josephine...
Building item
October 1896
The Dawn, a quarterly edited by Josephine Butler
, ceased publication in London.
July 1898: The Pioneer, the organ of the Social Purity...
August 1915: The Young Woman, a monthly, ended publication...
Writing climate item
August 1915
The Young Woman, a monthly, ended publication in London.
November 1970: The Shield ended publication in London....
Building item
November 1970
The Shield ended publication in London.
Earlier 1981: Merseyside county councillor Margaret Simey,...
Building item
Earlier 1981
Merseyside county councillor Margaret Simey
, already an activist on behalf of poor communities, became chairman of the Liverpool police authority not long before the Toxteth race riots broke out.
Texts
Butler, Josephine. Recollections of George Butler. J. W. Arrowsmith, 1892.
Butler, Josephine. Social Purity. Morgan and Scott, 1879.
Butler, Josephine. The Constitution Violated. Edmonston and Douglas, 1871.
Butler, Josephine. The Constitution Violated. Cambridge University Press, 2010, http://www.cambridge.org/series/sSeries.asp?code=CLOR.
Butler, Josephine, editor. The Dawn. F. Burfoot.
Butler, Josephine. The Education and Employment of Women. T. Brakell, 1868.
Butler, Josephine. “The Education and Employment of Women, 1868”. Indiana University: Victorian Women Writers Project.
Cobbe, Frances Power. “The Final Cause of Woman”. Woman’s Work and Woman’s Culture, edited by Josephine Butler, Macmillan, 1869, pp. 1-26.
Butler, Josephine. The Hour Before the Dawn. Trübner, 1876.
Ladies’ National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts, et al. “The Ladies’ Appeal and Protest”. Daily News.
Butler, Josephine. The Lady of Shunem. H. Marshall and Son, 1894.
Butler, Josephine. The New Abolitionists. Dyer Brothers, 1876.
Butler, Josephine. The New Era. T. Brakell, 1872.
Butler, Josephine. “The New Godiva. A Dialogue, 1888”. Indiana University: Victorian Women Writers Project.
Butler, Josephine. The Principles of the Abolitionists. Dyer Brothers, 1885.
Butler, Josephine, editor. The Storm-Bell. F. Burfoot.
Butler, Josephine, and James Stuart. The Voice of One Crying in the Wilderness. Translator Airy, Osmund, J. W. Arrowsmith, 1913.
Butler, Josephine. “Times: Obituary Notice of Mrs. Butler”. Personal Reminiscences of a Great Crusade, Hyperion Press, 1989, p. vii - x.
Butler, Josephine. Truth Before Everything. Pewtress, 1897.
Butler, Josephine. “Truth Before Everything, 1897”. Indiana University: Victorian Women Writers Project.
Butler, Josephine. Une voix dans le desert. Sandoz, 1875.
Butler, Josephine, editor. Woman’s Work and Woman’s Culture. Macmillan, 1869.
Butler, Josephine, editor. Woman’s Work and Woman’s Culture. Cambridge University Press, 2010, http://www.cambridge.org/series/sSeries.asp?code=CLOR.