Josephine Butler

Patron Saint of Prostitutes

Helen Mathers

• Publisher: The History Press
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9780752492094
• eBook ISBN: 9780750957526
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Science Biographies
• Index: Social Sciences

The 'steel rape' of women is a scandal that is almost forgotten today.

In Victorian England, police forces were granted powers to force any woman they suspected of being a 'common prostitute' to undergo compulsory and invasive medical examinations, while women who refused to submit willingly could be arrested and incarcerated. This scandal was exposed by Josephine Butler, an Evangelical campaigner who did not rest until she had ended the violation and helped repeal the Act that governed it. She went on to campaign against child prostitution, the trafficking of girls from Britain to Europe, and government-sponsored brothels in India. In addition, Josephine was instrumental in raising the age of consent from 13 to 16.

Josephine Butler is the poignant tale of a nineteenth-century woman who challenged taboos and conventions in order to campaign for the rights of her gender. Her story is compelling – and unforgettable.

1

A Beautiful Home in an Ugly World

‘The bright large family circle’

Josephine Butler was born on 13 April 1828, the seventh child of John Grey and his wife Hannah Annett. The Greys were country people, born and bred in the north-eastern borders, where the Cheviot Hills divide England from Scotland. The Northumberland border country of Glendale, along Hadrian’s Wall, is remote and thinly-populated – Josephine described it as ‘bleak and almost savage’ in character.1 Its people were tough, determined, combative and self-reliant, shaped by the clashes which scarred centuries of border history. John Grey’s home was only a mile from the site of the tragic Battle of Flodden in which ‘the flowers of the forest’, the noble youth of Scotland, ‘were a’ wede away’.2 Josephine remembered her father reciting these lines as she walked with him there; she loved ‘border tales of tragedy and romance’ and shared his love for ‘sweet Glendale’.3 Her Grey ancestors had lived there for centuries ‘derived from a long line of warriors, who were Wardens of the East Marches’ and governors of the border castles.4

By the time of Josephine’s birth the Grey family had three branches with local estates. One distant cousin, Charles Earl Grey, whose estates were at Howick, has several claims to fame. As the Whig Prime Minister 1830–34, his administration passed the first Parliamentary Reform Bill (1832) and abolished slavery in the British Empire (1833).5 In his youth he was the lover of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire whose husband the Duke forced her to give up the daughter, Eliza, fathered by Grey.6

Josephine’s branch of the family had no such skeletons in the closet and its property was relatively small, consisting of farmland and a house, Milfield Hill, overlooking the River Tweed. Her grandfather, George Grey (1754–88), had cleared the land from wild forest and started farming, but he died tragically young leaving his wife Mary with four young children. She rose to this challenge magnificently, and succeeded in managing the farm and raising her children single-handedly. Josephine’s grandmother was a ‘very thoughtful and studious’ woman, who educated her children while doing the household chores.7 They were encouraged, for example, to learn epic poetry, such as Scott’s Marmion, by heart and she borrowed books for them from the local lending library. Later she found the money to send both her boys and girls away to school. Mary Grey was herself a model of female independence and resilience, and an influence on Josephine’s views about what women could achieve, even though she died before Josephine was born.

John Grey was 8 when his father died. Ten years later, as the eldest son, he took over the management of his ‘patrimonial estate’,8 along with land which the family farmed as tenants. By all accounts he was an excellent farmer and land manager, an enthusiast for the agricultural reform which was transforming the countryside. Waste land was reclaimed and fenced off, turnips were grown to dramatically enhance the yield from crop rotation, and threshing machines efficiently processed the grain harvest. The animal stock was improved beyond recognition through selective breeding and better nutrition. John Grey also had a talent for making good relationships with both staff and tenants, and was highly respected among his neighbours.

Josephine’s mother, Hannah Annett, came from nearby Alnwick; her ancestors were ‘poor but honest’ Protestant silk-weavers driven out of France, probably in 1685.9 It was unusual for ‘Huguenot’ families in England to move so far north, however – the vast majority went to settlements in London and the south.10 Hannah Annett met John Grey at a country inn where both had stopped for food and shelter during a long ride through snow. Her mother romantically recalled for Josephine the moment that John ‘placed himself in front of her horse, held its rein with a firm hand, and, fixing his eyes on her, said some words …’ Her mother did not repeat the words, but they ‘sent her on her way in such a frame of mind that her horse sometimes took the wrong turn in the road without her noticing it’.11 They were married within the year, ‘the bride riding to church dressed in a beautiful pale blue riding habit, richly embroidered’.12

John and Hannah took possession of Milfield Hill on their marriage. Mary Grey moved out, John’s sisters were already married and, although his brother George stayed on, he too departed a few years later for London. There George died in sad and painful circumstances after a fall ‘from a horse or carriage’ – the details were never clear to the family because they were not contacted until several weeks later, when he was at death’s door. A devastating postscript to a letter summoning John told him, ‘His struggles have ceased exactly an hour.’ Too late, John travelled to London by mail coach to be told the story of George’s last days, and the many times he had called out for his brother and mother.13

John and Hannah had ten children in total; three boys and seven girls, of whom Josephine was the fourth girl. Her brother George, the eldest child, was 13 when she was born, followed by John (11), Eliza (9), Mary Ann (‘Tully’, 7), Fanny (5) and Charley (3). George and John were old enough to seem distant to a little girl, but Josephine was always close to her sisters and to Charley. The family were fortunate that their mother was so strong – at a time of high maternal mortality Hannah survived all her births and enjoyed good health for most of her life. The Greys celebrated their 45th wedding anniversary before Hannah died in 1860.

Dilston House

Both Hannah and John loved their Milfield home, but in 1833 John was offered an opportunity he could not refuse – the management of the vast estates belonging to Greenwich Hospital, totalling over 34,000 acres, which were scattered all over Northumberland. He was ideally suited to this new role, which gave him wider scope for agricultural reform and for educating the farmers. His conscientious work proved to be a ‘model of estate management’.14 Josephine adored her father and was proud that he was described as ‘a good and wise and powerful man’.15 Travelling around the county, overseeing work on the land and introducing improvements to the agriculture and the conditions of the tenants meant inevitably that much of his time was spent away from home.

By this time Hannah had nine children at home in Milfield, after the births of Harriet (‘Hatty’) and Ellen (‘Ellie’). John missed them all deeply, and wrote to Hannah asking for news of them, especially the youngest, who was only 1 – ‘How I should like to see little Ellie toddling on her own small feet’.

Shortly afterwards, the three younger children caught scarlet fever; Ellie then succumbed to typhus and died while John was away from home.16 Like John, Hannah doted on their small children, describing her grief in a letter to him written several months later, ‘… in walking the street, if my eye rests on a little one with tottering feet and chubby hands, my heart sinks within me. Oh! How many darts pierce a bereaved mother’s bosom which no one knows of!’17 This tragedy cast a cloud over their plans to move to a new house.

John and Hannah were offered the chance to build a home on his employer’s land, and selected a hilltop site at Dilston, dramatically positioned high above a river called the Devil’s Water. This beautiful and secluded location even had the romantic ruins of a fifteenth-century castle in its grounds.18 They designed a spacious family home – large enough for each child to have a bedroom, with plenty of room for visitors as well. They moved there in 1835 when Hannah was still mourning the loss of Ellie. Her eldest son, George, had also stayed behind to take over the management of Milfield, 60 miles distant over narrow lanes. For her there was ‘a pleasure in the pathless woods’ but sadness that ‘our little group’ was not complete, and never would be again.19

For Josephine (‘Josey’), now 7, and her brothers and sisters, Dilston was perfect. This is Josephine’s evocative description:

Our home at Dilston was a very beautiful one. Its romantic historical associations, the wild informal beauty all round its doors, the bright large family circle, and the kind and hospitable character of its master and mistress, made it an attractive place to many friends and guests … It was a place where one could glide out of a lower window, and be hidden in a moment, plunging straight among wild wood paths, and beds of ferns, or find one’s self quickly in some cool concealment, beneath slender birch trees, or by the dry bed of a mountain stream.20

Clearly Josephine sometimes liked to escape from the company o...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Maps
• Family Trees
• Introduction
• Prologue Josephine Butler in Pontefract
• 1 A Beautiful Home in an Ugly World
• 2 Josephine Meets George
• 3 Married Life in Oxford
• 4 Births, Illness and the Move to Cheltenham
• 5 The Butlers in Liverpool
• 6 The Birth of a Feminist Campaigner
• 7 Education and Employment for Women
• 8 ‘This Revolt of the Women’
• 9 The Constitution Violated, 1870
• 10 The Royal Commission, Bruce’s Bill and the Pontefract Election (1871–74)
• 11 The New Abolitionists (1874–75)
• 12 The European Slave Trade (1875–80)
• 13 Success for the Repeal Campaign (1881–83)
• 14 ‘The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon’, 1885
• 15 Time for George (1886–90)
• 16 Struggle and Bereavement (1890–98)
• 17 The Storm-Bell
• Epilogue
• Appendix 1 Josephine Butler’s Siblings
• Appendix 2 Josephine Butler’s Homes: An Update
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Acknowledgements
• Plates
• Copyright