Josephine Butler

She passed away at Wooler, Northumberland on December 30, 1906.

Josephine was born on April 13, 1828 in Millfield, Northumberland and was the seventh child of John Grey and his wife Hannah Annett.

John Grey was an agricultural expert and the cousin of reformist British Prime Minister Charles Grey, 2nd of Earl Grey. The Grey family was a member of the Church of England and strong supporters of the anti-slavery campaign.

Her childhood passed blissfully at a countryside home in Dilston. Home-schooled by her mother, she grew up to be a wonderful writer and proficient speaker of both French and Italian.

While the children lived with freedom and zest, they also learnt through their father about the terrible fate and the mistreatment of the people who had been sold as slaves.

Josephine married George Butler in 1852. George was a tutor at Oxford and shared her views regarding abolishment of slavery, equal rights for men and women, need for social reform and concern for the social outcasts.

The couple had four children. But her yet-so-perfect life was struck by tragedy when her youngest child, Eva, died in 1863 after falling from the top of the stairs in the house. This was the time when Josephine became an active social campaigner; believing that her loss had made her capable of empathizing with other suffering women.

At the time of Eva's death George was the vice principal at Cheltenham College. To help her wife recover from the loss of their child, the family shifted to Liverpool in 1866 and he was appointed as the headmaster of Liverpool College.

Josephine visited Liverpool's Brownlow Hill workhouse and was appalled by the living conditions of the residing women. She ended up taking them to her own home or succeeded in finding them a safer one.

Most of the rescued women were prostitutes and in order to provide them with better means of income, Josephine opened a House of Rest and an Industrial home. George helped in the establishment and maintenance of the two.

Josephine Butler’s biggest achievement as a reformer was her success in getting the Contagious Diseases Act of the 1860s repealed. The act allowed any police officer to arrest prostitutes and then subject them to compulsory degrading physical examination for venereal diseases. If declared positive, the woman would be confined to a hospital for several months and if she refused to undergo the tests, she would be locked up.