.ltJosephine Butler

The Times,
21 April 1928

A NOBLE INFLUENCE.  

The centenary of Josephine Butler's birth will be celebrated during the coming week.  It is no exaggeration to say that no one in the last century exercised so widespread and beneficent an influence in the cause of sexual purity as this refined and beautiful woman, the daughter of an English country gentleman, John Grey, of Dilston, Northumberland, and the wife of Canon George Butler, of Winchester, whom Froude described as one of the most variously gifted men he ever saw.
  
Born on April 13, 1828, from her earliest years Josephine Butler responded to the challenge of the poor and suffering, and every movement made to secure justice for the oppressed evoked her eager enthusiasm.  Her father was a friend of Clarkson and she supported the abolition of the slave trade.  She joined in the early efforts made in the last century to secure higher education for women.  Anything that seemed to inflict injustice on any section of the community evoked her passionate protest, but it was her work on behalf of those of her sex who had sunk to a life of vice in the traffic of prostitution that she devoted herself with rare courage and success in the face of opposition which seemed to have science, reason, and national consent on its side.  With clear vision and dauntless determination she gave herself to free the outcast and poor from a bondage which degraded those who inflicted it scarcely less than those who were its victims.
  
In 1864 the first of the Contagious Diseases Acts became law.  These Acts sanctioned licensed houses of prostitution, condemned the women in them to be examined and registered, and placed their persons so completely in the power of the police that they were robbed of their liberty.  It was the gross injustice inflicted on these women that first aroused Josephine Butler's protest.  In meetings and conferences held in every part of the country, through a continuous succession of pamphlets, tracts, and books, she insisted that these women had their rights as citizens, and that nothing should be imposed upon them that could not be imposed on the sharers of their misdeeds.  Her opponents honestly believed that the Acts were necessary to protect the country against the spread of loathsome diseases, and that the regulations imposed by the Contagious Diseases Acts were designed to save men and women alike from suffering.  Mrs. Butler hated sexual vice with intense loathing, but she loved freedom as the breath of life.  With the conviction that evil is overcome not by regulation but by free persuasion, she entered on her crusade with the strength of purity loyal to its ideal.  She had succoured a young girl of 17 who had fallen into the lowest degradation, and the girl died in the Butlers' house in Liverpool.  Her death was a prolonged battle with pain and with bitter memories, lightened by momentary flashes of faint hope.  As she lay dying she raised her right hand high, as if conscious of the dignity and worth of her true self, and with a look of heroic and desperate resolve she said: "I will fight for my soul through hosts, and hosts, and hosts."  It was something of the indomitable resolution of this poor waif of impurity which inspired her rescuer in her fine combination of ardent zeal and sound judgment, of pure idealism and strong commonsense, of vigorous resolution and clear consciousness of the Divine Presence, to fight through "hosts, and hosts, and hosts."
  
By general consent Mrs. Butler's successful campaign has been of immense benefit to the country, but she was determined to do all in her power to destroy the foul traffic in women wherever it existed.  Repeatedly her crusade took her to various countries in Europe, where she challenged the authorities and compelled them to deal with the complex ramifications of the vile and almost world-wide merchandise in the souls and bodies of women and girls.  Licensed vice is strong and shameless, and when opposed it scruples at nothing to overcome opposition, but its champions met their match in this frail lady, through whose efforts country after country has abandoned the system of licensed houses of prostitution.  It is true that the recent reports of the League of Nations Experts' Committee on the Traffic in Women and Children prove that the White Slave Traffic still persists in its hideous commerce; yet Josephine Butler's work persuaded all the well-wishers of the race that it is their duty to continue the determined campaign she began against this source of vice, disease, and death.
  
To this crusader of purity and freedom the spiritual equality of the sexes was an axiom of faith in the Fatherhood of God, for although no one was more aware of all the subtle yet powerful differences between men and women she was persuaded that in the final verities of life they are equally children of the Divine Father.  Her life was controlled by a simple Christian faith; her strength lay in a confident dependence on its Founder.  This was the secret of all the influence she exercised.  In his "Fragments of an Inner Life" F.W.H. Myers wrote:- "Christianity came to me in a very potent way - through the agency of Josephine Butler.  She introduced me to Christianity, so to say, by an inner door: not to its encumbering forms and dogmas, but to the heart of its fire."  The dedication of his "St. Paul" is addressed to her with the words.  "To whom I owe my very soul."  Her biography of Catherine of Siena reveals much of her own spiritual experience.  It was easy for her to grasp the reality of the mystics' converse with God, for she shared it herself.  When this true lady of grace died in her sleep on December 31, 1906, she had done a work for humanity which has rescued thousands from some of life's worst evils, and to those who, inspired by her faith, sharing her zeal and following her example, "come prepared to the fields of sacrifice," she bequeaths an ever-radiant confidence of purity's victory.  



.lcJosephine Butler campaigned against the Contagious Diseases Acts which were introduced after concern about the spread of venereal diseases amongst men in the forces. All women living near military and naval centres could be declared common prostitutes. 

.llWomen's Lib: The beginnings
Power: Campaigners
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