Studio portrait of Josephine's husband George.
ZBU/E/3/A/11/9

Marriage to George Butler

Josephine met her future husband, George Butler, whilst he tutored her brother at Durham University, and they married in 1852.

George Butler was born in 1819 in Harrow, Middlesex, son of the Reverend George Butler and Sarah Maria Gray. From the very beginning of George and Josephine’s married life in Oxford, George supported his wife’s passion for rehabilitating local ‘ruined’ women. He became Principal of Liverpool College in 1866, where he received much derision because of his wife’s “unseemly” behaviour, and his academic career floundered because of this. In 1882 he took the role of Canon of Westminster, where he remained until his death from ‘flu in 1890.