Boxes containing the Butler and St. Paul family collection.

The Collection at Woodhorn

The images used in this exhibition can be found in the Records of the St. Paul and Butler Families of Ewart, Northumberland, held by Northumberland Archives at Woodhorn, Ashington. The collection includes many letters both to and from Josephine Butler, as well as her diaries, travel journals, pamphlets for the causes she championed and albums of newspaper cuttings.

The Butler and St. Paul family collection holds many hugely diverse items collected by or involving the family directly. These include two presidential letters, one from Woodrow Wilson and one from Herbert Hoover, which are addressed to Lord Cecil, and came into the collection through Irene Butler, secretary to Lord Cecil and granddaughter of Josephine; the naval papers of Captain Henry Holland Torlesse, close friend of Admiral Prince Louis of Battenberg and father-in-law of Josephine’s grandson, Horace; and a passport signed by Louis XVI in 1776 which allowed Sir Horace St. Paul to leave Paris with his family.