On 4 August 2007, Friends were given a most compelling illustrated talk on the life and work of the Victorian feminist and social reformer Josephine Elizabeth Butler by Dr Jane Jordan, a Senior Lecturer in the English Department at Kingston University. Dr Jordan's biography of Josephine Butler was published in 2001 to critical acclaim, reviving interest in the life and work of this remarkable woman, who was hailed at the time of her death as "the most distinguished woman of the 19th century." In the tributes flowing in, she was said to have been "one of the great people in the world.in character, in work done, in influence on others she was among that few great people, who have moulded the course of things."
The venue for the talk, Dilston College, was of particular significance, this being the house where Josephine grew up and lived from the age of seven until her marriage to George Butler in 1852. Friends heard how Josephine, who had been born into a prominent upper class family (her father being a cousin of the Whig Prime Minister Earl Grey), became one of the most passionate social reformers of the Victorian era. In a male dominated society, she campaigned tirelessly for the rights of poor women many of whom were destitute and forced into prostitution. Josephine took many of these wretched women into her own home, allowing them to live alongside her own family, taking meals together and even giving them the best bedrooms in the house. She went on to set up Houses of Rest for these sick and dying prostitutes and led the campaign to abolish the Contagious Diseases Acts which discriminated against working class women and subjected prostitutes to painful and humiliating examinations. She courageously exposed the sex trade in underage virgins and the white slave traffic between England and Brussels.
Josephine's calling to help poor women came about when the family moved to Liverpool, where her husband George had taken up the appointment of Principal of Liverpool College. To a large extent her work began as an act of mourning, following an appalling accident that resulted in the death of the couples five-year-old daughter Eva, who fell from the banisters of their home when rushing to greet them one night. Shattered by the family tragedy, Josephine sought comfort by helping others, describing her need to 'go forth and find some pain keener than my own.' For over thirty years she championed many good causes, travelling widely, lobbying parliament, speaking at public meetings, writing prodigiously and working tirelessly. She is, however, mainly remembered for her campaigns against the Contagious Diseases Acts, which were finally repealed in 1886.
Dr Jordan emphasised how Josephine's campaigning life was in sharp contrast to her privileged and genteel upbringing in Northumberland. Born on 13 April 1828 at Milfied Hill in Glendale, north of Wooler, Josephine was the fourth daughter of John and Hannah Grey - her father coming from a prominent Border family, her mother from Huguenot stock. The family moved to the newly built Dilston House in 1835 (since re-named Dilston Hall), two years after John Grey was appointed Agent for the Northern Estates of Greenwich Hospital. The site for this house, above the Devil's Water and opposite Dilston Castle, was chosen for its extraordinary natural beauty and because it was a central spot for the administration of the estates (formerly belonging to the Radcliffes, Earls of Derwentwater), which stretched between Carlisle, Newcastle and Berwick.
Josephine loved living at Dilston and particularly the wild, informal beauty around its doors. In her memoirs, she remembered it as "a house the door of which stood wide open, as if to welcome all comers, throughout the livelong summer day." It was a house always full of family, friends and many foreign visitors interested in the agricultural reforms of John Grey. Her father was a man of strong moral convictions whose passion for justice greatly influenced Josephine. She wrote: "What an education I had under my noble father - an anti-slavery man, a Liberal, a true lover of Liberty, a free Churchman of wide sympathies, and called to constant crusades against tyranny."
Despite living away from Northumberland all of her married life, first in Oxford, then Cheltenham, and, finally, Liverpool, Josephine retained a great affection for the county of her birth - and, in particular, Dilston. Visiting her old home in 1901, having been widowed eleven years earlier, she was horrified at the alterations made by the new owners and could barely recognise the dear house in which she had lived. The fact that the house had been greatly enlarged and was three storeys high she considered to be "a huge mistake." Today, the original house in which Josephine lived forms the main entrance to Dilston College, the later three-storey building towering alongside.
In her mid-seventies and dogged by ill-health, Josephine was persuaded by her family to move back to Northumberland, where she was comfortably settled in a house at Ewart Park, near Wooler, on her eldest son's estate. Sadly, during this time, her son's underlying resentment towards Josephine's campaigning life became more pronounced, accusing his mother of putting her public work before her family, which he believed to have contributed to his father's death. The marriage had, in fact, been a strong and happy one, George Butler being a tower of spiritual and material strength to Josephine, giving her his unstinting love and support.
In March 1906, Josephine moved into lodgings at 2 Victoria Villas, Queens Road, in Wooler, where she died in December of that year, aged seventy-eight. Her funeral took place on 5 January 1907 at the Parish Church of St Gregory the Great, Kirknewton and it is here that she is buried, her grave lying to the west of the church tower.
Dr Jordan considered that the reason why Josephine Butler's name is not more widely known is because of the subject of her work. This has now changed, and, in 2006, the centenary of her death, Josephine's life and work was widely celebrated throughout the country - including at Dilston - where she was remembered as a young woman on the threshold of life in a Flower Festival dedicated to "The Rose of Dilston." This special fund-raising event for MENCAP, when the castle and chapel were decorated throughout with flowers, was planned and put-together by Stocksfield South of Tyne Flower Club, in collaboration with Historic Dilston. One of their members Mrs Margaret Sproat kindly offered to set up a special flower arrangement in Dilston Chapel for this year's Josephine Butler Talk - a thoughtful and most generous gesture sponsored by the Flower Club.
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