Samuel Butcher

Samuel Butcher PC (9 October 1811 – 29 July 1876) was an Irish Anglican bishop in the Church of Ireland in the 19th century.

Biography Butcher was born in Danesfort, County Kerry, the son of Samuel Butcher, a distinguished Royal Navy commander, and Elizabeth Anne Herbert. He was educated at home until 1827, when he entered a school in Cork. He graduated from Trinity College Dublin in 1829 and joined the clergy of the Church of Ireland. and was subsequently made a member of the Privy Council of Ireland. As bishop he was influential in promoting an endowment for the divinity school of Trinity College. He took on a prominent role in doctrinal and practical leadership following the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland under the Irish Church Act 1869, when his scholarship helped to inform the church's approach to issues such as the revision of the Prayer Book. The inquest into his death decided that this was the result of a temporary insanity brought on by fever. The Diocesan Report for 1875, which was presented to the general synod in October 1876, recorded that Butcher's "influence was constantly exercised in the interests of moderation and of peace, and he was frequently instrumental in effecting amicable and satisfactory solutions of difficulties that threatened to be most serious."

Works The Ecclesiastical Calendar: Its theory and construction, Dublin: 1877. Edited and published posthumously by his sons Samuel Henry Butcher and John George Butcher.