William Francis Butler

Lieutenant-General Sir William Francis Butler, (31 October 18387 June 1910) was an Irish British Army officer and writer.

Military career

A scion of the Butler dynasty via the Earls of Ormond, he was born at Ballyslatteen, Golden, County Tipperary, Ireland, the son of Richard Butler and Ellen née Dillon. The great famine of 1847 and scenes of suffering and eviction were amongst his earliest recollections. He was educated chiefly by the Jesuits at Tullabeg College.

Butler entered the Army as an ensign of the 69th Foot at Fermoy Barracks in 1858, becoming captain in 1872 and major in 1874. He took part with distinction in the Red River expedition (1870–71) and the Ashanti operations of 1873–74 under Wolseley and was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath in 1874.

Butler again served with General Wolseley in the Zulu War (as brevet lieutenant-colonel), the campaign of Tel-el-Kebir (after which he was appointed aide-de-camp to the Queen) and the Sudan in 1884–86, becoming colonel on the staff 1885 and brigadier-general 1885–86. In the latter year, he was promoted Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath. He served as brigadier-general on the staff in Egypt until 1892 when he was promoted to major-general and stationed at Aldershot, resident as Lieutenant of Dover Castle.

In 1898 he succeeded General Sir William Howley Goodenough as commander-in-chief in South Africa, with the local rank of lieutenant-general. For a short period (December 1898February 1899), during the absence of Sir Alfred Milner in England, he acted as High Commissioner, and as such, and subsequently in his military capacity, he expressed views on the subject of the probabilities of war which were not approved by the home government; he was consequently ordered home to command the Western District, and held this post until 1905. devoted chiefly to the cause of education. He was a frequent lecturer both in Dublin and the provinces on historical, social, and economic matters. Butler was known as a Home Ruler and an admirer of Charles Stewart Parnell. He was a member of the Senate of the National University of Ireland, and a commissioner of the Board of National Education. and in 1909 he was sworn of the Irish Privy Council.

Butler died at Bansha Castle and was buried at the cemetery of Killaldriffe, a few miles distant and not far from his ancestral home.

He had long been known as a descriptive writer, since his publication of The Great Lone Land (1872), describing the Red River Expedition in suppression of the Red River Rebellion, and subsequent travel across Western Canada for the Government, to report on conditions there. Other works include biographies of Charles George Gordon (1889) and Sir George Colley (1899).

General Butler had started work on his autobiography a few years before his death but died before it was completed. His youngest daughter, Eileen, Lady Gormanston, completed the work and had it published in 1911. Lady Gormanston found among his papers a poem he had written, which began: