Access to the full content is only available to members of institutions that have purchased access. If you belong to such an institution, please log in or find out more about how to order.


The Constitution Violated The Parliamentary Campaign


On 12 March 1875, an actress at Aldershot wrote a letter to the editor of the Daily Telegraph protesting at the persecution she had suffered from the special police at Aldershot. Although never arrested she was spied upon, hounded from every theatre or music hall where she attempted to perform, accused of being a ‘common prostitute’, and finally threatened with a forcible examination at the Aldershot lock hospital. Mrs Percy, a widow with three children to support, decided to make her protest public, ‘as the means of bringing to the notice of those persons who have thought it their duty to agitate for the repeal of the [Contagious Diseases] Acts’. Eighteen days later, her body was discovered floating in the Basingstoke Canal. She had apparently fulfilled her threat to take her own life rather than submit to an examination that ‘would have completely disgraced me in the eyes of all my acquaintances’. The Percy Case provided invaluable ammunition for the now depressed repeal movement, still scarred by the conflict over Bruce’s Bill and newly crushed in 1874 by the defeat of Gladstone’s Liberal Government at the General Election and their parliamentary representative, Fowler’s, loss of his seat. As Butler noted in her Personal Reminiscences (Volume 4, item 18), 1874 was ‘the year of discouragement’, a time of great defection in the movement (p. 332).

Volume Contents

  • content locked
    Front Matter
  • content locked
    Introduction By Jane Jordan
  • The Percy Case
    • content locked
      1
      ‘The Supposed Suicide of Mrs Percy’, Sheldrake’s Aldershot and Sandhurst Military Gazette, 3 April 1875, p. 1
    • content locked
      2
      An Address to Working Men and Women, Relative to a Recent Distressing Case o f Suicide, at Aldershot, Under Cruel, Oppressive, and Immoral Acts o f Parliament, London, National Association, 1875
    • content locked
      3
      Letter from Josephine E. Butler to Charlotte Wilson, 2 April 1875, [From 280 South Hill, Park Road, Liverpool], Josephine Butler Collection, The Women’s Library By Josephine Butler
    • content locked
      4
      Letter from Josephine E. Butler to Edith Leupold, 9 April 1875, [From 280 South Hill, Park Road, Liverpool], Josephine Butler Collection, The Women’s Library By Josephine Butler
    • content locked
      5
      ‘Jenny Percy’s Statement, National League Journal, 1 August 1875, p. 5 By Jenny Percy
  • State Regulation of Vice
    • content locked
      6
      Some Thoughts on the Present Aspect o f the Crusade Against the State Regulation o f Vice, Liverpool, T. Brakell, April 1874 By Josephine Butler
    • content locked
      7
      Grave Words to Electors and Non-Electors, and Moral Reformers, on Immoral and Unjust Legislation, Address Given to the Annual Meeting o f the LNA at Hull, 19 October 1876, London, National Association, 1876 By Josephine Butler
    • content locked
      8
      Government by Police, London, Dyer Brothers, 1879 By Josephine Butler
    • content locked
      9
      The Principles o f the Abolitionists: An Address Delivered at Exeter Hall, 20 February 1885, London, Dyer Brothers, 1885 By Josephine Butler
  • Vigilance Association
    • content locked
      10
      ‘A Vigilance Committee’, Originally Published in the Bee-Hive newspaper, 16 September 1871 By Josephine Butler
    • content locked
      11
      Speech Delivered by Mrs Josephine E. Butler at the Fourth Annual Meeting of the 'Vigilance Association for the Defence o f Personal Rights’, held at Bristol, 15 October 1874, Chelsea, Frederick Bell & Co, 1874 By Josephine Butler
    • content locked
      12
      Letter from Josephine E. Butler to Anna Maria Priestman, 5 November 1894, [From 29 Tooting Bee Road, Balham], Josephine Butler Collection, The Women’s Library By Josephine Butler
  • The Role of Women
    • content locked
      13
      ‘The State Regulation of Vice: Mrs Josephine E. Butler to the Ladies of Hull, Read at a Meeting of Ladies in the Friends’ Meeting House, Hull, on Friday, 29 September 1876’ By Josephine Butler
    • content locked
      14
      ‘A Letter to the Members of the LNA’, August 1875, [From 348, Park Road, Liverpool] By Josephine Butler
    • content locked
      15
      A Call to Action: Being a letter to the Ladies o f Birmingham, Supplementary to an Address Given in Birmingham, November 1881, Birmingham, Hudson & Son, 1881 By Josephine Butler
    • content locked
      16
      Josephine E. Butler’s Account of her Tour of Oxford, 24 November 1881, [From 280 South Hill, Park Road, Liverpool] By Josephine Butler
  • Select Committee of the House of Commons
    • content locked
      17
      Letter from Josephine E. Butler to Reverend George Butler, 4 May 1882, [From London], Josephine Butler Collection, The Women’s Library By Josephine Butler
    • content locked
      18
      ‘Josephine E. Butler’s Testimony Before the Select Committee of the House of Commons, 5 May 1882’, Shield, 22 July 1882, pp. 139-142 By Josephine Butler
    • content locked
      19
      Letter from Josephine E. Butler to Robert Martineau, 2 October 1882, [From 9, The Close, Winchester], Josephine Butler Collection, The Women’s Library By Josephine Butler
  • All-Day Prayer Meetings
    • content locked
      20
      Letter from Josephine E. Butler to Anna Maria Priestman, 17 January 1883, [From London], Josephine Butler Collection, The Women’s Library By Josephine Butler
    • content locked
      21
      Letter from Josephine E. Butler to Stanley Butler, 3 March 1883, [From 9, The Close, Winchester], Josephine Butler Collection, The Women’s Library By Josephine Butler
    • content locked
      22
      Letter from Josephine E. Butler to Stanley Butler, 10 February 1884, [From 9, The Close, Winchester], Josephine Butler Collection, Liverpool University Library By Josephine Butler
  • The Ladies’ Gallery
    • content locked
      23
      ‘Ought Women to be in the Gallery of the House of Commons on the 27th? Letter to an M P\ c. 20 February 1883, Josephine Butler Collection, The Women’s Library By Josephine Butler
    • content locked
      24
      Letter from Charlotte Wilson to Josephine E. Butler, 7 March 1883, [From Pitsmoor, Sheffield], Josephine Butler Collection, The Women’s Library By Charlotte Wilson
    • content locked
      25
      Letter from Josephine E. Butler to Charlotte Wilson, 9 March 1883, [From London], Josephine Butler Collection, The Women’s Library By Josephine Butler
  • The Suspension of the Acts
    • content locked
      26
      Letter from Josephine E. Butler to Fanny Forsaith, 5 March 1903, [From 39 Clarence Square, Cheltenham], Josephine Butler Collection, Liverpool University Library By Josephine Butler
    • content locked
      27
      MS LNA Circular Written by Josephine E. Butler, 11 May 1883, [From 9, The Close, Winchester], Josephine Butler Collection, The Women’s Library By Josephine Butler
    • content locked
      28
      Letter from James Stansfeld to Emile de Laveleye, 5 September 1883, [From Castlehill, Battlefield, Sussex], Josephine Butler Collection, The Women’s Library By James Stansfeld
    • content locked
      29
      Letter from Josephine E. Butler to Stanley Butler, 25 April 1886, [From Lucerne, Switzerland], Josephine Butler Collection, Liverpool University Library By Josephine Butler
  • Social Purity
    • content locked
      30
      The Hour Before the Dawn. An Appeal to Men, London, Trubner & Co. (published for the Social Purity Alliance), [1882], 1876 By Josephine Butler
    • content locked
      31
      Social Purity, London, Dyer Brothers; Morgan & Scott, 1879 By Josephine Butler
    • content locked
      32
      Letter from Josephine E. Butler to Mary Priestman, 6 April 1891, [From 8 North View, Wimbledon Common], Josephine Butler Collection, The Women’s Library By Josephine Butler
    • content locked
      33
      Letter from Josephine E. Butler to Fanny Forsaith, 27 October 1896, [From Hotel du FauQon, Lausanne], Josephine Butler Collection, Liverpool University Library By Josephine Butler
    • content locked
      34
      Truth Before Everything, London, Pewtress, 1897 By Josephine Butler
    • content locked
      35
      Josephine E. Butler to Members of the Purity Department of the World’s Women’s Christian Temperance Union, 27 September 1897, Josephine Butler Collection, The Women’s Library By Josephine Butler