The Times Tuesday October 3rd.
Death Notice

BUTLER. On October 2nd 1933, at Gormanstown Castle, County Meath (the residence of her daughter Viscountess Gormanstown), Elizabeth, widow of Lieutenant General the Right Honourable Sir William Butler PC. GCB. No flowers by special request.

OBITUARY. The Times Tuesday October 3rd 1933.
Lady Butler. A FAMOUS MILITARY PAINTER.

Lady Butler, the painter of the "Roll Call," and other famous military pictures, died yesterday at her daughter's home Gormanstown Castle, County Meath, at the age of eighty two.

Elizabeth Southerden Thompson was one of the two distinguished daughters of Mr T J Thompson, the other being Mrs Meynell, the essayist and poet. She was born on November 3rd 1850 at Lausanne, where her parents then lived. And where they had amongst their visitors Charles Dickens. Mrs Thompson, as Christina Weller had played at an entertainment in Liverpool at which Dickens was present. He greatly admired her beauty and talent and introduced her to his friend Thompson who at once fell in love with and married her.

The sisters were educated by their father, who was a highly cultivated man, and who believed in foreign travel. Italy was their headquarters in early years, and there lived a beloved step-sister, whose husband, an Italian officer, was killed at the battle of Volturno. Elizabeth always meant to be a painter, and she worked hard, drawing everywhere she went figures in movement, especially soldiers. From 16 to 18 she was a student at South Kensington School of Art, where she won prizes. She also exhibited at Dudley Gallery, probably a watercolour "Bavarian Artillery Going Into Action." Like her mother she was very fond of watercolour, and was later elected a member of the Royal Institute.

In October 1868 she went to study in Florence, where she was a pupil of Belucci, and in Rome where she witnessed the glories of the old Papal City. Her picture "The Magnificat" was accepted for the Pope's Annual Exhibition, but was afterwards rejected by the Royal Academy. Her first picture to be sold was of two Roman shepherds playing the game of morra. After returning to England, she rejoined the South Kensington schools, and in 1872 had what she called her first introduction to the British Army. This was at Autumn manoeuvres near Southampton. One sketch "Soldiers Watering Horses" was sold to Mr Galloway of Manchester, for whom as he asked for an oil she painted "The Roll Call." Meanwhile in 1873 she sent "Missing" to the Academy, where it was "skied" but attracted a good deal of notice. About this time Elizabeth and her sister were received into the Roman Catholic Church, as their mother had been some time before; their father was also received before his death in 1880.

THE Roll Call.
At the Royal Academy of 1874 Elizabeth Thompson astonished the world with "The Roll Call." The success of this picture was instantaneous; the Selection Committee had greeted it with a round of cheers; at the Private View the word went round early that here was the "picture of the year," and the veteran Commander In Chief The Duke of Cambridge, and the young Prince of Wales were enthusiastic about the sentiment, composition, and expressiveness of the picture. The Duke, indeed, expressed his astonishment that any young lady could so "grasp the speciality of soldiers." The Prince wanted to have the picture but Mr Galloway, who had paid £126 for it, £26 more than the agreed price, would only give it up to Queen Victoria, who was not less impressed than her son, and who afterward presented the artist with a handsome bracelet.

Miss Thompson naturally enjoyed her triumph, but her head was not turned. The Army took her to their hearts, and gave her whatever she wanted in models, arranging special displays for her benefit. There was an agreeable rise in the price of her work. She sold two pictures for £1200, the "Last Charge of the French Cuirassiers at Quatre Bras" to Mr Galloway for £1126, and continued to work hard. She received flattering attention from brother artists, especially from Millais, who urged her election to the Royal Academy, but the nearest she came to the honour was in 1879, when she was defeated by only two votes. "Since then I think that the door has been closed, and wisely," was her comment in her diary.

None of her subsequent pictures, though they continued to appeal alike to soldiers by their truth to military fact, to artists by their technical qualities, and to the world at large by their element of pathos, unmistakable but not intrusive, attained quite the same success as the "Roll Call." "Quatre Bas" of 1875 is in the national Gallery of Melbourne; "Scotland Forever" 1881 is in the Town Hall in Leeds: "Balaclava" 1876, and "The Return From Inkerman" 1887 are in Manchester City Art Gallery; whilst "Steady the Drums and Fifes" 1896 is in the possession of the regiment whose bravery it commemorates, the old 57th, now The Middlesex; the "Roll Call" is in Buckingham Palace; "Rorke's Drift" at Windsor-both purchased by Queen Victoria; "The Remnant of an Army" (her own favourite), is in The Tate. Of her other pictures mention must be made of "Floreat Etonia" 1882, "Tel-el-Kebir" 1885; "The Camel Corps" 1891; "Halt in a Forced March" 1892; "The Morning of Talavera" 1898; and "The Rescue of the Wounded" 1895.

A SOLDIER'S WIFE
In 1877 Miss Thompson was married to Colonel Butler, later General the Right Honourable Sir William Butler, a man of great ability and distinction, and the honeymoon in Ireland revealed to her new and enchanting models of peasantry in the West. She did not generally go with him on his tours of foreign service, but she was in Egypt in 1885, and accompanied him to the Cape in 1898. In the hospitalities of his home commands she played her part with charm and dignity. It was an ideal union. Sir William had her loyal support and sympathy throughout various trials and disappointments and she had the happiness of seeing his professional reputation vindicated before his death. 30 years ago she published in a little book an account of a visit which she and her husband paid to the Holy Land, and she also wrote "From Sketch book and Diary" in 1909, and an Autobiography in 1928.

After the death of her husband in 1910, she continued to live in Tipperary, where they had settled on his retirement, but her last years were spent at her daughter's home Gormanstown Castle. When war came Lady Butler, amid anxiety for her sons at the front, continued to paint with new models, but she must have missed the colour and romance of pre-scientific soldiering. Many of her watercolours were exhibited and sold for war-charities, and she painted a large picture of the charge of the Dorset Yeomanry against the Senussi, for Shire Hall at Dorchester. Her picture "The Dawn of Waterloo" was eagerly solicited to be shown at the ball given in London to celebrate the battle, (I assume that this must have been the Centenary ball in 1915.), and "The Roll Call" was enacted at Aldershot in the same year. It was natural that tributes such as these should recapture for her some of the glamour of earlier days. She certainly embodied in herself the truth of Mr Winston Churchill's aphorism; "Happy are the painters, for they shall not be lonely. Light, colour, peace, and hope will keep them company to the end-or almost to the end-of the day."

Lady Butler had 6 children, 5 of whom survive her-Colonel Patrick Butler DSO, late Royal Welch Fusiliers, Elizabeth Mrs Kingscote, the Reverend Richard Butler OSB, Eileen Countess Gormanstown, and Mr Martin Butler.

PEOPLE MENTIONED IN THIS OBITUARY
Sir William Francis Butler (1838-1910), soldier, explorer, and husband of the artist, was born in Tipperary, and joined the army in 1858. He served on the Red River Expedition 1870/1, on the Ashanti Expedition in 1873, in the Sudan 1884/5 and South Africa 1898/9. Butler was a trusted associate of Sir Garnet Wolesley (1833-1913) one of the two great British generals of the second half of the 19th century. He published a number of books including The Great Lone Land 1872, The Wild North Land1873, plus two military biographies, his own autobiography being published shortly after his death. Sir William Butler was one of the most dynamic and intellectual of Victorian soldiers, a devout Roman Catholic, and clearly foresaw the futility and waste of the Boer War, which he tried hard to prevent. In retirement he was a frequent lecturer in his native Ireland, and was active in efforts to improve social conditions in the country. The Duke of Cambridge (1819-1904), was the son of Adolphus first Duke, the seventh son of George III. Had Queen Victoria not been born he would have been King, and would, incidentally have had an even longer reign. The Duke was for too many years Commander-In-Chief of the British Army, and stoutly resisted necessary change. In his defence it must be acknowledged that he fought the army's corner for many years against incompetent politicians, who did not see the need for a regular army at all. He contracted a marriage to an actress, Louisa Fairbrother, and had three sons, one of whom was called George FitzGeorge! The marriage was legally invalid, due to the supremely foolish Royal Marriages Act of George III, but the stubborn Duke refused to leave his lady. The Prince of Wales mentioned was Albert Edward (1841-1910), afterwards King Edward VII, and one of the leading voluptuaries and adulterers of his day. He was, however, in his maturity a wise and sophisticated diplomat who clearly saw the threat to peace and stability, posed by his vain and inept nephew Kaiser Wilhelm II.

MY COMMENTS.

This obituary clearly shows the dynamic, energetic nature of Elizabeth Butler. The failure of the Royal Academy to elect her an Associate is shown to be an error of the first order, and was purely due to sexual discrimination-yet again Sir John Millais emerges with credit as an enlightened fair-minded individual. What the obituary fails to do comprehensively, is to give a real idea of the character and presence of Elizabeth Butler the woman. It cannot, however, totally hide the fact that she was an individual of considerable talent, and a great woman.
PHR. 15/10/2002.