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Myers Literary Guide:
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The North-East
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JOSEPHINE BUTLER (1828 - 1906) The great social reformer was born in Milfield, though the family moved to Dilston when she was seven. She was mainly educated at home and recalls attending the annual County Ball in Alnwick with great pleasure. She began her work for destitute women and prostitutes in Liverpool in 1866, and pressed for educational and employment opportunities for women, editing Woman's Work and Woman's Culture, a collection of essays in 1869. That year also saw the founding of the Ladies National Association. Josephine's work was enormously influential, and among much else, she succeeded in raising the age of consent from 12 to 16. Her greatest efforts were directed against the Contagious Diseases Acts and she wrote many books and pamphlets in support of the cause. After the repeal of the acts, she established and edited her own periodicals. Her account of the struggle was entitled was Personal Reminiscences of a Great Crusade (1896). In addition, she wrote biographies of Catherine of Siena, and Jean Frederic Oberlin, as well as of her father John Grey of Dilston, the radical agricultural reformer and chief Whig agent in the North. Other biographies include that of her husband, George Butler, the churchman and educationalist, and her sister Harriet. Josephine Butler is buried at St Gregory's in Kirknewton.
In 2005 Durham University founded its 16th college and named it after Josephine Butler
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