Butler, William Francis
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
(1838-1910) Irish soldier and author whose military involvement in the Riel Rebellion in western Canada resulted in his recommending the creation of what would eventually become the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. He was in active service, with the rank of colonel, when he published anonymously a Battle of Dorking tale, The Invasion of England: Told Twenty Years After (1882) as By an Old Soldier, in which Germany mounts an Invasion of Britain. He was knighted in 1886, and retired with the rank of lieutenant-general in 1905. Throughout his career he expressed a deep scepticism about the virtues of Empire and the motives of those urging its late nineteenth century expansion. [JC]
Sir William Francis Butler
born Ballyslateen, Tipperary, Ireland: 31 October 1838
died Bansha Castle, Tipperary, Ireland: 7 June 1910
works (highly selected)
- The Invasion of England: Told Twenty Years After (London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, and Rivington, 1882) as By an Old Soldier [hb/nonpictorial]
links
previous versions of this entry