Butler, William (1818-1899) and Clementina [Rowe] (1820-1913)

Founders of American Methodist missions in India and Mexico

The Butlers were probably the best-known Methodist missionary couple in the late nineteenth century. Born in Ireland, William Butler underwent a conversion experience, joined the Wesleyan church, and became a minister. He immigrated to the U.S. in 1850. After being twice widowed, he wrote to Clementina Rowe in Ireland, who had been influenced by his preaching some years before. Clementina crossed the ocean and they married in 1854.

In 1856 the Butlers sailed to India as founders of American Methodist work. After their arrival, the Sepoy Mutiny broke out and they fled to the mountains, where they remained under siege for eight months. After the uprising was crushed, they opened orphanages for children left homeless by the rebellion. In 1865, after putting the church on a firm footing, the Butlers returned to the United States, where they vigorously promoted foreign missions. Clementina spoke to groups of Congregational and Methodist women about the needs of women in India. In response, women in both denominations founded women’s missionary societies to support single women missionaries. Clementina was a founder of the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church and served over the years as an officer and recruiter.

As secretary of the American and Foreign Christian Union, an organization devoted to missions in “papal lands,” William was deemed the best person to found Methodist work in Mexico in 1873. As they had done in India, the Butlers established a printing press, schools, a girls’ orphanage, and church buildings. William wrote, The Land of the Veda (1871), From Boston to Bareilly and Back (1886), and Mexico in Transition (1892). Clementina established the Zenana Paper fund that published Christian women’s literature in five vernaculars.

Two children continued the work of their parents. John W. Butler spent 44 years in Mexico as a Methodist missioanry. Their daughter, Clementina Butler, wrote mission books for women, was secretary of the American Ramabai Association, and founded in 1912 the Committee on Christian Literature for Women and Children in Mission Fields.

Dana L. Robert, “Butler, William and Clementina (Rowe),” in Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions, ed. Gerald H. Anderson (New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 1998), 104.

This article is reprinted from Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions, Macmillan Reference USA, copyright © 1998 Gerald H. Anderson, by permission of Macmillan Reference USA, New York, NY. All rights reserved.

Bibliography

Digital Primary

Butler, Clementina. William Butler: The Founder of Two Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church. New York: Eaton & Mains; Cincinnati: Jennings & Pye, 1902.

Butler, John W. Mexico Coming Into Light. Cincinnati: Jennings & Graham, 1907.

_____. History of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Mexico: Personal Reminiscences, Present Conditions and Future Outlook. New York; Cincinnati: The Methodist Book Concern,1918.

Butler, William. From Boston to Bareilly and Back. New York: Phillips & Hunt; Cincinnati: Cranston & Stowe; 1886, c1885.

_____. Mexico in Transition: From the Power of Political Romanism to Civil and Religious Liberty. New York: Hunt & Eaton, 1892.

_____. The Land of the Veda: Being Personal Reminiscences of India, its People, Castes, Thugs, and Fakirs, its Religions, Mythology, Principal Monuments, Palaces, and Mausoleums, Together With the Incidents of the Great Sepoy Rebellion. Jubilee Edition. New York: Eaton & Mains; Cincinnati: Jennings & Graham, [c. 1906].

Digital Secondary

Baker, Frances J. The Story of the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 1869-1895. Cincinnati: Cranson & Curts, 1896.

Primary

Butler, Clementina Rowe. Pandita Ramabai Sarasvati: Pioneer In The Movement For The Education Of The Child-Widow Of India. New York: Fleming H. Revell, [c. 1922].
Pandita Ramabai Sarasvati

_____. Ownership: God is the Owner, I am His Steward. New York: Fleming H. Revell, [c. 1927].
PDF copy: Ownership

_____. Trophies from the Missionary Museum. New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1929.
Trophies from the Mission Museum

Butler, William. The Epistle to the Hebrews: With Notes. London: Partridge and Oakey, 1850.

_____. Thy Kingdom Come: An Anniversary Discourse Delivered Before the Missionary Society of the Methodist General Biblical Institute, at Concord, N.H., Nov. 4, 1852. Boston: Press of Geo. C. Rand, 1853.
PDF copy: Thy Kingdom Come: An Anniversary Discourse Delivered Before the Missionary Society of the Methodist General Biblical Institute, at Concord, N.H., Nov. 4, 1852

_____. The Land of the Veda: Being Personal Reminiscences of India, its People, Castes, Thugs, and Fakirs, its Religions, Mythology, Principal Monuments, Palaces, and Mausoleums, Together With the Incidents of the Great Sepoy Rebellion. New York: Carlton & Lanahan; San Francisco: E. Thomas, 1872.

_____. From Boston to Bareilly and Back. New York: Phillips & Hunt; Cincinnati: Cranston & Stowe; 1886, c1885.

_____. Mexico in Transition: From the Power of Political Romanism to Civil and Religious Liberty. New York: Hunt & Eaton, 1892.

_____. The Doctrine of Holiness as Taught in the Word of God. New York: Tract Society, [c. 1899].
The Doctrine of Holiness

Secondary

Baker, Frances J. The Story of the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 1869-1895. Cincinnati: Cranson & Curts, 1896.

Butler, Clementina. William Butler: The Founder of Two Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church. New York: Eaton & Mains; Cincinnati: Jennings & Pye, 1902.

__________. Mrs. William Butler: Two Empires and the Kingdom. New York: The Methodist Book Concern, 1929.
Two Empires and The Kingdom

Butler, John W. Sketches of Mexico in Prehistoric, Primitive, Colonial, and Modern Times. Lectures at Syracuse University on the Graves Foundation, 1894. New York: Hunt & Eaton; Cincinnati: Cranston & Curts, 1894.

_____. Mexico Coming Into Light. Cincinnati: Jennings & Graham, 1907.

_____. History of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Mexico: Personal Reminiscences, Present Conditions and Future Outlook. New York; Cincinnati: The Methodist Book Concern,1918.

Creegan, Charles C. and Josephine Goodnow. Great Missionaries of the Church. New York: T.Y. Crowell, 1895.

Daggett, Mrs. L.H. Historical Sketches of Woman’s Missionary Societies in America and England. Boston: Mrs. L.H. Daggett, 1879.

Isham, Mary. Valorous Ventures: A Record of Sixty and Six Years of the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society, Methodist Episcopal Church. Boston: W.F.M.S., M.E.C., 1936.

Robert, Dana L. American Women in Mission: A Social History of Their Thought and Practice. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1997.

Singh, D.V. “Social Activities of the Methodist Episcopal Church in India in the Nineteenth Century.” In Indian Church History Review 5 (1971): 122-152.

Wheeler, Mary Sparkes. First Decade of the Women’s Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, with Sketches of Its Missionaries. New York and Cincinnati: Phillips & Hunt; Walden & Stowe, 1881.

Links

“Living the Legacy: The Continuing Journey of Women in Mission, 1869-2002.” A timeline at the website of the UMC General Board of Global Ministries.

Portraits

Butler, Clementina. William Butler: The Founder of Two Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church. New York: Eaton & Mains; Cincinnati: Jennings & Pye, 1902.