When Courage Calls: Josephine Butler and the Radical Pursuit of Justice for Women

Millicent Fawcett, the leader of the British suffragist movement, described Josephine Butler as ’the most distinguished English woman of the nineteenth century’.

Among the first feminist activists, Butler raised public awareness of the plight of destitute women, worked to address human trafficking and led a vigorous campaign to secure equal rights for women before the law. As a hugely influential woman in history, Butler deserves to be even more widely known. This biography presents a fresh interpretation of the relationship between Josephine Butler’s public leadership, her political philosophy and her spirituality.

Sarah C. Williams is a highly respected social historian. She’s a specialist in nineteenth and twentieth-century cultural and religious history and has taught on Butler in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the US as well as Britain. Sarah taught British and European political and cultural history at the University of Oxford; she was also a Fellow and Tutor in Modern History at Harris Manchester College, Lecturer at Trinity College and from 2003 Praelector at Lincoln College. In 2005 she moved to the world renown Regent College, Vancouver, Canada, where she taught the History of Christianity to graduate students from all over the world. In 2016, she moved back to the UK but remains a Research Professor at Regent and also has a collegiate attachment at the University of Oxford.