▶Date of birth:  1 May 1864        Place of birth: Tumkur, Karnataka, southern India

▶Father:  Edward Henry Butcher     Mother: Charlotte Morris

▶Spouse(s):   (1) Geraldine Annie Williams; (2) Elizabeth Hannah Dunlop Smith   Date(s) of marriage: (1) 19 September 1893; (2) 2 September 1908      Place(s) of marriage: (1) Bampton, Oxfordshire; (2) Clifton, Bristol

▶Occupation: Clergyman (Anglican)

▶Lifestory: William Morris Butcher was Vicar of Brimscombe, Stroud, in Gloucestershire for over forty years, but before that he had served as a Curate at St Mary’s in Cheltenham. He was born in southern India in 1864, the second son of Edward Henry Butcher, of the Mysore Revenue Survey, and his wife Charlotte (née Morris). He entered the University of Durham (Bishop Hatfield’s Hall, later Hatfield Hall and then Hatfield College) as a student in Theology in 1884, BA 1886, MA, and was ordained Deacon in 1888, and Priest (both Southwell) in 1889.

In 1888 he was licensed Curate of St Anne’s, Nottingham, before moving to Cheltenham as Curate of St Mary’s until 1895, where in 1893 he married Geraldine Annie, eldest daughter of Frederick Williams RN, of the Deanery, Bampton, Oxfordshire; the couple had one daughter, and between 1894 and 1895 lived at 11 Selkirk Parade (now 51 Prestbury Road), Pittville.

He accepted the curacy of Holy Trinity Church, Blackburn in 1895, but in fact moved as Curate to St Thomas’s, Birmingham, before being appointed Vicar of Brimscombe, Stroud in 1896. After the death of his wife in late 1906 Butcher married again, in 1908, to Elizabeth Hannah Dunlop, daughter of the Revd. Charles Dunlop Smith;  they had one son.

Butcher remained Vicar of Brimscombe for over forty years, until 1939, after which he lived at Weston-super-Mare, where he died in early 1955, at the age of ninety.

▶Moved to Pittville from:  Nottingham      Moved from Pittville to: Birmingham

▶Date of death:  1Q 1955      Place of death: Weston-super-Mare

▶Date of burial:         Place of burial:

▶Notes:        ID: 8165

Contributor(s):  John Simpson/Alan Munden