Josephine Butler to Stanley and Rhoda Butler

  • This material is held at
  • Reference
      GB 106 3JBL/36/25
  • Former Reference
      GB 106 5327
  • Dates of Creation
      28 Sep 1896
  • Physical Description
      1 item

Scope and Content

Photocopy of letter. Written from from La Gordanne, Perroy, Vaud and completed from Lausanne on 1 Oct

Describes the Conference held at Berne on 14-20 Sep. Had perfect weather. Tell Meuricoffre (Hatty's husband) arrived on the Saturday, Hatty on the following day, and the Conference attendees on the Monday. The Conference opened with a Reception in the Gesellschaftshaus with several members of the Government in the Committee of Reception. Business started the next day at 9.30am. She herself spoke once at the opening meeting, following Pierson. She would have liked to address the Bernese working women in German but they did not know German (ie Hoch Deutsch), only Bernese Patois, so handed over to lady who was a Colonel in the Swiss Salvation Army. Her final impression of the conference: 'Certainly it was one of the most solid and weighty conferences we ever had, from the fact that we were in direct and friendly relations with the Swiss Government and in the Federal Capital, and also that we had important communications with other Governments.

One interesting fact at the Congress was the three delegates appointed by the Swiss Catholic bishops; one was a Dominican friar who greeted her with: 'You are the authoress of the life of Catherine of Sienna'. She finished the letter at Lausanne where she intended staying for a week before she returned to Hatty.

Administrative / Biographical History

Stuart and his ladies, The Priestman party and Clark their nephew, Mr and Mrs Aaron Powell (New York), HJ Wilson and wife, Mr and Mrs Gledstone, Dr Nevins, Mme de Gingins, Amelie Humbert, Mr Pierson, Count and Countess of Hogendorp, M Budel, M Bergner