Feminist and social reformer Josephine Butler was born #onthisday in 1828. Considered one of the first feminist activists in British history, she was born into a wealthy, Christian family with liberal values, and both of her parents were staunch abolitionists.

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Once married, she moved to Liverpool where, due to a lack of factory work, many women turned to prostitution to provide for their families. Butler was appalled by the treatment of women in these circumstances, and it became her mission to support them.

She worked on the streets and in workhouses, and often brought women into her own home, which became a secular ‘house of rest’.

She campaigned both in Britain and abroad to repeal laws and acts that were unfairly punitive to women, namely the Contagious Diseases Act, and won enormous support as she did.

In the late 1800s, she led the rise of a campaign for the civil rights of prostitutes across Europe. This resulted in the the International Abolitionist Federation, who helped to influence the adoption of human rights laws that still exist today.⁠
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Graphite on paper by William Bell Scott, 1856.⁠

http://collections.ashmolean.org/object/797320