He was responsible for the restoration of the historic Moffat Mission precinct which became renowned as a conservation area and as a beacon of hope in the troubled last years of Apartheid.
Butler was trained at Kelham Theological College from 1951 and was in due course ordained deacon at Southwark Cathedral in 1956 prior to serving in the Diocese of Bloemfontein in South Africa.
Butler commenced his ministry amongst the Tswana of the Northern Cape when Bishop Philip Wheeldon sent him to Kuruman in 1961 as Rector and Director of St Paul's, a vast mission district at the edge of the Kalahari.
Butler was sent by his Bishop in 1965 to Bechuanaland Protectorate (still within the Diocese of Kimberley and Kuruman) to the yet-to-be-built Gaborone, a capital city for the anticipated independent state of Botswana.
[2] Fr Butler remained there until 1970, a historic period when the protectorate became independent as Botswana (1966) and when church jurisdiction was transferred to the Diocese of Matabeleland (also from 1966).
He also amassed a collection of memorabilia, artefacts, paintings, photographs, documents and books associated with the history of the Mission, and he was responsible for developing a museum within the 4 hectare precinct.
[3] A crowning achievement in 1996 was the return of Moffat's printing press, from the Africana Library in Kimberley, for which he had campaigned tirelessly since taking up Directorship of the Mission.