[3] His father was headmaster of Harrow School (1860–85), Dean of Gloucester (1885–86) and Master of Trinity College, Cambridge (1886–1918).
[1] Butler served as a clerk in the House of Lords from 1895–97, and was assistant librarian under Sandford Arthur Strong (1897–1904) and Sir Edmund Gosse (1904–1914).
[1] Butler oversaw the library alone during the First World War, when his assistant librarian, Charles Travis Clay, was serving overseas.
He was found in the bathroom shortly afterwards suffering from a severe wound to the throat in an apparent suicide attempt.
[4] In 1900, Butler married Margaret Edith, second daughter of Francis Law Latham, Advocate-General of Bombay, 1884–1893.