His father was a tenant farmer who grew hops, but moved the family to Canterbury after being bankrupted in 1896 and worked as a baker.
[4] However, by the end of the year he had moved to London, where he changed his surname from "Poxon" and reinvented himself as a 28-year-old journalist rather than a 22-year-old apprentice tailor.
[5] He worked at the Catherine Hill coal mine in New South Wales, where he participated in a strike, before moving to Brisbane in 1914.
[2] At the 1915 Queensland state election, Butler unsuccessfully stood for the Australian Labor Party (ALP) in the seat of Toombul.
He continued his work as a lay preacher and in 1931 became the minister of the Augustine Congregational Church in Bunbury, although he was never ordained.