The Reverend Joseph Butterworth Owen (22 July 1809 - 24 May 1872) was an English clergyman, social reformer and author of the nineteenth century.

[1] Owen's published sermons and biography provided the target for Samuel Butler's satirical novel The Fair Haven.

[2][3][4] Born into a prosperous upper middle class family, Owen's father ran a private architectural practice and later became the Principal Architect and Engineer of the Office of Public Works, Ireland.

His study of Mathematics suffered and Owen recalled disappointing the high expectations of his family for failing to make the Tripos list.

In response to strong support for the Chartist movement in the Black Country, he founded and edited the Midland Monitor from 1942 to 1844 to 'stem the torrent of infidel and revolutionary literature raging among the working classes.

[16][a] His connection to the reformist wing of the Conservatives continued after he left Staffordshire through his close association with the Earl of Shaftesbury and his various social and political causes.

Throughout the nineteenth century, St John's Chapel had been a magnet for Evangelicals of the Established Church, becoming the centre of the abolitionist movement and closely associated with the Clapham Sect.

Owen’s term as Minister of the Chapel was cut short in November 1856 when he noticed significant damage to the structure of the building.

[17] It was reported that ’when the Minister ascended the pulpit, he perceived, from signs not to be mistaken, that the whole of the immense and massive roof had shifted and sunk, and might at any instant crush him and the whole congregation.

A very short sermon naturally, and most wisely, followed this discovery; and that was the last sermon preached, or ever to be preached [in the chapel].’[18] During his time at St John’s Chapel, Owen also took up the chaplaincy of the Royal Free Hospital, at Gray’s Inn Road, later becoming the chairman of the Hospital's Board of Governors.

His death was commemorated by the Earl of Shaftesbury,[28] and noted in the Quiver which asserted that 'Mr Owen was known to be a prince amongst lecturers as well as a distinguished preacher.

'[29] During his lifetime, the Quiver noted that Owen was well known in most parts of the United Kingdom for his 'Herculean' ministerial and practical Christian labours.

Another daughter, Josephine Frances Royse was a secretary of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies, fighting against anti-Suffragists in the strongholds of Walmer and Deal.

Joseph Butterworth Owen, Together with a Brief Memoir of His Life, by his son Edward Annesley Owen’ provided the inspiration for Samuel Butler’s satire The Fair Haven subtitled ‘a work in defence of the miraculous element in Our Lord's ministry upon earth, both as against rationalist impugners and certain orthodox defenders, by the late John Pickard Owen, with a memoir of the author by William Bickersteth Owen.’[32] The publisher's note in Butler’s essays on humour contended that ‘In none of his writings did Butler wield the master-spell of irony with more trenchant effect, and in none is his skill as a controversialist more triumphantly exhibited.