Welsh Journals

by the City Council, came to the Royal Institution of South Wales as the gift of Francis' son in 1895. Taken as a whole it shows the extent to which Francis relied on Butler as his recording eye, and his successors in the field of local history have been happy to follow his example. William Butler is remembered as a Swansea artist but he was not born in the town, though this is not unduly surprising in a century when its population grew enormously in step with its industrial and commercial expansion. He was born in 1824 in the mixed mining and farming village of Killamarsh, in the north-eastern corner of Derbyshire. Sheffield lay eight miles to the north-west and the village was pleasantly situated on the undulating slopes forming the eastern flank of the valley of the River Rother.3 He was christened on the 19th June 1824 in the fourteenth century church of St. Giles, where his parents, George Butler and Sarah Cowleshaw, had been married the previous year. A daughter, Harriet, was christened there on the 29th March 1826. There was also another family of Butlers in the parish, perhaps related, who had two daughters christened at St. Giles in 1837 and 1838.4 By the time of the census of 6th June 1841 there were no Butlers remaining in Killamarsh and William, at least, had already arrived in Swansea. He was then almost seventeen years of age. He appears in the Swansea census returns for 1841 at 5 York Place, apparently as a lodger, at the house of Jemima Hopkins, Dressmaker, and his occupation is already listed as 'Artist'. York Place, next to York Place Chapel which still stands, was less than one hundred and fifty yards from the Royal Institution's brand new Museum. Grant Francis was a driving force in the Institution and it was not surprising that contact was soon established between the young artist Panorama of Swansea from near the present Belgrave Flats, Uplands. Signed "W Butler 1847" The building with the tower is the Wesleyan Chapel in Goat Street (now Princess Way). The nearest building on the right is where the Dillwyn Street roundabout is today. Swansea Museum (Photo: Bernard Morris)