SIR W. BUTLER DEAD

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 838, 9 June 1910, Page 5

SIR W. BUTLER DEAD

OF HEART DISEASE.

By TelcEraph-Presa ABsociation-Copjrliint. London, June 7. Obituary: General the Eight Hon. Sir William ]?. Butler, soldier and writer, of Bnnsha Castle, Tipperary; . aged 71. Ho died at Bansha, Tipperary, of heart disease. A BRILLIANT SOLDIER AND WRITER SOUTH AFRICAN EPISODE. Lieutenant-General Sir William Francis Butler, soldier and writer, has had a distinguished military and literary career. Born in Ireland in 183S, he entered the IJ9th Regiment in 1858. He served in Canada, in connection with the Fenian Raid and tho Red River Expedition, for which he received the Canadian service medal with two clasps. In 1870-71 he was Special Commissioner to the Indian Iribea of the Saskatchewan River line. Afterwards, he served in Ashanti, and in 1875 joined Sir Garnet Wolseley in Natal. He served in the Zulu War of 1879-80, and in the Sudan in 1885. In the following year he commanded at Wady Haifa.' In 189390 he commanded the' Second Infantry Brigade at Aldershot, and from 1898 to 1899 he was in command in Cape Colony. This was in the pve-War days, and one account says that Sir William Butler made himself obnoxious to the British War Office by pointing out the insufficiency of British preparations for a possible contest with the Boers—an insufficiency amply demonstrated by subsequent event?. Another account says that Sir William and Sir Alfred Milncr (now Lord Milner) fell out about tho management of South African affairs. Most accounts agree that the War Oliice made Sir William Butler's position at the Cape untenable, and tints his services—his undoubted military talent* and bis previous experience in South Africa—were lost to Britain in the war that followed. Sir William resigned his Cape command in 1899, and in November, 1905, retired from Ihfc Army after 17 years' service. Last yenr he was made a Privy Councillor. On tho literary side, Sir William's impressions of South Africa were given in "From Naboth's Vineyard," published in 1907. He is the biographer of General Gordon, Sir Charles Napier, and Sir Geo. (,'olley. His literary reputation was made as long ago as 1872 with "Tho Great Lone Hand." His wife. Lady Butler, is the famous painter of war pictures, "Dofoneo of ltorke's Drift," "Scotland for Ever." "Tel-el-Kebir," and "Tho Roll Call," etc.