Montagu C. Butler

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Montagu Christie Butler, (b. 25 January 1884 in London, d. 5 May 1970) was a British academic, librarian and musician. A winner of several prizes at the Royal Academy of Music in London, he was a harpist and a versatile music teacher skilled in playing various musical instruments, as well as a teacher of voice and of musical composition.

He was a Quaker and a vegetarian who first became an Esperantist in 1905. From that time Butler taught Esperanto to students, eventually achieving near-native fluency and becoming the first truly bilingual Esperantist. Butler was a member of the Linguistic Committee, the group tasked with preserving the fundamental principles of the Esperanto language and guiding its evolution. From 1916 to 1934 he served as secretary of the Esperanto Association of Britain ("Brita Esperanto-Asocio").

[edit] Writing and translation

Editor of La Brita Esperantisto ("The British Esperantist") in 1931 and 1932, he became one of 57 principal collaborators on the 1933 Esperanto Encyclopædia. Amongst other works, he translated Caroline Emelia Stephen's Quaker Strongholds. Butler is the editor of two respected Esperanto-language anthologies, Esperanta Kantaro (a songbook with 358 songs) and Esperanta Himnaro (a hymnal with 212 hymns). He adapted Pitman Shorthand to Esperanto and is the author of the textbook Step by Step in Esperanto, recently published by Esperanto-USA, and a thoroughgoing Esperanto-English Dictionary.

The major collection of Esperanto and Esperanto-related books he assembled during his lifetime now forms the heart of the Montagu Butler Library at Wedgwood Memorial College in Staffordshire, England.