The Reverend Canon George Butler M.A. was an English divine and schoolmaster. Born in Harrow in 1819, Butler was from a family that had great educational influence in the 19th Century, more than that of Arnold of Rugby. His father the Very Rev. George Butler Snr had left Cambridge as a senior wrangler and later became Headmaster of Harrow and Dean of Peterborough. His brother the Very Reverend Henry Montagu Butler followed his fathers footsteps and also became headmaster of Harrow, later becoming Dean of Gloucester Cathedral. His other brother, the Rev. Arthur Grey Butler became headmaster of Haileybury on its re-opening as a public school in 1862.
In 1842 became a Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford and later housemaster at Cheltenham College and Principal of Liverpool College in 1865. It was under Butler's Principalship that saw the College's most distinguished academic performance to date. By 1869 Butler had secured 6 open scholarships to Oxford and Cambridge. On the 28th January 1870 it was announced that "a Liverpool boy had for the first time won the most coveted award at Cambridge or any other University".[1] This boy's name was Richard Pendlebury, a College boy and a Senior Wrangler. The academic excellence of the College under Butler did not stop here, Andrew Forsyth also became a Senior Wrangler in 1881. Throughout the history of Liverpool College it has never seen the same Oxford and Cambridge success as in Butlers time.
He was married to Josephine Butler, the famous social reformer who has received the closest status to Saint as the Church of England can bestow.