Evangeline Mary Butler, died 1864

A carte-de-visite showing a memorial to Evangeline Mary Butler (1859-1864), who died on 20 August 1864 at the age of 5 when she fell 40 feet from a bannister onto a flagstone floor at her home in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire.

She was the daughter of Anglican clergyman Rev. George Butler and his wife, the activist and social reformer Josephine Butler, née Grey.

The death of her youngest child Eva was the impetus that eventually started Josephine Butler's work. It was her decision to help others that enabled her to claw her way out of the grief and depression that resulted from Eva's death.

Her work included fighting for women's rights (specifically women's suffrage and an end to coverture, by which a woman's legal identity was subsumed into her husband's on marriage) and an end to child prostitution, working with the editor W.T. Stead (he of The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon) to raise the age of consent from 13 to 16. She was also central to bringing about an end to the forced examination of prostitutes for venereal disease in garrison towns and sea ports (the Contagious Diseases Act aimed to cut down on sexually transmitted infections in the armed forces), which the women experienced as 'steel rape.'

The sculpture was the work of Scottish sculptor Alexander Munro.

Photographed by Richard Dighton of Cheltenham.