sketcher and seaman, was a clergyman’s son who served aboard the Prince of Wales in the First Fleet. His cousin Daniel Southwell was midshipman in the Sirius. When Southwell received a report from 'one of our Gents, who came a good part of the v[oyage] in the P.W.’ that Butler was 'quite the servant and bang’d about (I think) by the mate’, Southwell told his fellow midshipman Matthew Alt to ask his uncle, the surveyor-general-to-be Augustus Alt, to watch out for young Butler’s interests.
In New South Wales the 15-year-old Butler reputedly produced two drawings of fish that were engraved as plates in The Voyage of Governor Phillip to Botany Bay (London 1789). He returned to England in the Prince of Wales. His father wrote to Southwell in January 1791: 'The young Rogue got safe back, and very healthy’.
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- Writers:
- Staff Writer
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 2011
