Elizabeth Southerden Thompson (3 November 1846 – 2 October 1933), later known as Lady Butler, was a British painter who specialised in painting scenes from British military campaigns and battles, including the Crimean War and the Napoleonic Wars.
Born~Died Nov 3, 1846 ~ Oct 2, 1933Last edited Oct 15, 2026, 3:32 PM
Details
Born ~ Died
Nov 3, 1846 ~ Oct 2, 1933
Born
Elizabeth Southerden Thompson, (1846-11-03)3 November 1846, Lausanne, Switzerland
Died
2 October 1933(1933-10-02) (aged 86), Gormanston Castle, County Meath, Ireland
Elizabeth Southerden Thompson (3 November 1846 – 2 October 1933), later known as Lady Butler,1 was a British painter who specialised in painting scenes from British military campaigns and battles, including the Crimean War and the Napoleonic Wars. Her notable works include The Roll Call (purchased by Queen Victoria), The Defence of Rorke's Drift, and Scotland Forever! (showing the Scots Greys at Waterloo). She wrote about her military paintings in an autobiography published in 1922: "I never painted for the glory of war, but to portray its pathos and heroism."234
She married British Army officer William Butler, becoming Lady Butler after he was knighted.1
Early life and education
Born at the Villa Claremont in Lausanne, Switzerland, Butler was the daughter of Thomas James Thompson (1812–1881) and his second wife, Christiana Weller (1825–1910). Her sister was the noted essayist and poet Alice Meynell. Elizabeth began receiving art instruction in 1862, while growing up in Italy. In 1866, she entered the Female School of Art in South Kensington in London. She began exhibiting her artwork, usually watercolours, as a student. In 1867, one watercolour, , was shown at the , one of the galleries preferred by women artists. The same year, she exhibited an oil painting, , at the .
This page is based on “Elizabeth Thompson” from English Wikipedia, (r1376232646) CC BY-SA 4.0 used under the license. The original authors are listed in its page history.
She became a Roman Catholic along with the rest of her family after they moved to Florence in 1869. While in Florence, under the tutelage of the artist Giuseppe Bellucci (1827–1882), she attended the Accademia di Belle Arti. She signed her works as E.B. (post-1877), Elizth. Thompson, or Mimi Thompson (she was called "Mimi" from her childhood).234
Artistic career
Initially concentrating on religious subjects like The Magnificat (1872), upon going to Paris in 1870, she was exposed to battle scenes from Jean Louis Ernest Meissonier and Édouard Detaille, and switched her focus to war paintings. With the painting Missing (1873), a Franco-Prussian War battle scene depicting the common soldiers' suffering and heroism, she earned her first submission to the Royal Academy. Her painting The Roll Call, which depicted a line of soldiers worn out with conflict, was shown in 1874 at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition and became so popular that a policeman had to be stationed next to the painting in order to regulate the crowds that came to see it.5 Butler later wrote that after the opening of the Summer Exhibition, she awoke to find herself famous.5
Her fame increased as the paintings toured Europe, along with photographs of Elizabeth. She gained even more notice because people found out that she was both young and pretty, something normally not associated with painters of battle scenes. It also helped that during this time, there was a huge swell of Victorian pride and romanticism for the growing British Empire.234 While Lady Butler's topics reflected such romanticism, her paintings were generally realistic in detail, with aspects such as confusion, mud and exhaustion being accurately portrayed. Her works tend to focus on British troops shown in action, or shortly after it, but avoiding scenes of hand-to-hand combat. The troops are often shown as their opponents might have seen them, but relatively few of the opponents themselves are shown.
In 1879, Butler came within two votes of becoming the first woman to be elected as an Associate Member of the Royal Academy (apart from two founder Members, Mary Moser and Angelica Kauffman; ultimately, the first female Associate Member was Annie Swynnerton, elected in 1922, and the first full Member was Laura Knight in 1936).
On her husband's retirement from the Army, she moved to Ireland, where they lived at Bansha Castle, County Tipperary. Lady Butler showed pictures at the Royal Hibernian Academy from 1892. Among the paintings that she took with her to County Tipperary was a set of water-colours that she had painted while stationed with her husband in Palestine. During the Irish Civil War these were transferred to her daughter for safekeeping at Gormanston Castle, then Viscount Gormanston's London townhouse, where almost all were destroyed during the Second World War.
Widowed in 1910, Lady Butler lived at Bansha Castle until 1922, when she took up residence with the youngest of her six children, Eileen, Viscountess Gormanston, at Gormanston Castle, County Meath. She died there in 1933 shortly before her 87th birthday being interred at nearby Stamullenchurchyard.23
Butler was included in the 2018 exhibit Women in Paris 1850–1900,7 whilst the 2023 play Modest covered her life from Roll Call to her rejection as an Associate of the Royal Academy.8
Autobiography (Sevenoaks: Fisher Press, 1993). ISBN 1-874037-08-6
Works about
Fillimore, Francis. – "Britain's Battle Painter: Lady Butler and Her Art". – New England Home Magazine. – Vol. XII, No. 13, September 1900, pp. 579–587 (also published in Windsor Magazine. – Vol. XI, December 1899 – May 1900, pp. 643–652)
Elizabeth Southerden Thompson (3 November 1846 – 2 October 1933), later known as Lady Butler,1 was a British painter who specialised in painting scenes from British military campaigns and battles, including the Crimean War and the Napoleonic Wars. Her notable works include The Roll Call (purchased by Queen Victoria), The Defence of Rorke's Drift, and Scotland Forever! (showing the Scots Greys at Waterloo). She wrote about her military paintings in an autobiography published in 1922: "I never painted for the glory of war, but to portray its pathos and heroism."234
She married British Army officer William Butler, becoming Lady Butler after he was knighted.1
Early life and education
Born at the Villa Claremont in Lausanne, Switzerland, Butler was the daughter of Thomas James Thompson (1812–1881) and his second wife, Christiana Weller (1825–1910). Her sister was the noted essayist and poet Alice Meynell. Elizabeth began receiving art instruction in 1862, while growing up in Italy. In 1866, she entered the Female School of Art in in London. She began exhibiting her artwork, usually watercolours, as a student. In 1867, one watercolour, , was shown at the , one of the galleries preferred by women artists. The same year, she exhibited an oil painting, , at the .
She became a Roman Catholic along with the rest of her family after they moved to Florence in 1869. While in Florence, under the tutelage of the artist Giuseppe Bellucci (1827–1882), she attended the Accademia di Belle Arti. She signed her works as E.B. (post-1877), Elizth. Thompson, or Mimi Thompson (she was called "Mimi" from her childhood).234
Artistic career
Initially concentrating on religious subjects like The Magnificat (1872), upon going to Paris in 1870, she was exposed to battle scenes from Jean Louis Ernest Meissonier and Édouard Detaille, and switched her focus to war paintings. With the painting Missing (1873), a Franco-Prussian War battle scene depicting the common soldiers' suffering and heroism, she earned her first submission to the Royal Academy. Her painting The Roll Call, which depicted a line of soldiers worn out with conflict, was shown in 1874 at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition and became so popular that a policeman had to be stationed next to the painting in order to regulate the crowds that came to see it.5 Butler later wrote that after the opening of the Summer Exhibition, she awoke to find herself famous.5
Her fame increased as the paintings toured Europe, along with photographs of Elizabeth. She gained even more notice because people found out that she was both young and pretty, something normally not associated with painters of battle scenes. It also helped that during this time, there was a huge swell of Victorian pride and romanticism for the growing British Empire.234 While Lady Butler's topics reflected such romanticism, her paintings were generally realistic in detail, with aspects such as confusion, mud and exhaustion being accurately portrayed. Her works tend to focus on British troops shown in action, or shortly after it, but avoiding scenes of hand-to-hand combat. The troops are often shown as their opponents might have seen them, but relatively few of the opponents themselves are shown.
In 1879, Butler came within two votes of becoming the first woman to be elected as an Associate Member of the Royal Academy (apart from two founder Members, Mary Moser and Angelica Kauffman; ultimately, the first female Associate Member was Annie Swynnerton, elected in 1922, and the first full Member was Laura Knight in 1936).
On her husband's retirement from the Army, she moved to Ireland, where they lived at Bansha Castle, County Tipperary. Lady Butler showed pictures at the Royal Hibernian Academy from 1892. Among the paintings that she took with her to County Tipperary was a set of water-colours that she had painted while stationed with her husband in Palestine. During the Irish Civil War these were transferred to her daughter for safekeeping at Gormanston Castle, then Viscount Gormanston's London townhouse, where almost all were destroyed during the Second World War.
Widowed in 1910, Lady Butler lived at Bansha Castle until 1922, when she took up residence with the youngest of her six children, Eileen, Viscountess Gormanston, at Gormanston Castle, County Meath. She died there in 1933 shortly before her 87th birthday being interred at nearby Stamullenchurchyard.23
Butler was included in the 2018 exhibit Women in Paris 1850–1900,7 whilst the 2023 play Modest covered her life from Roll Call to her rejection as an Associate of the Royal Academy.8
Autobiography (Sevenoaks: Fisher Press, 1993). ISBN 1-874037-08-6
Works about
Fillimore, Francis. – "Britain's Battle Painter: Lady Butler and Her Art". – New England Home Magazine. – Vol. XII, No. 13, September 1900, pp. 579–587 (also published in Windsor Magazine. – Vol. XI, December 1899 – May 1900, pp. 643–652)