Henry Holt Butterfill

Henry Holt Butterfill (1830-1914), engineer and writer

1875 of 213 Regent Street, Hull.

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Obituary 1914 in The Engineer

WE much regret to have to announce the death of Mr. Henry Holt Butterfill, which occurred on January 31st, at his home at Gunnersbury . Mr. Butterfill, who was for many years a contributor to our columns, was born in 1830, and was therefore in his eighty-fourth year at the time of his death.

His whole life was devoted to questions relating to marine engineering, in which he obtained his first experience during a voyage to America in the Great Britain, which was commanded by his uncle, Captain Hoskin.

Mr. Butterfill served the first part of his apprentice-ship at Northfleet Dockyard, and completed it at Maudslay's, of Lambeth. He subsequently spent five years in Australia in various engineering ventures, and then returned to this country and proceeded to the North of England, where, amongst other things, he was employed in getting out the drawings for the first high-pressure marine engine. For some years he was fellow-draughtsman with the late Mr. J. Macfarlane Gray, with whom he kept in touch until his death .

During his early life Mr. Butterfill served as chief draughtsman and marine superintendent in various places, and was particularly well versed in all the work which was carried on on the Thames. For a time he was engineering correspondent for The Times and attended the trials of the torpedo boats, destroyers and warships of the period. It was on the occasion of the trials of H.M.S. Powerful, at which he was representing both that newspaper and ourselves, that he sustained a severe accident by tripping over a rope, which laid him up for a long period , and ended in his right hand becoming quite useless.

Mr. Butterfill was for some time in the drawing-office at Penn's, at Greenwich. He was the author of several books in connection with machine drawing, and was master of the engineering drawing classes at the old Polytechnic in Regent-street. He was always a keen student, and was most persevering in subjects requiring research. Until within three years of his death he wrote a little on marine engineering subjects , and in spite of failing health continued to follow closely the developments of his favourite profession. He was , we may add, an ardent spelling reformer, and helped the late Sir Isaac Pitman considerably in the early days of the movement. In 1882 he started a paper called the Steamship, but it was not successful.

The later work which Mr. Butterfill executed on our behalf was mostly of an historical character, and we may mention two series of articles which came from his pen, namely, "Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering on the Thames in the Victorian Era ," which appeared in the years 1897-8, and "Cross-Channel Passenger Steamship Services," which was published in 1901-2. These articles were of great historical interest, and represented a vast amount of careful and painstaking research.

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