BUTLER, William, missionary, born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1819. He studied for the Wesleyan ministry at Didsbury, near Manchester, England, completing his course in 1844, and in the same year joined the Irish conference. He preached six years in Ireland, removed to the United States, remained six years in the New England conference, and in 1856 was sent to India to select and organize a field for a Methodist mission, he established the Methodist missions in the valley of the Ganges, and labored there for nearly ten years. In 1864 he returned to the United States, preached for a time in New England, and then became a secretary of the American and foreign Christian nation. In 1872 he was commissioned to found a mission for his church in Mexico. He reached that country 23 February, 1873, and labored there until obliged by failing health to return in February, 1879. Afterward he resumed the pastoral office in the New England conference. He is the author of a "Missionary Compendium" (New York, 1850); "' The Land of the Veda" (1872); " Mexico from the Conquest to 1880" (1881); and "From Boston to Bareily and Back" (1885).