— Ch. 1 · A Father's Shadow —
Samuel Butler (novelist).
~6 min read · Ch. 1 of 7
Samuel Butler was born on the 4th of December 1835 at the rectory in Langar, Nottinghamshire. His father Rev Thomas Butler had been a son of Dr Samuel Butler who served as headmaster of Shrewsbury School before becoming Bishop of Lichfield. The younger Samuel described his parents as brutal and stupid by nature. He recalled that from his earliest recollections he could call to mind no time when he did not fear him and dislike him. He wrote later that his father never liked him nor did he like his father. This antagonistic relationship shaped every aspect of his early education and future rebellion against authority.
His education began at home with frequent beatings which were common for the era. At age twelve he was sent to Shrewsbury where he endured hard life under headmaster Benjamin Hall Kennedy. He later drew Kennedy as Dr Skinner in his semi-autobiographical novel The Way of All Flesh. In 1854 he went up to St John's College Cambridge where he obtained a first in Classics in 1858. The graduate society of St John's is named the Samuel Butler Room in his honour today.
Sheep And Satire
In September 1859 on the ship Roman Emperor Samuel Butler emigrated to New Zealand. He went there like many early British settlers of materially privileged origins to maximise distance between himself and his family. He lived as a sheep farmer on Mesopotamia Station and wrote about this experience in A First Year in Canterbury Settlement published in 1863. He made a handsome profit when he sold his farm but his chief achievement during the time consisted of drafts and source material for much of his masterpiece Erewhon.
In 1863 four years after Darwin published On the Origin of Species the editor of a New Zealand newspaper called The Press published a letter captioned Darwin among the Machines written by Butler but signed Cellarius. It compared human evolution to machine evolution prophesying that machines would eventually replace humans in supremacy over earth. The letter stated: In the course of ages we shall find ourselves the inferior race. This piece raised themes now debated by proponents of technological singularity such as computers evolving faster than humans and racing toward an unknowable future through explosive technological change. When Erewhon appeared anonymously in 1872 it caused speculation about its author until Butler revealed himself.