The above leaflet shows an idyllic picture of Headington Manor House in about 1840 when it was “Mrs T. Butler’s Boarding School for Young Ladies”. Two of the young ladies are having a game of archery, while others sit or stand in the foreground, near grazing sheep. The text reads:

Mrs Thomas Butler (née Selina Ackermann) was the daughter of Rudolph Ackermann, who introduced lithography into Britain. The words underneath the picture read “R. ACKERMANN EXEC^T REGENT STREET LONDON”: this means that her eldest brother, Rudolph Ackerman junior (who had been established by his father in a separate business in 1825) had published the leaflet, rather than her three younger brothers (who had succeeded their father in the Strand in 1832).

An advertisement by Mrs Butler for an articled pupil in Jackson’s Oxford Journal for 9 July 1836 shows that Mrs Butler had been running the Manor House Boarding School in Temple Cowley at this time.

Headington Manor House (with its 75 acres of pleasure gardens) had been put up for auction by the Lord of the Manor on 3 August 1836, but it did not sell, and on 13 July 1838 it was transferred to the ownership of the solicitor in charge of the auction, George Alexander Peppercorn.

Meanwhile in 1837 Thomas Butler took on the lease of Headington Manor House, and on 20 May that year Jackson's Oxford Journal reported that by midsummer his wife Selina Butler would be moving her ladies’ seminary here from Temple Cowley.

On 6 January 1838 Mrs Butler advertised in Jackson's Oxford Journal: “There will be a vacancy after the Christmas Vacation, for an ARTICLED PUPIL, at Manor House Ladies' Boarding School, Headington, near Oxford” and that particulars were available from the school of from 29 High Street, Oxford. Similarly on 11 January 1840 she advertised for an articled pupil with a knowledge of Music and French.

The 1841 census duly shows the Butlers living in Headington Manor House with their own six young children and five female servants, as well as 21 girl boarders aged from 11 to 20 and just one little boy aged 9. In Pigot’s Directory of Oxfordshire & Berkshire for 1842, the school is listed under Academies as “Butler, Mrs. Thomas (boarding) Manor House, Headington”.

The school was probably still in existence in June 1844, when Mrs Butler’s sixth child was baptised at Headington, but by the time of the second sale of manor land in 1846, the Manor House was already owned by the Oxford solicitor John Matthews, Esq., and directories of Headington from 1847 list him as the occupier. Mrs Butler was now running a school in Clapham, Surrey.

Thomas & Selina Butler

Thomas Butler was baptised at All Saints Church in Oxford on 31 August 1800, the youngest of the ten children of James and Jane Butler. His father had been baptised in All Saints parish forty years before on 10 October 1750, and his grandparents were James and Martha Butler, who were buried at All Saints on 4 May 1781 and 14 December 1796 respectively. Thomas Butler is listed as a printseller in Oxford’s High Street in 1823, but appears to have moved to London by the time of his marriage in 1827, when he was described as being of 1 Beaumont Buildings in the Strand.

Selina Ackermann was baptised at St Clement Danes in London on 8 February 1813 at the same time as her brothers Ferdinand and Adolphus, and her family was then living at 101 The Strand. Her father Rudolph Ackermann (1764–1834) was born in Saxony, but came to England as a young man in 1787 and was naturalized as a UK citizen in 1809. Selina's father started off as a carriage-designer, but soon his interest turned to printing. In 1792 he married an Englishwoman, Martha Massey (1769–1811), and they had nine children, of whom six, including Selina, survived. The family moved to Fulham from Camberwell Grove in 1825, and on 4 October 1831 he married his second wife, Hannah Williams, at Finchley. (See Oxford Dictionary of National Biography for more information on Rudolph Ackermann.) At the time of her marriage in 1827 Selina was living at Ivy Lodge, Fulham, which was her father’s house.

On 29 January 1827 in Fulham, Thomas Butler married Selina Ackermann, and an announcement of the marriage appeared in Jackson’s Oxford Journal of 3 February 1827. They had the following children:

• Selina Jane Butler (born in London baptised at St Clement Danes in Westminster on 29 January 1828)
• Mary Ann Butler (born in London and baptised at St Clement Danes in Westminster in September 1829)
• Rudolph James Butler (born in the High Street, Oxford and baptised at All Saints' Church on 27 December 1831)
• Catherine Butler (born in the High Street, Oxford and baptised at All Saints' Church on 12 February 1834)
• Ferdinand Dick Butler (born in Temple Cowley and baptised at St James's Church on 7 April 1837)
• James Lockier Butler (born in Headington and baptised at St Andrew’s Church on 9 December 1839)
• John Angelicus Thomas Butler (born in Headington on 18 August 1843 and baptised at St Andrew's Church on 24 June 1844).

The baptisms show that Thomas & Selina Butler began their married life in Westminster, London but had moved to Oxford by the end of 1831, when Thomas was described as a carver and gilder in Oxford's High Street.

By July 1836 the Butlers had moved to Temple Cowley and Mrs Butler was running a school there, and Thomas was still described as a carver & gilder.

In 1837 the Butlers moved to Headington Manor House, and Mrs Butler's school moved with them. Thomas was still described as a printseller, and in Robson's Directory of 1839 “Butler & Margetts, printers” were at 20 High Street. On 7 December 1839 it was announced in Jackson's Oxford Journal that the partnership between Thomas Butler and Tom King Margetts had been dissolved by mutual consent on 4 December, and that the “respectable and old-established Business, which is situate in the best part of Oxford” was to be disposed of.

On 9 May 1840 Jackson's Oxford Journal advertised an auction of the stock in trade of Mr T. Butler, who had announced that he was leaving Oxford. This included “handsome chimney glasses, valuable paintings, water-coloured drawings, line engravings, and a large collection of illustrated books, and other works of art”..

At the time of the 1841 census, Thomas Butler (who was then about 41) was described as “Independent”, while his wife Selina (who was in her 30s) was described as a Schoolmistress. They were living in the Manor House at Headington with their five children (ranging in age from 1 to 13), and five female servants. There were 22 girl boarders aged between 11 to 20 living with them, and just one little boy pupil, aged 9. Two of the boarders were relations of the proprietors: Octavia Butler (13), who was Thomas’s niece, and Maria Ackermann (14).

At his youngest child's baptism in Headington in 1844 Thomas Butler was described as a “gentleman”.

In about 1845 the Butlers moved to Grosvenor House, Clapham. Surrey, where their daughter Catherine died at the age of 13 in July 1846. The 1851 census shows Thomas & Selina Butler living at Grosvenor House there with three of their children: Selina (23) Rudolph (18), who was a commercial clerk, and John (7). Mrs Butler was again running a school, and living with them were three governesses, an assistant, and a junior assistant, and 16 female scholars ranging in age from 10 to 17. They were looked after by three servants.

The Butlers are hard to find in the 1861 census, and Thomas Butler had already died when his daughter Selina Jane was married in Tunbridge Wells on 29 January 1863. .

At the time of the 1871 census the widowed Selina Butler was living at 3 Bury Terrace, Paddington.

Selina Butler died at 42 Richmond Gardens, Shepherd's Bush Green, Middlesex at the age of 83 on 25 August 1887. Her personal estate came to £90, and her son Ferdinand, who was a mechanician living at 133 Great Titchfield Street, Middlesex, acted as her executor. ,

Two of Thomas Butler’s siblings

• His brother William Henry Butler was an Oxford wine merchant (Mayor of Oxford in 1836/7), and in the late 1840s he too also retired to Headington (to the Lindens – now the Priory – in Old High Street), and is described in the 1851 census as a magistrate and alderman.
• His sister Lydia Butler married the Oxford auctioneer Thomas Mallam (Mayor of Oxford in 1839/40 and 1846/7) on 21 July 1816.