Dr Will Butler
- Roles
- Author
- Researcher
Head of Modern Collections
About
Will is a historian of the 19th and 20th-century British armed forces, particularly the British Army in 19th-century Ireland, and its role during the First and Second World Wars.
He works on a variety of projects, including the transfer of millions of military service records to The National Archives, and legacy work relating to the recent Great Escapes exhibition on prisoners of war and internees during the Second World War.
Research activity
Will holds an MA in ‘War, Propaganda and Society’ which he completed in 2010, and a PhD which he completed in 2013, both undertaken at the University of Kent. His research focuses on Irish soldiers in the British Army, particularly from the middle of the 19th century onwards, the ‘amateur military tradition’, as well as the role of the British Army during both World Wars.
Before joining The National Archives, Will was an Associate Lecturer, Outreach Officer and Humanities Subject Specialist at the University of Kent. He also ran a First World War Centenary Project from 2015 until 2020, working with school and university students in the local community and with external partners for the university.
He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Kent, sits on the Council of the Army Records Society and is a Managing Editor of the British Journal for Military History.
Will welcomes enquiries from anyone wishing to use The National Archives collections relating to the British armed forces in their research.
Publications
- Butler, W (2025) ‘”'More Irish Than the Irish Themselves”: Conflict, Discipline and the Image of the Irish Militia During The Nineteenth Century’ in Huddie, P, Billings, C, and Crampsie, A (eds.), ‘New Perspectives on Conflict and Ireland in the Nineteenth Century’, Liverpool University Press
- Butler, W (2023) ‘An Irish Catholic Amateur Military Tradition in the British Army? The Irish Militia, 1793-1908’, British Journal for Military History, 9, 2
- Butler, W (2022), ‘The British Army, Upper Silesia, and European Diplomacy, 1920-22’, Diplomacy & Statecraft, 33, 4
- Bowman, T, Butler, W, and Wheatley, M (2020) 'The Disparity of Sacrifice; Military Recruitment in Ireland during the First World War', Liverpool University Press
- Butler, W (2019) ‘“The British Soldier is no Bolshevik”: The British Army, Discipline, and the Demobilisation Strikes of 1919’, Twentieth Century British History, 30
- Butler, W (2016) 'The Irish Amateur Military Tradition in the British Army, 1854-1992', Manchester University Press
- Butler, W (2016) ‘The Formation of the Ulster Home Guard during the Second World War’, Irish Historical Studies, 40, 158
- Butler, W (2013) ‘Ireland’ in Beckett, I (ed.), 'Citizen Soldiers and the British Empire, 1837-1902', Pickering and Chatto
Articles
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Blog post
On the Record: Victory in Europe Day (VE Day)
In this episode of On the Record we explore what VE Day was like, from the soldiers and medics at the frontline, to the folks at home hoping for peace.
