(1710 - 73), Jesuit priest, 2nd s. of Simon Butler of Appletree, Northants; educ. Douai 1719 - ; ord. and prof. by 1735; chapl. to the D. of Norfolk; author of The Lives of the Saints [1756 - 9].
1746 [dep. Dover Sep. 1744] Genoa (17 Mar. 1746), Lucca, Pisa, Florence (30 Mar.), Siena, Rome (Holy Week), Naples, Assisi, Loreto, Rimini, Ravenna, Bologna, Parma, Venice, Padua, Milan, Pavia, Turin (Jun.)
Alban Butler travelled in Italy as tutor to James and Thomas Talbot (younger brothers of George, 14th Earl of Shrewsbury), who had both been studying at Douai. Both became Catholic priests and their tour was appropriately conducted. Butler described it in his Travels through France and Italy, and part of the Austrian, & Dutch Netherlands, during the years 1745 and 1746 [1803], a work of pedagogy. While Butler believed that Italy was 'the chief school of improvement for travellers', his charges were evidently not allowed to enjoy the Medici Venus, whose 'softness and grace of life' was 'too dangerous an object for any one to look upon'. Nor apparently were they allowed to visit the theatre, 'the school of the passions and of sin'. Butler, not surprisingly, considered the Italians lacked 'true interior devotion', despite the magnificence of their churches.
In the Writings of Alban Butler (ed. Charles Butler [1800]:10) it was stated, apparently in error, that George, the elder brother, was also of the party, see George, Lord Shrewsbury.