Chair of the Liverpool District recieves Josephine Butler Woman of the Year Award
08 July 2024
The Revd Dr Sheryl Anderson, Chair of the Liverpool District, has received The Josephine Butler Woman of the Year Award during a service held at Liverpool Cathedral in June.
Josephine Butler was born in 1828 and lived in Liverpool where she campaigned for education and justice for women. “I think I would have liked her very much”, said Sheryl. “She was way ahead of her time.”
The Josephine Butler Memorial Trust seeks to promote awareness of Josephine Butler and how her Christian faith and commitment to service drove her in social justice campaigning.
As part of the award, the Trust asks winners to nominate a charity to receive a gift of £1000. “It's such an incredible honour to be given this award.
I nominated the charity Church Action on Sexual Abuse Issues, a project of the Liverpool Methodist District that offers support to women who've suffered abuse in a faith context. I've talked about that work and this was one of the reasons I received the award."
"Methodists pioneered the ordination of women and continue to pioneer them in senior leadership across the Church, I think that's fantastic and Josephine Butler, who was an Anglican, would have approved.”
The Revd Dr Sheryl Anderson“What women are able to bring to communities and to the quality of life for people in Liverpool often gets overlooked. While opportunities are better than they ever have been, people are much poorer, particularly since the cost-of-living crisis, and that impacts families, which impacts women.
“I am the first woman chair for the Liverpool District. When I started 10 years ago I was the only woman amongst all the senior leaders of the denominations in the city. I was joined by the URC moderator, who arrived shortly afterwards, and now there are also two bishops who are both women, the Bishop of Warrington and the Bishop of Birkenhead.