John Butcher, a long-time campaigner for environmental and social justice, passed away on Invasion Day, aged 81.
About 200 friends, relatives and comrades from various campaigns gathered at the Rowers Club on the Cooks River on Gadigal Country, on February 5, to celebrate his life and achievements, speaking warmly of his contribution.
Sylvie Ellsmore, partner of Ben Butcher, John’s son, chaired the ceremony and said that John especially loved the Cooks River and worked tirelessly to help rehabilitate it. He worked to build understanding, connection and respect for the local environment and First Nations’ care of Country, she said.
“John was an activist priest in Redfern in the late 1960s and 70s, and a community campaigner his whole life,” Ellsmore wrote in a eulogy posted online. While still a Catholic priest in Redfern, he supported draft resisters and Indigenous rights campaigns.
John helped form South Sydney Community Aid and he was the inaugural coordinator of the Newtown Neighbourhood Centre. He was a longtime Greens member, a gardener at the University of Sydney, former president of the Cooks River Valley Association and a proud Mudcrab.
John Atkins spoke about John’s leading role in the Gallipoli Centenary Peace Campaign. It was formed to deliver an anti-war message during the Gallipoli Centenary celebrations in 2015.
John also helped establish the Marrickville Peace Park at Richardson’s Lookout overlooking the Cooks River, later that year. He was involved in helping organise the alternative Anzac Day Reflections in Peace Park over following years.
Ben Butcher recounted many of the campaigns John was involved in over the decades, especially after he left the Catholic Church in the 1970s.
He noted that John had been a member of the Socialist Workers Party, later the Rainbow Alliance and he joined the Marrickville Greens in the 1990s. “We will certainly miss John’s sense of justice,” Ben said.