Butt, Grace

Alice Grace Butt (1909-2005), teacher, librarian, prose writer, poet and playwright, was born on 8 March 1909 at Brigus, Newfoundland, the daughter of Mary Ella (Noseworthy) and Frederick Hamon Hue. She married Albert Boyle Butt and they had two daughters, Judith and Paula. Grace Butt resided in St. John's.

Butt received her early education at Brigus and Clarke's Beach, before moving to St. John's to attend the Methodist College. After graduation, she studied at Memorial University College and the Normal School. Butt taught at Holloway School for four years, but after her marriage began writing newspaper columns, poems and articles. In the 1930s she wrote an arts column for the St. John's Daily News and became a frequent contributor to the journal, the Newfoundland Quarterly. In 1937 she founded a theatre company, the St. John's Players, and was actively involved as president and as sometime director until 1950.

Butt established herself as a playwright in 1945 with The Road through Melton, performed by the St. John's Players under her direction. She later wrote the plays New Lands, True Newfoundlanders, Newfoundland Pageant ( or As New As Old), Beat at the Gate, Catherine Snow, Mythical Men, Gently Falling Flakes, Faces of Women, Good-Bye Your Excellency, The Mayor's Wife, Snow Bound, To Toslow We'll Go, and Wheel in the Middle of a Wheel. Her plays Winter Scene, Good-Bye Your Excellency and The People's House won awards in the provincial Arts and Letters Competition, and Part of the Main won a prize at the Dublin Theatre Festival in 1969.

In 1951, Butt was one of the members of a committee which established the annual Arts and Letters Competition awards. From 1955 until 1973 she worked at the Gosling Memorial Library and held the positions of assistant librarian, librarian in charge of the Newfoundland Collection and Provincial Reference librarian. She also published poetry and prose. Her poems "Storm-caught" (1967), "Over Thirty" (1970), "Santiago El Grande at Fredericton" (1979) each received Arts and Letters awards, and "The Journey" (1980) earned an honorable mention.

On occasion, Butt has been a writer for radio and television, a television panelist and actress. In 1964, she was President of the provincial branch of the Canada Authors Association. In 1968, she became charter member of the Newfoundland Writers' Guild and in 1986, a member of the Writers' Alliance of Newfoundland and Labrador. In 1981, she received an honorary doctorate in Letters from Memorial University and, in 1986, she was accorded the Lydia Campbell Writing Award from the Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council.

Created - April 18, 2013

• English