was the fourth son and, youngest child of Dr. George
Butler, Dean of Peterborough, and sometime Head Master of Harrow.
Montagu Butler was himself-educated at Harrow under Dr. Vaughan,
afterwards the well-known Master of the Temple, and proved to be
in many respects the ideal schoolboy. He won all the prizes for
composition, prose and verse, Greek, Latin, and English. He gained
the principal scholarship, and was Head of the School. Beside all
this, he was a member of the Cricket Eleven and made the highest
score for Harrow in the match against Eton at Lord's.

In July, 1851, Montagu Butler left Harrow, and in the following
October entered Trinity College, Cambridge, as a Scholar. He won
the Bell University Scholarship, the Battie University Scholarship,
the Browne Medal for a Greek Ode twice, the Camden Medal, Porson
Prize, and First Member's Prize for a Latin Essay, and graduated as
Senior Classic in 1855. Of such an undergraduate career a Fellowship
at Trinity was the natural sequel, but Butler did not long reside
at Cambridge. All through his boyhood and early manhood he had
set his heart on a political career. He had a minute acquaintance
with the political history of modern England, and his memory was
stored with the masterpieces of political eloquence.

In 1856 he accepted the post of Private Secretary to the Right Hon.
W. F. Cowper, afterwards Lord Mount Temple, and then President of the
Board of Health in Lord Palmerston's Administration. In this office
he served for two years, and then, retiring, he spent eleven months
in foreign travel, visiting in turn the Tyrol, Venice, the Danube,
Greece, Rome, Florence, and the Holy Land. During this period, he
changed his plan of life, and in September, 1859, he was ordained
Deacon by Bishop Lonsdale of Lichfield, on Letters Dimissory from
Bishop Turton of Ely. His title was his Fellowship; but it was
settled that the College should present him to the Vicarage of
Great St. Mary's, Cambridge; and till it was vacant he was to have
worked as a classical tutor in Trinity. Then came another change.
"Dr. Vaughan's retirement," he wrote, "from the Head Mastership
of Harrow startled us. We all took quietly for granted that he
would stay on for years." However, this "startling" retirement
took place, and there was a general agreement among friends of
the School that Vaughan's favourite pupil, Montagu Butler, was
the right man to succeed him. Accordingly, Butler was elected in
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