Francis Neilson

Francis Neilson (26 January 1867 – 13 April 1961), was an accomplished actor, playwright, stage director, political figure (Member of the British House of Commons), avid lecturer, author of more than 60 books, plays and opera librettos, and the most active leader in the Georgist movement.

Biography

Early

Born as Francis Butters, the eldest of nine siblings, in the Claugton Road, Birkenhead, England, he was the son of a Shropshire father, Francis Turley Butters and a Scottish mother from Dundee, Isabella Neilson Hume. Several accounts explain that because of his large family, Neilson left school at the age of fourteen and moved to the United States at the age of eighteen. Nevertheless, the British Census of 1881 records the Butters' household as having 12 people, including 8 children and two maids.

During his days in Liverpool, Francis Neilson attended the Liverpool Institute for Boys. The census also records Francis Butters (Neilson's father) as a restaurant keeper. The same 1881 census records Neilson's paternal grandparents, Richard Butters (born in Market Drayton, Shropshire) and Sarah Turley (born in Snedshill, Shropshire), living at Cemetery Road in Wellington, Shropshire.