Dr Cheryl Butler is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and Honorary Fellow of the University of Winchester.
Her career in the cultural sector spanned thirty years, and she was formerly Head of Culture at Eastleigh Borough Council. She kept up her academic interest in history and historical research and is a member of the editorial board for the Southampton Records Series and the Hampshire Papers.
She has published a number of books and papers which have drawn upon the archives from the Southampton Records office and Hampshire Archives including three Southampton Records Series volumes on the Southampton Mayors Book of Fines; the oral history of Itchen Ferry Village We only wore shoes on Sunday; a book on Tudor Southampton: Rioters, Revellers & Reformers; & Jane Austen & Southampton Spa.
She has organised several large award winning community heritage projects including The Diaper Heritage Project; Los Ninos, the story of the Basque Children Refugees; Tudor Revels; The Stinking Fish of Southampton, Jane Austen 200.
She is passionate about using archives to inform creative projects and is writer director of the site specific Sarah Siddons Fan Club Theatre Company.
She is Director of Training for the Southampton Tourist Guides Association and chair of the Diaper Heritage Association one of the largest single name genealogical study organisations, and winner of the British Association of Local History personal achievement award in 2014 and the City of Southampton award in 2018 for services to heritage.
She has spoken at numerous national and international conferences raising the profile of Southampton and its rich archives and history.
She runs a volunteer palaeography group which transcribes sixteenth century documents and is a published novelist: her novel, The Theatre of the World is set in Elizabethan England, based on original material from Southampton town archives.