what the butler saw

• what-the-butler-saw

Usually linked to the 1884 divorce trial of Gertrude Elizabeth Blood and Lord Colin Campbell, at which one key witness was a butler who claimed to have seen Lady Campbell's adultery through a keyhole.

what the butler saw

1. (UK, slang, often attributive) A story or film of titillating activity observed by voyeurism.
   • 2013 June 1, Christopher Frayling, Mad, Bad and Dangerous?: The Scientist and the Cinema, Reaktion Books, →ISBN, page 48:

     For the next fifteen years he would make some 500 short films there – conjuring turns, fairy stories, burlesques, what-the-butler-saws, literary adaptations, fantastic voyages and reconstructed newsreels – of which about a fifth have survived.

   • 2015 December 4, S. Wasson, quoting Inez Holden, Urban Gothic of the Second World War: Dark London, Springer, →ISBN, page 97:

     When a male supervisor in Night Shift watches the women working at the machines, the female narrator is reminded of "some pier Peeping Tom, getting the story of 'what the butler saw' from a penny slot machine"

   • 2016 March 25, Barry Forshaw, Brit Noir: The Pocket Essential Guide to British Crime Fiction, Film & TV, Oldcastle Books Ltd, →ISBN:

     In Last Tango, we encounter another cast of off-the-wall characters (does Wales really have this many eccentrics?) as Louie becomes involved in Aberystwyth's 'What the Butler Saw' film industry.

   • 2025 September 15, Brian J Robb, The The: Every Album, Every Song, Sonicbond Publishing Ltd, →ISBN, page 1855:

     Suggesting a 'What The Butler Saw' salacious storyline, the title instead appears to be a juvenile play on the 'Stanley 3-in-1 saw' DIY tool.

2. (UK, chiefly attributive) A mutoscope; an amusement machine that shows a sequence of images or animation, often of a titillating nature, viewed via a peephole
   • 1963, Brewers' Guild Journal:

     There are two main types­—the machine working on the "What the butler saw" principle, where a knob is turned for the answer and the next exciting instalment, and "a programmed text- book" with questions on one side of the page and answers covered up by a flap on the other

   • 1978, The Architects' Journal:

     His scheme, which incorporates a 'what the butler saw emporium', two museums, a long bar and a 'fabulous' submerged restaurant has, perhaps more than the professional winners, caught the traditional rich-mix pier-head flavour.

   • 2013 November 14, Mark Lewisohn, The Beatles - All These Years - Extended Special Edition: Volume One: Tune In, Hachette UK, →ISBN:

     the fairground – women wanting to read your palm, a what-the-butler-saw, the waxworks, the dodgems, ghost train, tunnel of love...