Link to SfEP Home PageSfEP: Society for Editors and Proofreaders – upholding editorial excellence

Honorary president: Judith Butcher Honorary vice-president: David Crystal OBE

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Judith Butcher: Honorary president

Sketch of SfEP honorary president Judith Butcher

Judith Butcher is the author of Butcher's Copy-editing: The Cambridge handbook for editors, copy-editors and proofreaders – the classic editorial reference in Britain and beyond. Having learned her editorial skills on the job at Penguin Books, she joined Cambridge University Press as a subeditor in 1963, becoming chief subeditor within two years.

The house manual that she compiled formed the basis of Copy-Editing, which CUP published in 1975. New editions appeared in 1981, 1992 and 2006. Judith Butcher was elected the SfEP's first honorary president in 1988.