Founded in 1862 and, as with so many Companies based in the Halifax area, Butler's expertise in machine tools grew from previous experience in manufacturing looms for the textile trade - of which Halifax was an important centre. Over many decades the Company made a wide variety of machine tools including ordinary and giant facing lathes, vertical turning and boring machines, slab millers, and drills. Even so, an extract from the 1942 obituary of Mr Harold Butler (son of the Company's founder) and the then chairman and managing director of the Company, sums up neatly the Company's standing and specialist interest for which they were to become so well known: "The policy adopted by the company was to concentrate on the construction of machines of the reciprocating type: planers, shapers, and slotters; and a high degree of excellence, both in design and in workmanship was attained. It would, in fact, be difficult to find a more impressive machine than a Butler electrically controlled planer, which for smoothness of action, volume of output, and ease of control is an outstanding example of the machine tool maker's art."
Today, as Asquith Butler, the Company continues to work in  the field of large machine tools and their repair and servicing.
The Bulk of the shapers manufactured by Butler were listed as "Super" and "Standard", these being made for many decades as both older and newer, updated types as shown on this and page 2..