Who was William Booth?
Founder and General of the Salvation Army.
Date and Place of Birth:
12th April 1829, 12 Nonintone Place, Sneinton,
Nottingham, England.
Family Background:
Son of a speculative builder.
Education:
Apprenticed to a Pawn Broker.
Chronology/Biography of William
Booth:
1844: Converted
to Christianity and became a revivalist preacher.
1849: Moved to London
where he worked in a pawnbrokers shop in Walworth.
1852: Met Catherine
Mumford for the first time. Catherine shared his interests in social
reform but was not taken by his anti-women views whom he described
as "the weaker sex". He was particularly opposed to women
preachers. Although he said he would not like it he would not prevent
Catherine from becoming a preacher herself.
1855: Became a Methodist
New Connexion Minister at Gateshead on Tyneside.
1860: Catherine
first rose to preach in the Bethesda Chapel in Gateshead and she
was so powerful that Booth changed his mind about women preachers.
1864: They founded
the Whitechapel Christian Mission together in the East End of London
to try to help feed and house the poor working people.
1878: The mission
was re-organised along army style lines with the preachers being
known as officers and William himself being the General. The group
quickly became known as the Salvation Army. Booth tried to bring
happiness into his services to try and bring in new converts and
introduced instrumental music and joyful singing. The Salvation
Army became at odds with the Church of England particularly because
women took such a prominence and the politician Lord Shaftesbury
described Booth as "The Antichrist".
1891: The Booth's
had been working actively for some years on behalf of the girls
who worked at Bryant and May's match factory in the area. The yellow
phosphorus in the matches gave many of them necrosis of the jaw
and the opened their own match factory in Old Ford, London in opposition
to Bryant and May using an alternative to yellow phosphorus (Red
phosphorus) and paying their workers twice the wages. M.P.s and
journalist were invited to the model factory to take note of the
working girls plight.
1901: Bryant and
May themselves stop using phosphorus in the production of matches.
1902: The establishment's
opinion of him had by now changed and he was invited to the coronation
of King Edward the Seventh. He was also made a Freeman of London
and granted an honorary degree by the University of Oxford.
Marriage:
16th June 1855 to Catherine Mumford at Stockwell
New Chapel.
Places of Interest:
LONDON:
Stockwell New Chapel.
Whitechapel Salvation Army.
TYNE AND WEAR:
Bethesda Chapel, Gateshead.
Date and Place of Death:
20th August 1912, London, England.
Age at Death:
83.
Site of Grave:
Abney Park Cemetery, Church Street, Stoke Newington.
