Booth, William (1829–1912)

English evangelist and founder of the Salvation Army William Booth, with two of his grandchildren. Popularly known as General Booth, he was a Methodist revivalist preacher who worked actively to improve the condition of the poor, ministering to both their spiritual and physical needs.

English founder of the Salvation Army (1878), and its first ‘general’.

Booth was born in Nottingham. He experienced religious conversion at the age of 15. In 1865 he founded the Christian Mission in Whitechapel, east London, which became the Salvation Army in 1878. In Darkest England, and the Way Out (1890) contained proposals for the physical and spiritual redemption of the many down-and-outs. His wife Catherine Booth, whom he married in 1855, became a public preacher in about 1860, initiating the ministry of women. Their eldest son, William Bramwell Booth (1856–1929), became chief of staff of the Salvation Army in 1880 and was general from 1912 until his deposition in 1929.

Other members of the family who became prominent officers in the Salvation Army included William and Catherine's seventh child Evangeline Cora Booth (1865–1950), who was general 1934–39 and later became a US citizen; and their granddaughter Catherine Bramwell Booth (1884–1987) who was a commissioner in the Salvation Army.