Booth, William

BOOTH, WILLIAM: Commander-in-chief of the Salvation Army; b. at Nottingham, England, Apr. 10, 1829. He was educated by a private theological tutor of the Methodist New Connexion Church, and began his career as an open air preacher at the age of fifteen. He entered the ministry of the Methodist New Connexion Church in 1852, and was successively a traveling evangelist and a circuit preacher until 1861, when he left the denomination to devote himself entirely to evangelistic work. In 1865 he founded at London the Christian Mission for the amelioration of the condition of the destitute and vicious population of the eastern portion of London, and this developed, in 1878, into the Salvation Army. He has traveled extensively in the interests of his Army, and has written Salvation Soldiery (1890); In Darkest England and the Way Out (1890); and Religion for Every Day (1902).

Bibliography: F. St. G. de L. Booth Tucker, Life of General William Booth, Chicago, 1898; T. F. G. Coates, The Prophet of the Poor; the Life Story of General Booth, London, 1905.