William
Booth,
the son of a builder, was born in Nottingham
in 1829. At the age of fifteen he was converted to Christianity and
became a revivalist preacher. In 1849 he moved to London
where he found work in a pawnbroker's shop
at Walworth. Booth developed strong views on the role of church ministers
believing they should be "loosing the chains of injustice, freeing
the captive and oppressed, sharing food and home, clothing the naked,
and carrying out family responsibilities."
In 1852 Booth met Catherine Mumford. Catherine
shared William's commitment to social reform but disagreed with his
views on women. On one occasion she objected to William describing
women as the "weaker sex". William was also opposed to the
idea of women preachers. When Catherine argued
with William about this he added that although he would not stop Catherine
from preaching he would "not like it". Despite their disagreements
about the role of women in the church, the couple married on 16th
June 1855, at Stockwell New Chapel.
It was not until 1860 that Catherine Booth
first started to preach. One day in Gateshead Bethseda Chapel, a strange
compulsion seized her and she felt she must rise and speak. Catherine's
sermon was so impressive that William
Booth changed his mind about women's preachers. Catherine soon developed
a reputation as an outstanding speaker but many Christians were outraged
by the idea. As Catherine pointed out at that time it was believed
that a woman's place was in the home and "any respectable woman
who raised her voice in public risked grave censure."
In
1865 William and Catherine founded the Whitechapel
Christian Mission in London's East
End to help feed and house the poor. The mission was reorganized in
1878 along military lines, with the preachers known as officers and
Booth as the general. After this the group became known as the Salvation
Army.
William Booth sought to bring into his worship services an informal
atmosphere that would encourage new converts. Joyous singing, instrumental
music, clapping of hands and an invitation to repent characterized
Salvation
Army
meetings.
General Booth was deeply influenced by his wife Catherine
Booth, who believed that women were equal to men and it was only
inadequate education and social custom that made them men's intellectual
inferiors. She was an inspiring speaker and helped to promote the
idea of women preachers. The Salvation
Army
gave women equal responsibility with men for preaching and welfare
work and on one occasion William
Booth remarked that: "My best men are women!"
The Church
of England were at first extremely hostile to Booth's activities.
Lord Shaftesbury, a leading politician
and evangelist, described William
Booth as the "Anti-Christ". One
of the main complaints against Booth was his "elevation of women
to man's status". Members of the Salvation
Army were imprisoned for open-air preaching and their
support for the Temperance Society
made them the target for gangs of men who became known as the Skeleton
Army.
William and
Catherine Booth
were also active in the campaign to improving the working conditions
of women working at the Bryant & May
factory in the East End. Not only were these women only earning 1s.
4d. for a sixteen hour day, they were also risking their health when
they dipped their match-heads in the yellow phosphorus supplied by
manufacturers such as Bryant
& May. A large number of these women suffered from
'Phossy Jaw' (necrosis of the bone) caused by the toxic fumes of the
yellow phosphorus. The whole side of the face turned green and then
black, discharging foul-smelling pus and finally death.
Booth pointed out that
most other European countries produced matches tipped with harmless
red phosphorus. Bryant
& May responded that these matches were more expensive
and that people would be unwilling to pay these higher prices.
In 1891 the Salvation Army opened its
own match-factory in Old Ford, East London. Only using harmless red
phosphorus, the workers were soon producing six million boxes a year.
Whereas Bryant &
May paid their workers just over twopence a gross, the
Salvation Army paid their employees
twice this amount.
William
Booth organised
conducted tours of MPs and journalists round this 'model' factory.
He also took them to the homes of those "sweated workers"
who were working eleven and twelve hours a day producing matches for
companies like Bryant
& May. The bad publicity that the
company received
forced the company to reconsider its actions. In 1901, Gilbert
Bartholomew, managing director of Bryant
& May, announced it had stopped used yellow phosphorus.
Gradually opinion on William
Booth's activities changed. He was made a freeman of London,
granted a honorary degree from Oxford University
and in 1902 was invited to attend the coronation of Edward
VII. When William
Booth died in 1912, his eldest son, William Bramwell Booth,
became the leader of the Salvation Army.
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Last updated: 7th May, 2002
(1)
William Booth, In Darkest England (1890)
The
citizens in Darkest England, for whom I appeal, are (1) those who,
having no capital or income of their own, would in a month be dead
with sheer starvation were they exclusively dependent upon the money
earned by their own work; and (2) those who by their utmost exertions
are unable to attain the regulation allowance of food which the law
prescribes as indispensable even for the worst criminals in our gaols.
According to Lord Brabazon "between two and three millions of
our population are always pauperised and degraded." Mr. Chamberlain
says there is a "population equal to that of the metropolis"
that is between four and five millions "which has remained constantly
in a state of abject destitution and misery". Darkest England,
then, has a vast despairing multitude in a condition nominally free,
but really enslaved - these it is whom we have to say.
(2)
William
Booth, In Darkest England (1890)
The
town-bred child is at a thousand disadvantages compared with his cousin
in the county. But every year there are more town-bred children and
fewer cousins in the county. To rear healthy children you want first
a home; secondly, milk; thirdly, fresh air; and fourthly, exercise
under the green trees and blue sky. All these things every country
labourer's child possesses, or used to possess. In towns tea and slops
and beer take the place of milk, and the bone and sinew of the next
generation are sapped from the cradle.
(3) William Booth, In Darkest
England (1890)
The home is largely destroyed where
the mother follows the father into the factory, and where the hours
of labour are so long that they have no time to see their children.
The omnibus drivers of London, for instance, what time have they for
discharging the daily duties of parentage to their little ones? How
can a man who is on his omnibus from fourteen to sixteen hours a day
have time to be a father to his children in any sense of the word?
He has hardly a chance to see them except when they are asleep. Many
of the new industries which have been started or developed since I
was a boy ignore man's need to one day's rest in seven. the railway,
the post-office, the tramway all compel some of the employees to be
content with less than the divinely appointed minimum of leisure.
(4)
William Booth, In Darkest England (1890)
Whatever may be thought of the possibility
of doing anything with the adults, it is universally admitted that
there is hope for the children. "I regard the existing generation
as lost," said a leading Liberal statesman. "Nothing can
be done with men and women who have grown up under the present demoralising
conditions. My only hope is that the children may have a better chance.
Education will do much." But unfortunately the demoralising circumstances
of the children are not being improved - are, indeed, rather, in many
respects, being made worse.
It will be said, the child today has the inestimable advantage of
education. No; he has not. Educated the children are not. They are
pressed through "standards", which exact a certain acquaintance
with A B C and pothooks and figures, but educated they are not in
the sense of the development of their latent capacities so as to make
them capable for the discharge of their duties in life.
(5)
Philip Gibbs, a journalist for the Daily
Mail met General Booth in 1902.
His spirit was like a white flame. He had a burning fire within him.
There was nothing of the gentle saint about him, and sometimes he
had a terrifying anger, as once I saw, which scorched and blasted
those who had betrayed him or had done some dirty work.
On the day I went to see him, on behalf of the Daily Mail,
he started by being angry, and then softened. Presently he seized
me by the wrist and dragged me down to my knees besides him. "Let
us pray for Alfred Harmsworth," he said. He prayed long and earnestly
for Harmsworth, and Fleet Street, and the newspaper Press that it
might be inspired by the love of truth and charity and the Spirit
of the Lord.
(6) William
Booth, In Darkest England (1890)
| Category |
Description |
East
London |
Rest
of London |
Total |
| Paupers |
inmates
of workhouses, asylums, etc. |
17,000 |
34,000 |
51,000 |
| Homeless |
loafers,
casuals, etc. |
11,000 |
22,000 |
33,000 |
| Starving |
casual
earnings between 18s and below |
100,000 |
200,000 |
300,000 |
| Very
Poor |
intermittently
earning 18s. to 21s. per week |
74,000 |
148,000 |
222,000 |
(7) William
Booth published details In Darkest England of a survey into
the reasons why young unmarried women in his rescue homes had become
pregnant.
| Cause
of Pregnancy |
Percentage
of those interviewed |
| alcohol |
14% |
| seduced
by man |
33% |
| willful
choice |
24% |
| bad
company |
27% |
| poverty |
2% |
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