William Booth autograph Salvation Army Founder d. 1912

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William Booth signed letter (torn)... William Booth (April 10, 1829 âe" August 20, 1912) was a British Methodist preacher who founded The Salvation Army and became the first General (1878-1912). The Christian movement, with a quasi-military structure and government - but with no physical weaponry, founded in 1865 has spread from London, England, to many parts of the world and is known for being one of the largest distributors of humanitarian aid.Booth was born in Sneinton, Nottingham, England, the only son of four surviving children born to Samuel Booth and Mary Moss. His father was wealthy by the standards of the time, but during Booth's childhood, as a result of his father's bad investments, the family descended into poverty. In 1842, Samuel Booth, who by then was bankrupt, could no longer afford his son's school fees, and 13 year-old William Booth was apprenticed to a pawnbroker. Samuel Booth died later that same year. A plaque on the house in Nottingham in which William Booth was born on 10th April 1829. William Booth statue at his birth place in Nottingham.Two years into his apprenticeship Booth was converted to 'salvation' and Methodism.[3] He then read extensively and trained himself in writing and in speech, becoming a Methodist lay preacher. Booth was encouraged to be an evangelist primarily through his best friend, Will Sansom. Sansom and Booth both began in the 1840's to preach to the poor and the "sinners" of Nottingham, and Booth would probably have remained as Sansom's partner in his new "Mission" ministry, as Sansom titled it, had Sansom not died of tuberculosis in 1848.[4] When his apprenticeship ended in 1848, Booth spent a year looking in vain for more suitable work than pawnbroking, which he disliked and considered ungodly.[5] In 1849, Booth reluctantly left his family and moved to London, w he found work and lodging in a pawnbroker's shop. Booth tried to continue lay preaching in London, but the small amount of preaching work that came his way frustrated him, and so he resigned as a lay preacher and took to open-air evangelising in the streets and on Kennington common. In 1851, Booth joined the 'Reformers' (Methodist Reform Church), and on April 10, 1852, his 23rd birthday, he left pawnbroking and became a full-time preacher at their headquarters at Binfield Chapel in Clapham. William styled his preaching after the revivalist American James Caughey, who had made frequent visits to England and preached at Booth's favorite church, Broad Street Chapel. Just over a month after he started full-time preaching, on May 15 1852, William Booth became formally engaged to Catherine Mumford. In November 1853 Booth was invited to become the Reformers' minister at Spalding in Lincolnshire. Early ministry: Though Booth became a prominent Methodist evangelist, he was unhappy that the annual conference of the denomination kept assigning him to a pastorate, the duties of which he had to neglect to respond to the frequent requests that he do evangelistic campaigns. At the Liverpool conference in 1861, after having spent three years at Gateshead, his request to be freed for evangelism full-time was refused yet again, and Booth resigned from the ministry of the Methodist New Connexion. Soon he was barred from campaigning in Methodist congregations, so he became an independent evangelist. His doctrine remained much the same, though; he preached that eternal punishment was the fate of those who do not believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the necessity of repentance from sin, and the promise of holiness. He taught that this belief would manifest itself in a life of love for God and mankind. Eventually, the Booths' children became involved in the ministry. The Christian Mission: In 1865, Booth and his wife Catherine opened The Christian Revival Society in the East End of London, w they held meetings every evening and on Sundays, to offer repentance, salvation and Christian ethics to the poorest and most needy, including alcoholics, criminals and prostitutes. The Christian Revival Society was later renamed ... read more

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