of a Dramatic Critic_ (Boston, 1902);
A.B. Clarke. _The Elder and the Younger Booth_ (Boston, 1882).
(J. J.*)

BOOTH, WILLIAM (1829- ), founder and "general" of the Salvation Army
(q.v.), was born at Nottingham on the 10th of April 1829. At the age
of fifteen his mind took a strongly religious turn, under the influence
of the Wesleyan Methodists, in which body he became a local preacher. In
1849 he came to London, where, according to his own account, his passion
for open-air preaching caused his severance from the Wesleyans. Joining
the Methodist New Connexion, he was ordained a minister, but, not being
employed as he wished in active "travelling evangelization," left that
body also in 1861. Meanwhile he had (1855) married Miss Catherine
Mumford, and had a family of four children. Both he and his wife
occupied themselves with preaching, first in Cornwall and then in
Cardiff and Walsall. At the last-named place was first organized a
"Hallelujah band" of converted criminals and others, who testified in
public of their conversion. In 1864 Booth went to London and continued
his services in tents and in the open air, and founded a body which was
successively known as the East London Revival Society, the East London
Christian Mission, the Christian Mission and (in 1878) the Salvation
Army. The Army operates (1) by outdoor meetings and processions; (2) by
visiting public-houses, prisons, private houses; (3) by holding meetings
in theatres, factories and other unusual buildings; (4) by using the
most popular song-tunes and the language of everyday life, &c.; (5) by
making every convert a daily witness for Christ, both in public and
private. The army is a quasi-military organization, and Booth modelled
its "Orders and Regulations" on those of the British army. Its early
"campaigns" excited violent opposition, a "Skeleton Army" being
organized to break up the meetings, and for many years Booth's followers
were subjected to fine and imprisonment as breakers of the peace. Since
1889, however, these disorders have been little heard of. The operations
of the army were extended in 1880 to the United States, in 1881 to
Australia, and spread to the European continent, to India, Ceylon and
elsewhere, "General" Booth himself being an indefatigable traveller,
organizer and speaker. His wife (b. 1829) died in 1890. By her preaching
at Gateshead, where her husband was circuit minister, in 1860, she began
the women's ministry