WILLIAM AND CATHERINE BOOTH

WILLIAM AND CATHERINE BOOTH

Founders of the Salvation Army

Both William Booth and his wife, Catherine (Mumford) Booth, were born in England in 1829. As young people, they were concerned about the damage drinking did to families. In fact, they first met at a friend’s house where William quoted a poem about the evils of alcohol. They were later married in 1855.

Both William and Catherine were especially concerned for poor people. To minister to them, they opened the East London Christian Mission in 1865. Soon, William began calling it the "Salvation Army." He and Catherine believed that to save people from evil and bring them to Christ, Christians needed to organize like an army, the Lord’s army, going into spiritual battle. Their newspaper was The War Cry, their leaders were "officers," converts were "captives," and people called William, "General." Outreaches into new cities or countries became known as "invasions."

The street-corner preaching of the Salvation Army was so effective in converting people and influencing them to stop drinking that business began to drop off at the gin shops. In response, the tavern owners encouraged ruffians to attack the Salvationists. In 1882 alone, 669 Salvationists were assaulted and sixty of the Army’s buildings were wrecked by mobs.

By 1872, the Salvation Army had opened five lunchrooms where—night or day—the poor could buy a cup of soup for a quarter of a penny or a complete meal for six cents. Thousands of meals were given away free.

Catherine died in 1890 at the age of sixty-one. William Booth continued in the ministry, traveling worldwide and preaching sixty thousand sermons before he died on August 20, 1912, at the age of eighty-three.