BOOTH, WILLIAM (1829–1912), English evangelist, founder of the Salvation Army. William Booth was born on April 10, 1829, in Nottingham, England, the only son of the four surviving children of Samuel and Mary Moss Booth. The elder Booth, an unsuccessful building contractor, and his wife were no more than conventionally religious, but William, intelligent, ambitious, zealous, and introspective, was earnest about Christianity from an early age. He was converted at the age of fifteen and two years later gave himself entirely to the service of God as the result of the preaching of James Caughey, a visiting American Methodist revivalist. From the age of thirteen until he was twenty-two Booth worked as a pawnbroker's assistant, first in Nottingham and after 1849 in London. His zeal for souls and compassion for the poor drove him to preach in the streets. In 1852 he became a licensed Methodist minister. Although Booth had been...