Booth

From the herdsman's hut, the northern Norse-locative that gave the Salvation Army its founder.

Origin: Yorkshire & the Humber, England
Famous bearer: William Booth (1829-1912), founder of the Salvation Army; first General of the Salvation Army 1878-1912
Register: English family

Territory of Booth

CoreHistoric reach

The seat of Booth

Seat vacant

Chief

No one leads the Booth community yet. When the movement opens, you can stand for its leadership, or help elect whoever does.

Current mission

No shared goal set yet. Once Booth has leadership, it sets the public focus: a restoration, a gathering, a real-world project that helps its own.

The Booth clan is being rebuilt. Join the waiting list for the movement today, and you help decide who leads it and what it does.

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What does the Booth name mean?

Locative, from the Old Norse búð, a herdsman's hut or cattle-shelter, brought into the northern English vernacular by the Scandinavian Danelaw-and-Norse-settlement of the ninth-to-eleventh-century period. The Booth surname is concentrated in the northern English counties (Yorkshire, Lancashire, Cheshire, Derbyshire) where the Norse-vernacular vocabulary survived the Norman-French overlay of the twelfth-century-and-onwards period. The Booth byname (the man who lived at the booth, the temporary cattle-shelter) crystallised into the hereditary surname across the fourteenth-and-fifteenth-century surname-fixation period.

The history of Booth

Booth is among the more characteristic northern English locative surnames, densest in the West Riding of Yorkshire, the Manchester-and-Salford-and-Bolton districts of Lancashire, and the Cheshire-Derbyshire-Peak-District uplands. The Booth byname survives in the modern place-name pool as the Booths-and-Boothby village-names across the Yorkshire-and-Lancashire countryside.

William Booth (1829-1912), the Sneinton, Nottingham-born Methodist preacher who in 1865 founded the East London Christian Mission (renamed The Salvation Army in 1878), was the foundational figure of the modern English-language evangelical-and-social-welfare urban-missionary movement. His Wesleyan-Methodist conversion at fifteen in 1844, his Methodist-New-Connexion ordination in 1858, and his 1865 East-London-Christian-Mission tent-meeting at the Mile End Waste opened the Salvation Army-movement that grew across his lifetime to a worldwide Salvation-Army organisation of approximately a million members in over a hundred countries.

His wife Catherine Booth (1829-1890), the Ashbourne, Derbyshire-born evangelical-preacher-and-social-reformer who co-founded the East London Christian Mission with William, was the foundational female-preacher of the Salvation-Army tradition and the mother of the eight-Booth-children-and-Booth-grandchildren who carried the Salvation-Army leadership across the next four generations. The Booths' second son William Bramwell Booth (1856-1929) succeeded William as the second General of the Salvation Army 1912-1929; the Booths' daughter Evangeline Booth (1865-1950) was the fourth General of the Salvation Army 1934-1939.

Notable bearers of the Booth name

William Booth (1829-1912), founder of the Salvation Army; first General of the Salvation Army 1878-1912
Catherine Booth (1829-1890), co-founder of the Salvation Army; foundational female preacher of the movement
Bramwell Booth (1856-1929), second General of the Salvation Army
Evangeline Booth (1865-1950), fourth General of the Salvation Army

Stories of Booth

William Booth and the Mile End Mission
1865
On the evening of Sunday the second of July 1865, on the Mile End Waste open-ground at the junction of Mile End Road and Cambridge Heath Road in the East-End of London, the thirty-six-year-old Sneinton, Nottingham-born Methodist evangelical preacher William Booth, recently arrived in London from the Methodist-New-Connexion provincial-circuit, opened a tent-revival mission on the open ground outside the Blind Beggar public-house on the strength of the East-London-Special-Services-Committee invitation from the East-End-Wesleyan-Methodist evangelical-network. The tent-revival ran for the five-evenings of the second-to-the-sixth-of-July 1865 with the Booth-preaching the evangelical-Methodist conversion-message to the East-End-poor congregation of approximately three hundred to five hundred people per evening. The five-evening Mile-End-Waste tent-revival is universally remembered ever since as the foundational moment of the East-London Christian Mission, the mission-organisation that Booth-and-his-wife Catherine founded across the late-1865-and-1866 period on the Mile-End-Waste tent-revival foundation. The East-London-Christian-Mission was renamed The Christian Mission in 1869 on the expansion to the wider-London missionary-operation, and was renamed The Salvation Army in 1878 on the Booth-quasi-military-organisational-restructuring decision. The Salvation Army grew across the Booth-lifetime (1865-1912) to a worldwide Salvation-Army-organisation of approximately fifteen thousand officers and approximately a million members in over fifty countries, the foundational evangelical-and-social-welfare urban-missionary movement of the modern era.
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Frequently asked

What does the surname Booth mean?

Where does the Booth family come from?

The Booth family is rooted in Yorkshire & the Humber and North West, in England. Within that, the name was particularly concentrated in West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, Greater Manchester and Lancashire. The atlas page for the name records the historical territory it has held over the centuries.

Where did the Booth family historically hold territory?

At its greatest historical extent, the Booth name has been concentrated in Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire & the Peak, Cheshire and London. The atlas page distinguishes the core territory of the name from this wider historical reach with hatched silhouettes on the map.

Is Booth a England surname?

Yes, Booth is a England surname. Its editorial home in this atlas is England, where the historical territory and family record of the name are concentrated.

How old is the Booth surname?

Booth is among the more characteristic northern English locative surnames, densest in the West Riding of Yorkshire, the Manchester-and-Salford-and-Bolton districts of Lancashire, and the Cheshire-Derbyshire-Peak-District uplands. European hereditary surnames crystallised broadly between the 12th and 14th centuries, and the Booth name took its modern form within that long settlement.

What is the Booth family known for?

From the herdsman's hut, the northern Norse-locative that gave the Salvation Army its founder. Booth is among the more characteristic northern English locative surnames, densest in the West Riding of Yorkshire, the Manchester-and-Salford-and-Bolton districts of Lancashire, and the Cheshire-Derbyshire-Peak-District uplands.

Who is the most famous Booth?

The best-known bearer of the Booth name is William Booth (1829-1912), founder of the Salvation Army; first General of the Salvation Army 1878-1912. Other prominent figures of the family include Catherine Booth (1829-1890), co-founder of the Salvation Army; foundational female preacher of the movement, Bramwell Booth (1856-1929), second General of the Salvation Army and Evangeline Booth (1865-1950), fourth General of the Salvation Army.

Who are some famous Booths?

Notable bearers of the Booth name include William Booth (1829-1912), founder of the Salvation Army; first General of the Salvation Army 1878-1912, Catherine Booth (1829-1890), co-founder of the Salvation Army; foundational female preacher of the movement, Bramwell Booth (1856-1929), second General of the Salvation Army and Evangeline Booth (1865-1950), fourth General of the Salvation Army. Each is profiled on the family page, with cross-links to the geography, stories, and historical events tied to their life.

What stories are told about the Booth family?

The Booth family is associated with William Booth and the Mile End Mission. Each story has its own page on this site with the full account, the date, the location, and the other families involved.

What is the story of William Booth and the Mile End Mission?

On the evening of Sunday the second of July 1865, on the Mile End Waste open-ground at the junction of Mile End Road and Cambridge Heath Road in the East-End of London, the thirty-six-year-old Sneinton, Nottingham-born Methodist evangelical preacher William Booth, recently arrived in London from the Methodist-New-Connexion provincial-circuit, opened a tent-revival mission on the open ground outside the Blind Beggar public-house on the strength of the East-London-Special-Services-Committee invitation from the East-End-Wesleyan-Methodist evangelical-network. The tent-revival ran for the five-evenings of the second-to-the-sixth-of-July 1865 with the Booth-preaching the evangelical-Methodist conversion-message to the East-End-poor congregation of approximately three hundred to five hundred people per evening. The event is dated to 1865.

Where is the Booth surname found today?

England is the primary historical home of the Booth surname. In the modern era, the name is also borne across the wider diaspora, particularly in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, where families carry the line of descent from the same England origin recorded on this page.

What does the Clan Rising page for the Booth family cover?

The Clan Rising page for the Booth family covers the meaning of the surname, the historical geography of the name, famous bearers of the name, traditional stories and the seat of the head of the family. Each section is linked to the underlying atlas of England so the name can be read in the geography that shaped it.

Who is the head of the Booth family today?

The seat for the head of the Booth family is currently vacant on this register. Clan Rising is rebuilding the chief and family structure for the modern era, and the family page allows readers to claim the seat or pledge to the name.