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The Museum
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Charles Booth
1840-1916
Charles Booth, entrepreneur turned social reformer, did much to document and transform the life of the disadvantaged in Victorian and Edwardian Britain. After joining his brother's company trading skins in Liverpool and New York, Booth was instrumental in transforming the company to running steamship routes to various ports, recognising the potential demand for rubber for pneumatic tyres.
It was as a wealthy business man that he campaigned for a Liberal candidate in Liverpool, and it was this campaigning in the slums of Toxteth that opened his eyes to the deprivation that surrounded him. Soon after he undertook a survey of children in Liverpool which highlighted the fact that many were receiving no schooling whatsoever.
In 1871 Booth married Mary Macaulay, niece of famous historian and St James's resident Thomas Macaulay. They were married after a brief engagement of three months. The devotion he would bestow upon his wife was not immediately obvious; on the afternoon of their wedding day Booth excused himself and embarked on a long walk. Mary later described this time as she sat alone as the strangest hour she had ever spent.
On moving to London in 1884 he began his attempt to describe and categorise
the true extent of poverty and living standards in London, a project which
he would finally complete in 1903 after three editions of the survey, the
last of which ran to seventeen volumes. At one stage Booth commented:
"Never I should think has a book been the occasion of so much bad language
on the part of its author - I cursed every minute I gave to it."
We certainly hope the Hoffman Bouquet Havana's supplied by us helped
to calm his frayed nerves.
On the survey's completion, Booth served on various Royal Commissions examining the poor and the elderly and was one of the leading proponents for the introduction of the pension which came into law in the Old Age Pensions Act of 1908.
JJ Fox & Robert Lewis, 19 St James's Street,
London, SW1A 1ES
Tel:+44 (0)20 7930 3787 Fax:+44 (0)20 7495 0097
