Catherine Booth

Catherine Mumford was born on 17 January 1829 (Railton, Life of William Booth ch. 4, caption to her portrait) and married William Booth on 16 June 1855 (Railton, Life of William Booth table of dates). His biographer, an officer who knew them both, says that she first prayed aloud in church at Gateshead, defended in the press an American woman preacher whom a pastor in a neighbouring city had opposed, and then began to speak in the services herself, with her husband’s support (Railton, Life of William Booth ch. 5). In Female Ministry she argued that the public ministry of women is not merely unforbidden but “absolutely enjoined by both precept and example in the word of God” (Catherine Booth, Female Ministry pp. 4–5).

When her husband came home from the tent in Whitechapel and proposed to stay among the poor of East London, she recalled, in words the same biographer quotes, answering that they had trusted God once for their support and could do so again (Railton, Life of William Booth ch. 7). She died on 4 October 1890 (Railton, Life of William Booth ch. 19). See William and Catherine Booth Found the Salvation Army.