William Booth “God shall have all there is of William Booth,” Part 1

At 13, a young boy should be in school, spending his free time at play and study. Instead, William Booth was working for a pawnbroker in Victorian-era England.

“My father was a Grab, a Get,” Booth would later recall. “He had been born into poverty. He determined to grow rich; and he did. He grew very rich, because he lived without God and simply worked for money; and when he lost it all, his heart broke with it, and he died miserably.”

Not only did Samuel Booth’s heart break, but William’s father lost the money to send the young boy to school. So William was apprenticed to pawnbroker Francis Eames in Nottingham. There, William saw people at their worst, pawning necessary items to have money for necessities—or addictions such as alcohol.

He also saw what a bad employer would be like. Eames treated Booth miserably, even though the boy was his most reliable employee. After Booth’s father died when the lad was 14, William was a source of support for his mother, Mary, and siblings, but he toiled under taxing conditions.

During this period, he began attending the Broad Street Wesley (Methodist) Chapel in Nottingham. On one evening in 1844, he responded to the preacher’s messages and surrendered his life to Christ while walking home. “It was in the open street [of Nottingham] that this great change passed over me,” he later wrote. In his diary, Booth offered a solemn vow: “God shall have all there is of William Booth.”

A visit to Nottingham from American revivalist James Caughey kindled a desire in the young man to go out and win souls. He would implore those going into the saloons and other places of degradation to instead come to church. Booth would stand on a barrel and preach to open-air “congregations” of two or three people, appealing to them to receive Christ.

Booth left the pawnbroker’s shop and set out to share the gospel. But another “conversion,” if you will, lay ahead, and with it another life-changing experience.

Reflect: What motivates you to go out and seek the lost? Pray that God will give you a love for lost souls.

Key Bible Texts

Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God? (John 11:40 KJV)