Charles Booth (philanthropist)

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Charles Booth (30 March 1840 - 23 November 1916) was an English philanthropist and social researcher. He is most famed for his innovative work on documenting working class life in London at the end of the 19th century, work that along with that of Benjamin Seebohm Rowntree influenced government intervention against poverty in the early 20th century. ^[1]

Contents 1 Early life 2 Views on poverty 3 The survey into London life and labour 4 Political views 5 Influence of his work 6 Works 7 References 8 External links

[edit] Early life

Charles Booth was born in Liverpool in 1840 to Charles Booth and Emily Fletcher. His father was a wealthy ship-owner and corn merchant as well as being a prominent Unitarian.^[2]

Booth attended the Royal Institution School in Liverpool before being apprenticed at aged sixteen^[1].

Booth's father died in 1862, leaving Booth with control of the family company to which he added a successful glove manufacturing business.^[2] Booth entered the skins and leather business with his older brother Alfred, and they set up Alfred Booth and Company with offices in both Liverpool and New York using a £20,000 inheritance.^[3].

After studying shipping, Booth was able to persuade Alfred and his sister Emily to invest in steamships and create a service to Pará, Maranhão and Ceará in Brazil. Booth himself went on the first voyage on 14th of February 1866. He was also involved in the building of a harbour at Manaus which could overcome seasonal fluctuations in water levels. He described this as his "monument" when he visited the area for the last time in 1912.^[4]

Booth also had some participation in politics. He campaigned unsuccessfully for the Liberal parliamentary candidate in the election of 1865. However, he became disillusioned with politics following the Tory victory in municipal elections in 1866. This changed Booth's attitudes, he saw that he could influence people more by educating the electorate, rather than through politics. ^[1] Booth was involved in Joseph Chamberlin Birmingham Education League, a survey which looked into levels of work and education in Liverpool. The survey found that 25,000 children in Liverpool were neither in school or work.

Booth married Mary Macaulay on 29 April 1871 who was niece of the historian Thomas Babington Macaulay. ^[1] One of his daughters married the son of Lord Macnaghten

[edit] Views on poverty

Booth was critical of the existing statistical data on poverty, by analysing census returns he argued that they were unsatisfactory and later sat on a committee in 1891 which suggested improvements which could be made to them.

Booth publicly criticised the claims of the leader of the Social Democratic Federation H. M. Hyndman - leader of Britain's first socialist party. Hyndman stated that 25% of Londoners lived in abject poverty. Booth investigated poverty in London working with a team of investigators which included his cousin Beatrice Potter. This research, which looked at incidences of pauperism in the East End of London, showed that 35% were living in abject poverty - even higher than the original figure. This worked was published under the title Labour and Life of the People in 1903. He also invented the idea of a 'poverty line', which he set at 10 to 20 shillings for a family of 4 or 5 people. ^[5]

[edit] The survey into London life and labour

After this Booth expanded his research to cover the whole of London. This investigation was carried out by Booth himself and a team of researchers. However Booth continued to operate his successful shipping business while the investigation was taking place. Life and Labour of the People of London was published in seventeen volumes between 1891 and 1903 - he used this work to argue to the introduction of Old Age Pensions which he described as "limited socialism". Booth argued that such reforms would prevent socialist revolution from occurring Britain. Booth was far from tempted by the ideas of socialism but had some sympathy with the working classes, as part of his investigation he took lodgings with working class families and recorded his thoughts and findings in diaries.

The London School of Economics keeps his work on an online searchable database.^[6]

[edit] Political views

While Booth's attitudes towards poverty may make him appear fairly liberal, Booth actually became more conservative in his views as he became older. Some of his investigators such as Beatrice Potter became socialists as a result of their research, however Booth was critical of the way in which the Liberal government appeared to support trade unions after they won the 1906 General Election. This caused him to renounce his Liberal Party membership - he deferred to the Conservative Party.

[edit] Influence of his work

Life and Labour of the People of London can be seen as one of the founding texts of British sociology, drawing on both quantitative (statistical) methods and qualitative methods (particurly ethnography). Because of this, it was an influence on Chicago School sociology (notably the work of Robert E. Park) and later the discipline of community studies associated with the Institute of Community Studies in East London.

The importance of his work in social statistics was recognised by the Royal Statistical Society, who awarded him the first Guy Medal in Gold in 1882 and elected him their president in the same year. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1899 "As having applied Scientific Methods to Social Investigation".^[7]

[edit] Works

• Labour and Life of the People (1899)
• Life and Labour of the People of London (1891 to 1903)

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• The Charles Booth Online Archive
• Charles Booth Papers at Senate House Library, University of London
• Spartacus description of Booth's life
• The centre for Spatially Integrated Social Science
• Charles Booth (1840–1916) - a biography
• Middlesex Universities' Business School
• Ben Gidley, The Proletarian Other: Charles Booth and the Politics of Representation (London: Centre for Urban and Community Research, Goldsmiths College, 2000).