Founders' Day - the beginnings of The Salvation Army

If you've never had July 2 noted in your calendar as an important date, then you're probably not involved in or associated with The Salvation Army, the global church and charity organisation.

You won't know, therefore, that July 2 is 'Founders' Day' ... the day in 1865 which is marked as the start of the Christian movement that (eventually) became The Salvation Army.

More than a decade ago I was privileged to have published my first book ... 'William and Catherine - the love story of the founders of The Salvation Army told through their letters' (Monarch Books 2013).

As the title indicates, it's the story of William and Catherine Booth, who between them started the Christian movement which today is in 134 countries across the world offering not just spiritual support through a network of churches (or 'corps' as they are known) but also hope and help for people who find themselves disadvantaged - those who are homeless, victims of modern slavery, those struggling with addiction, families needing support through foodbanks and the need for housing, support and fun for children and young people. And SO much more!

In my book I trace William and Catherine's love story, family life, and spiritual journey ... a journey which began way before the couple came to London, where The Salvation Army was founded, way before William was ordained into the Methodist Church, and Catherine herself took up a preaching ministry mostly to other women.

My book is a mixture of story-telling. There are excerpts from William and Catherine's personal letters, which are today held in the British Library in London, who kindly granted me permission to reproduce parts of some of the letters. There's a whole lot of 'history' which followed many many months of research on my part, the narrative which brings the story together. And then there are short 'stories' of my own making, based on information in Salvation Army history, and the Booths' letters.

These little 'glimpses' into life in Victorian England and into the lives of the Booths and the early Salvation Army may be described as 'immersive history' telling, and they were such fun to write as I tried to get under the skin of the times and the people with whom the Booths came into contact. I hope they really bring the couple and their times to life!

Chapter 13 of the book includes one of those little tales from that summer of 1865, when we know the Booths were settling into life in London, after years of living in lots of different places in England. We know also that it was midsummer of 1865 that William Booth preached outside the Blind Beggar pub in the poor East End of London. Not long after that, he was invited to preach as part of a wider Christian campaign and on July 2 1865 he preached in a tent on the Mile End Waste in the East End... not far from that pub.

THAT tent meeting is the occasion that Salvationists - members of The Salvation Army across the world - mark as the start of the Christian church and movement to which they belong. Which is why we are marking THAT day today! 

Please feel free to read about that day at the Blind Beggar pub ... from that chapter in my book.... and if this whets your appetite for more and you fancy reading the whole thing and even buying the book then you may click here.

Thanks so much!

Outside on the street a tall man with a thick dark beard mounted an old box.

Oh, not this again!

Couldn’t a man enjoy a couple of ales without having that noise outside? If the pub wasn’t so handy for home, he’d find somewhere else to sup. But the Blind Beggar was perfect, especially when he’d had a few too many – all he needed to do was stagger round the corner to the old woman who’d be there, as always, waiting to put him to bed.

The drinker rubbed the dirty window pane to peer out.
“George!” he shouted to the aleman behind the bar. “Can’t you get rid of ’em?”
“It’s a free world, Joe. So long as they don’t step over the doorstep we can’t do nuffink about ’em!”
“Shut the door!” someone yelled.
“Don’t you dare! It’s bloody boilin’ in here!” shouted barman George.

He was right, of course. Even this late in the day, it was still warm. Well it was midsummer, after all, and the inn reeked of sweat, stale beer, and the stench of the open sewer in the road outside.

Joe looked out of the window again. He’d lost count of the times his drinking had been interrupted by these religious fanatics. There seemed to be an endless stream of them, all spouting about God and how he needed “saving”.

Saving from what, that’s what he wanted to know. Who could save him from the misery of gruelling hard work and grinding poverty?

Maybe another pint might help. He searched his torn pocket. Just a penny left. Enough for one more, but then he’d go home empty-handed again and he’d get it in the neck from the old woman. He’d done that many a time before, even though it meant the kids went to bed with empty bellies. But a man had to have his fun, didn’t he? What with spending all day at the docks, hauling all those sacks of whatever it was they were loading the ships with. Maybe he’d just spend the ha’penny.

“Another half, George!” Joe approached the bar, where the crowd had thinned out a bit. A few of his mates had ambled outside and seemed to be listening to the tall man. A few were heckling from the door, but a couple had moved forward.

Just to get a bit of air, Joe took his half across the threshold into the street and stood there under the Blind Beggar sign.
“Not seen this one afore, Will!” he said to the man next to him.
“No – new, I think! Looks a bit fresh, doesn’t he?”

Not just fresh, but not posh either, Joe noted. He wasn’t dressed particularly sharply; his frock coat looked a little worse for wear. In fact, he appeared more frayed around the edges that the other missioners who usually turned up outside the pub. This one’s thick black hair was all over the place as he waved his arms around. He was sweating profusely and occasionally mopped his brow with a grey-looking kerchief. And what was that accent? He wasn’t from London, that was for sure.

Joe was intrigued. He found himself listening to this one as he hadn’t listened before. He was, of course, a religious nut, but he seemed to be a bit more normal than the rest.

“What’s ’is name, Will?”
“That’s right!” came the reply, followed by a hearty laugh.
“Don’t muck me about, mate! What’s ’is bloody name?”
“You said it! ’is name is Will! William Booth!”

                                                                   .....

In the summer of 1865 outside the Blind Beggar pub, William Booth was doing what came naturally, preaching to the unconverted in their own environment. Under a pub sign, risking ridicule and even some physical danger – it wasn’t unusual for street preachers to have things thrown at them by a heckling crowd – William was part of an evangelistic tradition that was growing rapidly in mid-nineteenth-century London. There were numerous chapels and small missions, many of them Methodist, across this part of town. By the 1850s there were around 144 charities at work in London, many of which were already mixing religion with practical works and good deeds.

William’s street preaching impressed a group of churchmen and evangelists known as the East London Special Services Committee. Among them were Mr R.C. Morgan and Mr Samuel Chase, the editors of The Revival, who, despite their misgivings over the preaching antics of the Revd Booth’s wife, were still determined to have William join them for their next evangelistic campaign.

The Special Committee didn’t come from or belong to one single denomination, and William Booth had already preached for them at the Garrick Theatre some years before. Now they wanted him for more radical work, and on 2 July 1865 – the date that is now noted in history as the “start” of The Salvation Army – William Booth stood to preach for them in a tent on the Mile End Waste, on the old Quaker Burial Ground in Whitechapel, East London.

Although the old tent blew down that autumn, there was no stopping the Booth mission. 

The East London Christian Revival Society was born and in the winter of 1865 it moved indoors. On Sundays the meetings were held in a local building – the Assembly Rooms on New Road, Whitechapel, otherwise known as Professor Orson’s Dancing Academy, its main function in the week. Even on the Sabbath the evangelists had to share their meeting hall with a photographer, and on weekdays the Booths and their expanding group of supporters rented other venues: an old chapel, a warehouse, a stable, a carpenter’s shop, a skittle alley.....

What happened next? 

By 1870 the 'Christian Revival Association' had been renamed 'The East London Christian Mission' and then simply 'The Christian Mission'. It was early in 1878 that publicity was issued with both the name 'Christian Mission' and 'Salvation Army' attached, but by May of that year the name 'Christian Mission' had been finally dropped and William and Catherine's Christian movement became ... 'The Salvation Army'.

The rest, as they say, is history!