Joseph Booth

Joseph Booth may refer to:

See also

Joseph Booth (actor)

Joseph Booth (a stage name, real surname Martin) (died 1797) was an English tradesman, actor and inventor.

Theatrical career

Booth's life is not well documented. Initially a hosier at Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, he went on the stage.

In 1774, when he recruited Thomas Holcroft to his company at Carlisle, Booth was a provincial theatrical manager in the north of England. The position was a temporary one, the company manager West Digges being absent. The company contained other well-known names: Elizabeth Inchbald, James Perry, William Shield. A business proposition concerned with making reproductions of paintings, by a process kept secret, was something Booth discussed with Holcroft around 1780; at this period he was an assistant prompter at Covent Garden Theatre. He also claimed an invention relating to textile manufacture.

The Polygraphic Society

Booth in London set up the Polygraphic Society. It held annual exhibitions, after Booth had published a pamphlet explaining the scheme in 1784. It also issued catalogues of the reproduction paintings available in "polygraphic" form. The first catalogue, of 24 paintings, was issued from The Strand, London. The 1792 catalogue is of 80 paintings, and the Society's premises were then in Pall Mall, at Schomberg House. The Society left its mark on Schomberg House by adding the Coade stone figures to the porch in 1791.

Joseph Booth (missionary)

Joseph Booth (born 1851, Derby, England, to 1932) was an English Baptist missionary in British Central Africa (present-day Malawi).

Early career

Little is known of Booth's childhood, but his mother died when he was twelve and his three elder sisters brought him up. His father was a Unitarian, but by the age of fourteen Booth questioned his father's religious beliefs and, as he could not live with those beliefs, he left home. Over the next few years, Booth educated himself through extensive reading and, before he was twenty, he turned to the Baptist Church. He married his first wife, Mary Jane née Sharpe, (who he first met on 1868) in 1872. He also adopted radical ideas about politics, economics and society. In 1880, Booth emigrated first to Auckland, New Zealand, and then to Melbourne, Australia, where he became a successful businessman. His business success helped to develop his later views on self-reliance and the economic bases of missionary work. From 1886, Booth became more active in his local Baptist Church and more fundamental in his beliefs. In 1891 he was challenged by an atheist to practice what he preached, sell all his goods and go to preach the word. He sold his business and, in July 1891, he agreed to become a missionary in East Africa. Despite the death of his first wife, Mary Jane, in Melbourne in October 1891, he left Australia with his two young children and started his missionary career, choosing to work in Africa. He aimed to set up the type of self-supporting Baptist mission that William Carey had pioneered in India, combining teaching and commercial activities.