"Our work is not all bread and shelter. The underprivileged, the weak and the unfortunate need more. They need sympathy, the warmth of fellowship, and the instilling of courage." 
-- Ballington Booth 

Humanitarian. Founder of The Volunteers of America in 1896. Son of General William Booth, founder of The Salvation Army. He directed the Salvation Army in Australia from 1885-87, and the Salvation Army in the United States from 1887-96. Father of Charles B. Booth.

Ballington Booth was the second of eight children born to Methodist minister William Booth and his wife, Catherine Mumford Booth. William Booth determined very early that his young son would grow to serve and lead in the evangelical mission he founded in 1865, and he trained Ballington in the ways of this "new religion." After secondary school, the young Ballington Booth studied at the Nottingham Theological Seminary. However his mother, believing that higher education caused young people to rebel against the church, forced him to return home. 

In 1886, he toured parts of the United States and Canada, preaching along the way. Later that year he married Maud Charlesworth and in 1887 his father, General Booth, assigned the couple to America in an effort to reorganize and strengthen its division in America. They newlyweds did not anticipate that in less than a decade, they would grow to love their adopted country so much that they would become U.S. citizens and eventually leave the Salvation Army to start their own mission "for God and Country." 

Ballington was the General of the Volunteers and responsible for the daily management of the organization. Booth kept up non-stop speaking schedules, criss-crossing the country and lining up supporters and volunteers for their new organization. They counted among their friends names such as Astor, Baruch, Vanderbilit and Wannamaker. Ballington Booth shared the speaking stage with Williams Jennings Bryan and counseled Woodrow Wilson on the social impact of the World War. He met with Franklin Roosevelt on private charity efforts during the Depression and was a Masonic lodge brother with Warren G. Harding. 

Born: September 13, 1865, Limpsfield, Surrey, England 
Died: August 26, 1948, Long Island, New York 

Lodge: Montclair 144, Now Newark #7
Residence: Blue Point, N.Y.