Booth , Charles , 1840-1916 , shipowner and social commentator

Charles Booth was born in Liverpool on the 30th of March 1840, the son of Charles Booth and Emily Fletcher. Charles attended the Royal Institution School in Liverpool.
In 1862, Charles joined his eldest brother Alfred establishing the firm was Alfred Booth and Company which specialised in shipping skins and leather, they set up offices in both Liverpool and New York.
Booth campaigned unsuccessfully for the Liberal parliamentary candidate in the election of 1865. In 1866, he joined Joseph Chamberlain's Birmingham Education League.
On 29 April 1871 Booth married Mary Macaulay, daughter of Charles Zachary Macaulay and Mary Potter, and niece of the historian Thomas Babington Macaulay. In the early days of their marriage Booth was facing mental exhaustion from years of overwork. In 1875, they settled in London. Mary was an invaluable advisor in the business and an active contributor to Booth's survey into London life and labour.
In 1884 Charles Booth assisted in the allocation of the Lord Mayor of London's Relief Fund, by analysing census returns. He later served on the official committee in charge of the 1891 census and make a number of recommendations for its improvement. The first meeting to organise the inquiry into poverty in London was held on 17 April 1886: the work would last until 1903, resulting in the publication of three editions of the survey, the final edition of Life and Labour of the People in London (London: Macmillan, 1902-1903) running to seventeen volumes. The work would absorb both Charles and Mary Booth and employ a team of social investigators including, at various times, Beatrice Webb, Arthur Baxter, Clara Collett, David Schloss, George Duckworth, Hubert Llewllyn Smith, Jesse Argyle, and Ernest Aves. There were three areas of investigation undertaken in the survey: poverty, industry and religious influences. The poverty series gathered information from School Board visitors about levels of poverty and types of occupation amongst families in the locality. The industry series investigated trades in London. Trades of interviewees include conventional trades such as tailors and wood workers and more unusual trades such as organ grinders and chorus girls. Statistics, graphs and charts were compiled form the considerable mass of data gathered by questionnaire, from employers of all types and industry. The religious survey includes reports of visits to churches and interviews with Church of England and Non-conformist ministers. The investigation also incorporates a description of the social and moral influences on Londoner's lives.
In 1893 Booth served on the Royal Commission on the Aged Poor. In 1904 he was made a Privy Councillor, and in 1907 served with Beatrice Webb on the Royal Commission on the Poor Law. In 1908, many years after he first began writing and speaking about the need for state pensions to alleviate poverty amongst the elderly, the Liberal government passed the Old Age Pensions Act in 1908. Although Booth had argued for a universal old age pension rather than the means tested system which the act introduced, he was recognised by many as one of the progenitors of the pension. He was also made a fellow of the Royal Society and awarded honorary degrees by the Universities of Cambridge, Liverpool and Oxford.
Early in 1912 Booth handed over the chairmanship of Alfred Booth and Company to his nephew, but in 1915 returned to work under wartime exigencies despite growing evidence of heart disease. On 23 November 1916 he died following a stroke, at his country home of Gracedieu in Thringstone, Leicestershire.