A NEW NAME AND RAPID EXPANSION In 1878 came the change of name and the movement entered a period of unparalleled growth. One May morning William, his son Bramwell and his leading associate George Scott Railton were reading the proofs of the Christian Mission Annual Report. The Report's heading read: THE Christian Mission, UNDER THE SUPERINTENDENCE OF THE REV. WILLIAM BOOTH, IS A VOLUNTEER ARMY

Bramwell objected to the word ‘Volunteer’ because he felt they were compelled by God to carry out the work. Besides, the 'Volunteers' was already the name of a much-ridiculed part-time militia.

William then crossed out ‘Volunteer’ and wrote ‘Salvation’ thus creating a title which soon became the official name.

The new title stimulated the adoption of new tactics to further the ‘salvation war’. Even before the change of name one missioner, Elijah Cadman, had called himself ‘Captain’ and referred to William as ‘the General of the Hallelujah Army’. Later, at the ‘War Congress’ of 1878, he said, ‘I would like to wear a suit of clothes that would let everybody know that I meant war to the teeth and salvation for the world.’ The first uniforms consisted simply of badges attached to hats or sleeves, or of jerseys with ‘The Salvation Army’ embroidered on them.

Soon the mission stations became ‘corps’ and missioners became ‘officers’ - Captains and Majors were the earliest titles. Processions had already been a practice of the Christian Mission but now flags and bands were introduced making them more colourful and noisy!

The first edition of the ‘War Cry’, the Army’s newspaper, appeared in 1879. Members, or ‘soldiers’ as they now were, had to sign the ‘Articles of War’ which was a statement of Christian beliefs and standards.

The Army’s primary purpose was to get people ‘saved’, ie to turn them into Christian believers. Almost any tactic was acceptable in pursuit of this purpose. Brass bands were popular amongst the working class and so became part of the Army’s weaponry. Religious words were set to music hall tunes in order to appeal to ordinary people.

The Annual Report of 1878 had included a quote from the Earl of Shaftesbury which read:

'The working classes will never be reached but by an agency provided from among themselves.'

The Salvation Army became that agency. Its officers and soldiers were ordinary people who could appeal to their peers. Many of them were illiterate but had the gifts and energy needed for the Army's work.

A reporter from The Secular Review attended an Army meeting at the People’s Hall, Whitechapel in 1879. A selection of quotes from his article gives an impression of the people and practices of the early Army:

‘The congregation is evidently drawn from the poorer classes, with here and there a young man or woman who may be slightly superior in point of what the world calls respectability...

‘These Salvationists are in earnest - plain, vulgar, downright, most unfashionably earnest...

‘The service begins with a hymn sung to the air of ‘Ye banks and braes o’ bonnie Doon’. As the hymn proceeds and the oft-repeated chorus gathers strength, arms and hands are raised to beat time with the singing...

‘And now comes a prayer... and we are compelled to acknowledge that it is an able one. It moves the hearers’ sympathy. Its eucharistic cries arouse... cries of ‘Amen!’, ‘Glory!’, ‘Hallelujah!’ from all around.

As for the preacher, Peter Keen, the reporter noted,

‘He is natural, and undoubtedly is firmly convinced of the truth of the gospel which he declares. With a rude, untutored, but withal moving eloquence, he preaches a sermon upon the inability of man to do aught for himself, and the consequent necessity of “throwing it all upon Jesus”...'

The churches frowned upon the Army’s ‘vulgar’ methods but they worked. Kenneth Inglis refers to the early Salvationists in his Churches and the Working Classes in Victorian England and states that 'with minor exceptions they were the only group of Christian evangelists of their time who approached working class non-worshippers on their own cultural level'.

The effectiveness of this new approach is shown by the fact that from the 30 mission stations and 36 missioners at the beginning of 1878 the Army in Britain expanded to 1006 corps and 2,260 officers by 1886.

With this growth came opposition, much of it instigated by the brewers whose trade declined as a result of the Army’s work. A rival 'Skeleton Army' attacked salvationists and riots took place in many towns and cities. During 1882 alone 662 soldiers were assaulted: 251 of them were women and 23 of them were under fifteen years of age.

By the end of 1884 about 600 Salvationists had gone to prison. The charge of ‘obstruction’ could cover anything from processing to kneeling in the street to pray. Many battles were fought in Parliament and the Law Courts over the right to march and hold open-air meetings before this freedom was finally established in 1912, the year of William Booth’s death.

The press was often hostile as well. The Army's methods and message was widely misunderstood. Its motto ‘Blood & Fire’, which had deep theological meaning (ie. the saving ‘blood of Jesus’ and the sanctifying ‘fire of the Holy Spirit’), was thought to mean the blood of sinners and the fire of hell! There was also suspicion about the Army's motives, with William often portrayed as a charlatan only out to make money!

During this period there was rapid growth internationally. The new headquarters, opened in 1881 at 101 Queen Victoria Street, was named International Headquarters. By the time of the first International Congress in London in 1886 the Army had ‘opened fire’ in the USA, Australia, France, Canada, India, Switzerland, Sweden, Sri Lanka, South Africa, New Zealand and Germany. By 1890 Italy, Denmark, Holland, Jamaica, Norway, Belgium, Finland, Argentina and Uruguay had been added to the list of countries which the Army had invaded.

Many of the Army’s pioneers were comparatively young. The two men who started the work in New Zealand were both under twenty-one. One of two who held the first open-air meeting in Canada was only eighteen. Kate Booth was twenty-two when she pioneered the work in France.

When seventeen-year-old ‘Gypsy Smith’ was appointed to Chatham (Kent) and the people there objected to his youthfulness he replied, ‘If you let me stop here awhile, I shall get older!’

SOCIAL CONCERN The Christian Mission had attempted to meet some of the social needs of the East End of London. After becoming the Salvation Army this work developed in a new way. The first home for women opened in Glasgow in 1883. In 1888 the first food and shelter depot opened in Whitechapel, London, with accommodation for up to 80 men.

In 1885 the Army was involved in a campaign to raise the age of consent for girls from 13 to 16. W.T. Stead of the Pall Mall Gazette joined forces with the social reformer Josephine Butler and Bramwell Booth to combat child prostitution. Catherine was involved by addressing rallies and writing several letters to Queen Victoria.

Stead had to prove to an unbelieving world that the trade existed. This entailed ‘procuring’ a young girl (Eliza Armstrong), with the assistance of Rebecca Jarret who knew the trade, and putting her in the safe care of a woman officer in Paris. Stead published his story in The Pall Mall Gazette outraging ‘respectable’ society.

As a result of this exposure a petition of 393,000 signatures was carried by eight Salvation Army cadets into Parliament and within a few weeks the Criminal Law Amendment Act was passed to raise the age of consent. Technically Stead had broken the law by his action and so he, Rebecca Jarret and Bramwell Booth were arrested and taken to court. Bramwell was aquitted but Stead and Jarrett served brief prison sentences. The young girl, Eliza, was well cared for by the Army and eventually married. This episode also led to the Army setting up an enquiry service for missing girls, homes for girls in need, and a maternity service.

Catherine had always been physically weak, but since her mid-fifties her health had gradually worsened. By 1888 it was clear that she was dying of cancer. She refused pain-killing drugs such as morphia and on October 4th 1890 she died.

Her funeral procession - limited to 3,000 officers - moved from International Headquarters in Queen Victoria Street to Abney Park Cemetery. The words on the coffin’s brass plate read:

Dr. F. W. Boreham wrote: ‘Who . . can forget the extraordinary scenes that marked the funeral of Catherine Booth? It was a day of universal grief. For Mrs Booth was one of the mightiest spiritual forces of the nineteenth century . . The greatest in the land revered her, consulted her, deferred to her’

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