Charles Booth Biography

Charles Booth

(Liverpool, 1840-Whitwick, 1916) British sociologist.His research contributed to the knowledge of the social problems suffered by the less privileged classes of English society as a consequence of the Industrial Revolution, and to the establishment of a methodology that sociology later used.

Charles Booth

Before dedicating himself to sociological studies, Booth founded in 1866, together with his brother Alfred, a shipping company that served between Europe and Brazil, the Steamship Company Ltd., in which served as CEO.A member of the conservative Tory Party and defender of the protectionist economic policy carried out by Chamberlain, Booth was appointed a member of the Customs Reform Propaganda Board between 1903 and 1904, to go on to be appointed private councilor of the Government and member of a commission in charge of studying the state of poverty of the English lower classes, in order to elaborate laws aimed at mitigating such a painful condition.

Booth was appointed to this role for the publication of his impressive work Life and Labor of the People in London ( Life and work of the people in London ), drawn up between 1902 and 1903, whose data on the causes, location and degrees of poverty in London strongly influenced the authorities to take action on the matter.

The work, in which Booth counted on the appreciable collaboration of the sociologist Beatrice Webb, it is divided into seventeen volumes.Booth first described the living conditions of the different social classes that coexisted in London, then went on to carry out an in-depth analysis to determine the causes of the extreme levels of poverty that existed.Booth used the example and direct testimonies of 4,076 real cases that he personally interviewed, distributed among marginalized, alcoholics, unemployed, sick and a long etcetera.

Apart from the novelty of the subject and the data that he contributed , the importance of Booth's work lay in the methodology and way of approaching the study that he put into practice; He was the first to use what was later called by sociologists the Social Surveys (social surveys).These social surveys, as Booth approached them, were intended to collect as much data or information as possible on the living and working conditions of a certain locality or population stratum, in order to be able to prepare later, once it had been obtained the knowledge of the existing reality, the suitable and opportune measures of social action.

The methodology created by Booth was continued until today by the British School of Social Science and the London School.Booth worried about the direct relationship between old age and the different poverty lines, he defended a pension project for the very elderly who lived in terrible conditions or who lacked sufficient income to lead a decent life.