Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 05.djvu/390

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Booth
382
Booth

and his attitude towards the Bill of Rights, and the bill for the recognition of William and Mary, was such as to make a breach between him and the court inevitable. But though compelled to retire from the treasury, the greatness of his past services was not forgotten. He was created Earl of Warrington, and in view of the expenses incurred by him at the Revolution he received a pension of 2,000l. and ‘a grant of all lands discovered in 8vo or six counties belonging to the Jesuits’ (Luttrell, Relation of State Affairs, ii. 22). In October 1691 he was chosen mayor of Chester. In his place in the House of Lords he continued to manifest his anxiety for the principles which he believed to have been at stake at the Revolution, and in January 1692-3 he signed a petition against the rejection of the Place Bill. He died in London on 3 Jan. 1693-4, and was interred in the family vault in Bowden church, where, in the south side of the Dunham chancel, there is a monument to his memory. By his marriage to Mary, sole daughter and heiress of Sir James Langham of Cottesbrooke, he had four sons and two daughters.

In a contemporary poem, entitled ‘The King of Hearts,' Warrington is styled a ‘restless malcontent even when preferred,' and there are undouhted evidences throughout his career of narrowness of temper, and an inability to recognise in any circumstances the value of expediency. Burnet mentions, with seeming acceptance, a rumour that while in office ‘he sold everything that was in his power’ (Own Time, ii. 5); but his son George, second earl of Warrington [q. v.], in the ‘Letter’ in defence of his father, calls this scanidalum magnatum, and asserts that it will not bear the least examination. No one was more outspoken than Warrington in his denunciations of corruption. The minor charge of greed brought against him by Lord Macaulay had its origin in an insufficient knowledge of the facts. Macaulay, after mentioning that on resigning office Warrington received a pension of 2,000l. a year, adds that notwithstanding this ‘to the end of his life he continued to complain bitterly of the ingratitude with which he and his party had been treated.’ In support of this rather sweeping assertion he appends a note to the effect that ‘it appears from the Treasury Letter Book of 1690 that Delamere confirmed to dun the government for money after his retirement’ (chap. xv.) This undoubtedly Delamere did, but only for money that was his due, not for additional favours; for it would appear from the list of King William’s debts, drawn up at the request of Queen Anne, that Warrington never received more of his pension than the first half-yearly installment. Whatever faults of temper may be chargeable against him, there is therefore no tangible evidence to support the accusation of sordid selfishness, and indeed he seems to have possessed a sincere and noble patriotism very rare among the leading statesmen of those troubled times. His religious views were strongly tinged with puritanism, and so far as regards the observance of the decencies of private life and attention to the outward duties of religion, he left, in the words of Danton (Life and Errors, ed. 1818, i. 344), ‘a correct and almost perfect example.’

The ‘Works of Henry, late Lord Delamere,’ consisting of several of his principal speeches in parliament, political pamphlets, advice to his children, prayers used by him in his family, &c., appeared in 1694, and in the same year a volume of his speeches delivered on various occasions at Chester. Some of his speeches were published separately. He is also the author of ‘The late Lord Russell’s Case,’ 1689, and the reputed author of a ‘Dialogue between a Lord-Lieutenant and one of his Disputies,' published anonymously in 1690.

[Trial of Henry Booth, Earl of Warrington (1686); Collins’s Peerage (ed. 1735), vol. ii. pt. ii. pp. 483-7; Biog. Brit. (Kippis), ii. 408-13; Burnet’s Hist. of his own Time; Luttrell`s Relation of State Affairs; Lord Clarendon’s Diary; Granger's Biog. Hist. 2nd ed. iv. 274-5; Walpoles Royal and Noble Authors (Park), iii. 318-24; Omerod's Cheshire; Macaulay’s History of England.]

T. F. H.

BOOTH, HENRY (1788–1869), railway projector, was the son of Thomas Booth, a Liverpool corn merchant, and was born in Rodney Street, Liverpool, on 4 April 1788. He was privately educated at Gateacre, near Liverpool, and then for some time was various in his father’s office. He afterwards carried on business on his own account as a corn merchant, but with no great success, till in 1822 he found his proper sphere when the scheme to make a railway between Liverpool and Manchester was brought before the public. Of this scheme he was one of the chief promoters, and acted as honorary secretary to the committee; he also wrote the prospectus of the new line, and a great number of reports, &c., connected with it. In 1825 the bill came before parliament. It was thrown out after a costly struggle. Next year it was carried, and Booth was appointed secretary and treasurer of the company. He was also managing director, and took an active part in the construction of the line, which was begun in June 1826 and finished in 1830. It was mainly due to him that steam