Reverend Caleb and Elanor Booth

Reverend Caleb Booth (1820-1892) and Eleanor (1831-1895)

Caleb Booth was born on 18 September 1820 in the English parish of Kingsclere, Hampshire to William and Deborah Booth.  He was the third of eight children in a farming family and as a young man he was apprenticed out to a grocer.  At the age of thirty-one Caleb was living in Newbury working as a shopman alongside his 18-year old cousin Daniel.  Thoughts of becoming a missionary inspired Caleb Booth to immigrate to the colonies and he arrived in Australia in December 1852 on the ship “Posthumous”.  He was ordained shortly after by the Bishop of Melbourne as a Church of England priest.  From about 1856 until his marriage he was ministering as the curate of St Peter’s in Melbourne.

In 1860 Reverend Caleb Booth married 29 year old Eleanor Purcell and the following year he was posted to Trinity Church in Wangaratta, Victoria as the Incumbent Minister for that parish.  During his years of service in Wangaratta he was involved in an incident on 28 October 1866 that led to a charge before the Ecclesiastical Court and a sentence suspending his ministry for six months.  The incident caused a volley of outraged letters and editorials in the newspapers of the day, some demanding his expulsion from the parish.  According to the most rational account of the incident the reverend as delivering his usual service when he was disturbed by a dog in the church.  It is unclear whether the dog was a stray or with its owner but regardless it did not seem the usual practise to have an animal in the building during a service.  A girl rose from her pew and chased the dog to the back of the church where Mrs Booth was sitting.  There it may have attacked Eleanor (then still a young wife), biting at her skirts.  Rev. Booth appears to have “lost his senses” reacting to the attack or at the very least to the disturbance caused by the animal.  He launched himself down the aisle, catching the dog and handing it over to a man named Evans to remove it from the church.  This he did with such force that the dog’s leg was broken.  The horror expressed by journalists and readers at the unseemly and cruel behaviour of a man of the cloth, was played out in newspapers across the country.  An Ecclesiastical Court hearing took place in Melbourne in 1867 and the Lord Bishop of Melbourne, the Right Rev. Dr. Parry arrived at Wangaratta to deliver the six month suspension sentence.

The reverend weathered the tirade of ill-feeling in the parish and continued there for another three years.  In 1869 Booth was moved to a ministry in Footscray and by 1875 he was posted back to Melbourne to All Saints Church in the Parish of Northcote and St Lukes, Fitzroy.

The Booths were resident then in Northcote at the All Saints vicarage in Cunningham Street, Westgarth until in 1883.  The previous year the reverend’s health had started to noticeably deteriorate and he was forced to miss officiating services some at All Saints Church.  In April 1883 he resigned his living and the Booths vacated the parsonage for their newly purchased comfortable homestead Maesbury in Separation Street.  Caleb was then sixty-three years old.

In 1885 Eleanor Booth attended a meeting of the Northcote Borough Council to protest about pollution from the Northcote Brickworks opposite.  Caleb, she insisted, was a confirmed invalid and greatly affected by the smoke the prevailing winds sent across the road to their house.  The frequent noise of the steam whistle also disturbed him as his health deteriorated through the late 1880s.  After a long and painful illness which he bore “with Christian patience and submission”, Caleb Booth died on 1 October 1892 and under the terms of the will the house was left to the Bishop of Melbourne for the use of the Church of England.  Eleanor however was permitted to stay on at Maesbury until her death.

As the wife of a Church of England parish priest Eleanor was active in the local community throughout her husband’s ministry.  During the unfortunate incident with the dog in Wangaratta Caleb had argued in his defence that he was concerned for his wife who was suffering poor health and afraid of the dog attacking her.  Had the young wife of seven years suffered a miscarriage at this time?  The Booths never had children which was unusual in the Victorian era.  In Northcote Eleanor continued charitable work in the community.  Close to the end of her own life in September 1894 she was still active on the Ladies Committee of the Church Missions sale for the Chinese in Victoria receiving and sorting local donations.  This would probably have been her final act of charity as Eleanor Booth died at Maesbury on 2 February 1895.

When the will of Caleb Booth was read in 1892 his total property including Maesbury House in Separation Street, Northcote amounted to ten and a half thousand pounds.  The real estate was valued at one thousand three hundred and fifty pounds and the house was left to the Church.  There were four main beneficiaries of Caleb Booth’s personal wealth.  Eleanor was provided for during the remainder of her life and after that the money was divided between nephews Henry Clement Haldane, Charles Frederick Reade and a niece Jane Booth Pearce.  Caleb also left one hundred pounds (a large sum for the time) to a servant, Bella as long as she remained faithful to his wife after his death.

Caleb Booth was born on 18 September 1820 in the English parish of Kingsclere, Hampshire to William and Deborah Booth.  He was the third of eight children in a farming family and as a young man he was apprenticed out to a grocer.  At the age of thirty-one Caleb was living in Newbury working as a shopman alongside his 18-year old cousin Daniel.  Thoughts of becoming a missionary inspired Caleb Booth to immigrate to the colonies and he arrived in Australia in December 1852 on the ship “Posthumous”.  He was ordained shortly after by the Bishop of Melbourne as a Church of England priest.  From about 1856 until his marriage he was ministering as the curate of St Peter’s in Melbourne.

In 1860 Reverend Caleb Booth married 29 year old Eleanor Purcell and the following year he was posted to Trinity Church in Wangaratta, Victoria as the Incumbent Minister for that parish.  During his years of service in Wangaratta he was involved in an incident on 28 October 1866 that led to a charge before the Ecclesiastical Court and a sentence suspending his ministry for six months.  The incident caused a volley of outraged letters and editorials in the newspapers of the day, some demanding his expulsion from the parish.  According to the most rational account of the incident the reverend as delivering his usual service when he was disturbed by a dog in the church.  It is unclear whether the dog was a stray or with its owner but regardless it did not seem the usual practise to have an animal in the building during a service.  A girl rose from her pew and chased the dog to the back of the church where Mrs Booth was sitting.  There it may have attacked Eleanor (then still a young wife), biting at her skirts.  Rev. Booth appears to have “lost his senses” reacting to the attack or at the very least to the disturbance caused by the animal.  He launched himself down the aisle, catching the dog and handing it over to a man named Evans to remove it from the church.  This he did with such force that the dog’s leg was broken.  The horror expressed by journalists and readers at the unseemly and cruel behaviour of a man of the cloth, was played out in newspapers across the country.  An Ecclesiastical Court hearing took place in Melbourne in 1867 and the Lord Bishop of Melbourne, the Right Rev. Dr. Parry arrived at Wangaratta to deliver the six month suspension sentence.

The reverend weathered the tirade of ill-feeling in the parish and continued there for another three years.  In 1869 Booth was moved to a ministry in Footscray and by 1875 he was posted back to Melbourne to All Saints Church in the Parish of Northcote and St Lukes, Fitzroy.

The Booths were resident then in Northcote at the All Saints vicarage in Cunningham Street, Westgarth until in 1883.  The previous year the reverend’s health had started to noticeably deteriorate and he was forced to miss officiating services some at All Saints Church.  In April 1883 he resigned his living and the Booths vacated the parsonage for their newly purchased comfortable homestead Maesbury in Separation Street.  Caleb was then sixty-three years old.

In 1885 Eleanor Booth attended a meeting of the Northcote Borough Council to protest about pollution from the Northcote Brickworks opposite.  Caleb, she insisted, was a confirmed invalid and greatly affected by the smoke the prevailing winds sent across the road to their house.  The frequent noise of the steam whistle also disturbed him as his health deteriorated through the late 1880s.  After a long and painful illness which he bore “with Christian patience and submission”, Caleb Booth died on 1 October 1892 and under the terms of the will the house was left to the Bishop of Melbourne for the use of the Church of England.  Eleanor however was permitted to stay on at Maesbury until her death.

As the wife of a Church of England parish priest Eleanor was active in the local community throughout her husband’s ministry.  During the unfortunate incident with the dog in Wangaratta Caleb had argued in his defence that he was concerned for his wife who was suffering poor health and afraid of the dog attacking her.  Had the young wife of seven years suffered a miscarriage at this time?  The Booths never had children which was unusual in the Victorian era.  In Northcote Eleanor continued charitable work in the community.  Close to the end of her own life in September 1894 she was still active on the Ladies Committee of the Church Missions sale for the Chinese in Victoria receiving and sorting local donations.  This would probably have been her final act of charity as Eleanor Booth died at Maesbury on 2 February 1895.

When the will of Caleb Booth was read in 1892 his total property including Maesbury House in Separation Street, Northcote amounted to ten and a half thousand pounds.  The real estate was valued at one thousand three hundred and fifty pounds and the house was left to the Church.  There were four main beneficiaries of Caleb Booth’s personal wealth.  Eleanor was provided for during the remainder of her life and after that the money was divided between nephews Henry Clement Haldane, Charles Frederick Reade and a niece Jane Booth Pearce.  Caleb also left one hundred pounds (a large sum for the time) to a servant, Bella as long as she remained faithful to his wife after his death.