50 Fun Facts About Salvation Army

A Salvation Army children's home in Liverpool gave its name to which Beatles song?

Strawberry Fields Forever recalls the garden of Strawberry Field, the Army home near John Lennon's house where he played as a boy. The Army opened the site to visitors in 2019.

The Salvation Army's theology derives from which Christian tradition?

Methodism: William Booth spent nine years as a Methodist minister before breaking away to work as a street evangelist, an approach his fellow clergy would not accept.

William Booth was apprenticed at 13 to what trade?

Pawnbroker. His father could no longer pay his school fees, and though Booth came to hate the trade he stayed in it into his twenties, to send money home.

By Army tradition, Bramwell Booth objected in 1878 to which word his father used for the movement?

Volunteer! 'I'm no volunteer, I'm a regular or nothing', he protested, so the word was struck from the draft, 'salvation' was written in, and the movement had its name.

William Booth summed up the Army's approach to the 'down and outs' with which three S's?

Soup, soap and salvation, strictly in that order: feed people first, Booth said, then get them clean, and only then talk to them about God.

What is the Salvation Army's motto?

Blood and Fire: the blood is Christ's and the fire is the Holy Spirit's, which is why the Army's flag is red and yellow.

Salvation Army brigades perform drilled display routines with which instrument?

Tambourines. The Army calls them timbrels, the Bible's word for the instrument, and its timbrel brigades move through set patterns in time to the music.

What is the title of the Salvation Army's international leader?

General. William Booth already ran the movement under the title General Superintendent, so when it turned itself into an army in 1878 its top rank was ready-made.

Salvationists must abstain from alcohol, illegal drugs, gambling and what else?

Smoking. Every new soldier signs a covenant on joining, promising to give up tobacco along with drink, drugs and gambling.

Which two sacraments are absent from Salvation Army worship?

Baptism and Holy Communion. William Booth held that no sacrament was needed to save a soul, and thought too many believers leaned on the outward sign instead of the grace behind it.

Catherine Booth's 1859 pamphlet Female Ministry argued that women had as much right as men to do what?

Preach. She wrote it to defend an American woman evangelist whose sermons had caused a stir near the Booths' home, and the Army later built the principle into its rules.

The Salvation Army's newspaper, first printed in London in December 1879, is called what?

The War Cry is still sold by Salvationists in uniform, famously from pub to pub, with the money going to the Army's social work.

In which country is the Salvation Army affectionately known as 'the Salvos'?

Australia. The clipped nickname is so universal there that the Army uses it of itself: its official vision statement speaks of what 'Salvos' will do, and its history pages list 'notable Salvos'.

What was the Skeleton Army?

Mobs that violently disrupted Salvationist meetings: they marched under skull-and-crossbones banners and threw rocks and dead rats, and publicans who feared for their trade were blamed for backing them.

From 1904 the elderly William Booth toured Britain, speaking to roadside crowds from what?

An open-top motor car, still a novelty on British roads. He made seven of these tours by 1911, stopping in towns and villages, the last when he was past eighty.

The 1882 case Beatty v Gillbanks cleared Salvation Army marchers of blame for what?

Riots started by their opponents. Three Salvationists had been found guilty for marching despite a local ban; the High Court overturned that, and the case gave its name to a legal principle on peaceful assembly.

Which kind of musical group became a Salvation Army trademark after the Fry family formed its first in 1878?

Brass bands. Charles Fry and his three sons began playing at open-air meetings; William Booth heard of them and put them to work, and the family gave up its business to join full time.

In 1891 the Salvation Army opened its own London factory to make a safer kind of what?

Matches. The usual kind were made with white phosphorus, which rotted workers' jaws; the Army's factory used the safer red kind and paid better wages, though its boxes cost about three times as much.

William Booth, once mobbed and ridiculed, lived to receive an official invitation to which royal event?

Edward VII's coronation, in 1902, and at the king's own insistence. Three years later the old man toured England and was received in state by the mayors of town after town.

The Salvation Army's organised social work in Melbourne began in 1883 with the opening of what?

A home for ex-convicts, in Melbourne. An officer had watched men leave gaol with nowhere to go and drift back into crime, so his 'Prison-Gate Brigade' met them on the day of release.

Where did George Scott Railton's party hold its first advertised meeting in America in March 1880?

A variety theatre in New York: Harry Hill's music hall advertised the newcomers on its bill. Their first notable convert was a drunk jailed so often that a judge sentenced him to attend instead.

The Salvation Army's Christmas kettle began in the 1890s at a ferry landing in which city?

San Francisco. Captain Joseph McFee needed to pay for a Christmas dinner for the city's poor, and borrowed a collecting stunt he remembered from his days as a sailor in Liverpool.

The very first Salvation Army Christmas kettle, set out by Captain Joseph McFee, was really what?

A crab pot on a tripod, with McFee calling 'Keep the pot boiling!' to passers-by. Within four years some thirty other Army posts had kettles of their own.

Which NFL team's Thanksgiving halftime show has opened the Salvation Army's kettle campaign since 1997?

Dallas Cowboys. The team's owners turned their nationally televised halftime over to the charity, and the kettle campaign has raised billions of dollars since that first show.

What did Salvation Army 'Doughnut Lassies' famously fry doughnuts in during World War I?

Soldiers' helmets, filled with lard, served as the frying pan when two officers first made doughnuts near the front in 1917. Shell casings and wine bottles did duty as rolling pins.

National Doughnut Day began as a Salvation Army fundraiser during what?

The Depression. The Army's Chicago branch held the first one in 1938 to raise money for people in need, and it honours the women who fried doughnuts for troops in the First World War.

William Booth's 1890 book on poverty took its title from which explorer's account of Africa?

Henry Morton Stanley's In Darkest Africa gave Booth his title, and he turned it round in his first chapter: 'As there is a darkest Africa is there not also a darkest England?'

The Salvation Army's Hadleigh farm colony in Essex, bought in 1891, hosted which sport at the London 2012 Olympics?

Mountain biking. William Booth bought the land to give destitute Londoners farm work, and the Army still owns it and runs it as a working farm.

The Salvation Army's 1885 campaign pushed Parliament to raise what from 13 to 16?

The age of consent. To prove girls were being sold, the campaigners 'bought' a thirteen-year-old for £5; the journalist who printed the story went to prison for it, and the Army founder's son stood trial beside him.

In which Salvation Army Christmas programme do shoppers pick a paper tag bearing a child's wish and buy the gift?

Angel Tree. Each paper angel hung on a Christmas tree stands for one child in need, so a stranger who takes the tag home becomes that child's Santa for the year.

Which wartime organisation did the Salvation Army help found in 1941, alongside the YMCA and four other groups?

The USO. President Roosevelt wanted one body to look after servicemen far from home, so six charities pooled their canteens and clubs, a job the Army had been doing since its doughnut days in France.

How did William Booth, who died in 1912, name his successor?

In a sealed envelope, lodged in advance and opened after he died. It named his eldest son, and it was the last time an Army leader was chosen that way.

What ended Bramwell Booth's sixteen years as the Salvation Army's second leader in 1929?

A vote by senior officers: he had refused to retire, so the Army's first High Council judged him unfit through ill health by 52 votes to 5. He died four months later.

Who became the first woman to lead the Salvation Army, in 1934?

Evangeline Booth had already spent thirty years running the Army in the United States, where she sent the doughnut girls to the Western Front, and she kept her American citizenship for life.

Which queen sat almost unrecognised at the back of William Booth's 1912 funeral?

Mary, George V's queen, sat far back among some 40,000 mourners in the Olympia exhibition hall. The king wrote to the family that the nation had lost a great organiser.

In Salvationist parlance, a member who dies is said to have been what?

Promoted to Glory: Salvationists treat a believer's death as a step up in rank, into God's presence, so the Army's flag is draped over the coffin like a soldier's.

William Booth's last public speech, in 1912, is remembered for which repeated vow?

I'll fight. 'While women weep, as they do now, I'll fight; while little children go hungry, I'll fight', he is remembered as telling a packed hall, months before he died at 83.

Shaw's 1905 play about a Salvation Army officer whose father makes munitions is titled what?

Major Barbara quits in disgust when the Army accepts big cheques from a whisky distiller and from her own father, the arms maker. Their money keeps her shelter open.

Which philanthropist left the Salvation Army more than $1.5 billion in 2003, by far the largest gift in its history?

Joan Kroc, widow of the man who built McDonald's, had already paid for a huge Army community centre in San Diego. Her bequest was to build more like it, and 26 Kroc Centers now stand across the country.

The Salvation Army, at work in well over 100 countries, usually groups each country's operations into one what?

Territory. Each has its own commander, the United States being big enough to need four, and all answer to a single international headquarters, so the Army runs as one worldwide body.

What was the Salvation Army's pioneering Melbourne film studio of the 1890s called?

The Limelight Department, run by an officer named Joseph Perry, went on to make about 300 films. Its show Soldiers of the Cross mixed film, lantern slides and music to tell the stories of Christian martyrs.

The Salvation Army dates its American disaster-relief work from which catastrophe?

The Galveston hurricane of 1900. The great California earthquake six years later drew a second big effort, and the Army says it has been at every big American disaster since.

Which emblem marks Salvation Army buildings, shops and vans around the world?

A red shield. It began as the badge of the Army's huts and hostels for troops in wartime, and in Britain it has since replaced the older crest on the outside of Army buildings.

Under what name was the Salvation Army founded in 1865?

It traces its origins to the Blind Beggar Tavern, and William Booth reorganised it with a military structure in 1878.

Salvation Army officers are the equivalent of what in other Protestant churches?

Ordained ministers. Each trains for two years in residence before taking a military rank, and from the Army's Victorian beginnings the job has been open to women on the same terms as men.

In which Asian country did the Salvation Army establish its first outpost, in 1882?

India. Its pioneer, a former colonial magistrate named Frederick Tucker, landed in Bombay, swapped his uniform for a holy man's saffron robes and took the Indian name Fakir Singh.

What does the Salvation Army call each of its local congregations?

A corps. The word came in with the ranks and uniforms when the movement turned itself into an army, and many of its halls took a fortress name as well: citadel.

What must residents of a Salvation Army Adult Rehabilitation Center do during their six-month stay?

Work assignments. The Army calls it work therapy, up to eight hours a day in its warehouses and shops, and treats steady work habits as part of the cure alongside counselling and worship.

What military-sounding name did the Salvation Army long give the pledge every new soldier signs?

Articles of War, known today as the Soldier's Covenant. William Booth modelled his rule book on the British army's, so a convert who joins is enrolled as a soldier.

In which English city was William Booth born in 1829, in a house that is now a museum to him?

Nottingham. He grew up poor in the suburb of Sneinton and was speaking to the city's poor in its streets as a teenager, years before he moved to the capital.