James Booth (mathematician)

James Booth LL.D. (1806–1878) was an Irish cleric, mathematician and educationist.

The son of John Booth, he was born at Lavagh, County Leitrim on 26 August 1806. He entered Trinity College, Dublin in 1825 and was elected scholar in 1829, graduating B.A. in 1832, M.A. in 1840, and LL.D. in 1842.

Booth left Ireland in 1840, and became principal of Bristol College, where he had Francis William Newman and William Benjamin Carpenter as colleagues. It had been set up by the British Institution in 1830, to provide non-denominational education. It closed in 1841, however, having suffered some opposition from James Henry Monk. Booth then set up a short-lived private school, where Edward Fry was a pupil. In 1843 he was appointed vice-principal of the Liverpool Collegiate Institution; he had been ordained at Bristol in 1842, and acted there as curate till he moved.

In 1848 he gave up his Liverpool post, and moved to London. In 1854 he was appointed minister of St. Anne's, Wandsworth, and in 1859 was presented to the vicarage of Stone, Buckinghamshire, by the Royal Astronomical Society, to which the advowson had been given in 1844 by Dr. Lee. He was also chaplain to the Marquess of Lansdowne, and justice of the peace for Buckinghamshire.

Booth was elected fellow of the Royal Society in 1846, and fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1859. He was president of the Liverpool Literary and Philosophical Society from 1846 to 1849. In 1852 he became a member of the Society of Arts, and at his suggestion the weekly Journal of the society was begun. He was treasurer and chairman of the council of the society from 1855 to 1857. He was central in the organisation of the Society of Arts examinations, a system later developed by Harry Chester.

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