Born in 1758, Booth joined his brother Joseph in the ironmongery business when he came of age. It was great timing. They had a thriving business, capital, and land at the centre of a region which was fuelling the industrial revolution. When both coal and iron were discovered on Booth’s land, he was able to capitalise on his existing wealth.

Booth’s father and ancestors had bought and sold iron especially nails, but steam power enabled new puddling and rolling mills which efficiently removed the impurities from iron and prepared it for large-scale production of goods. Dudley was Britain’s major iron producer and rolling mills increased the output of iron goods 15-fold.

In 1772, the opening of the Birmingham Canal in West Bromwich made it easier for Booth and Joseph to get coal and iron to extensive markets. They established a rolling mill and forge at Gold’s Green on the canal and, using its double-power steam engine, produced 120 tons of nail “blooms” per week, along with 25 to 30 tons of sheet-iron. The Napoleonic Wars increased the demand for iron and quadrupled its price.

Even using their rolling mill, Booth and Joseph still had to “put out” the resulting nail blooms to nailers to complete the work by hand. In 1803, seeking to mechanise that stage, Booth took out a patent for machinery designed for a “rolling process where a heated metal rod was drawn between two rollers, one of which was incised to form the shape of a nail. This resulted in the rod being converted into a string of nails linked point to head” which were then sheared from each other by hand.

Meanwhile, Booth had married Elizabeth Webb and they had a genteel home in High Street with a handsome entrance hall and four parlours. They were among the foremost citizens of Dudley.

Even before industrialisation, mining and ironworks had wrought environmental damage. As industry boomed, the non-stop furnaces rendered the region “black by day, red by night” and it was dubbed “The Black Country.” This explains why Booth purchased 40 acres at Bartley Green and built a substantial country house although he retained his Dudley house.

Booth was no heartless industrialist. He and Elizabeth attended the Dudley Old Meeting House. Booth was one of the trustees. He was involved in the Dudley Annuity Society, Baylies Charity School, and the Dudley soup kitchen. He was also trustee for the Dudley and Bromsgrove Turnpike, and he oversaw Dudley’s gas lighting installation.

When Booth’s eldest son came of age, Booth and Joseph dissolved their own partnership, and Booth formed one with his son, Thomas Webb Hodgetts.

Six years later Booth retired just as the end of the Napoleonic Wars caused a fall in iron prices. He had amassed an impressive fortune of money, land, and mines. In retirement, Booth lived the life of a gentleman at the Hermitage in Powick before he and Elizabeth saw out their final years at Allesley near Coventry.

Booth survived Elizabeth by eleven years, dying a very wealthy man at age 86. His will and its codicils ran to thirteen pages and provided the equivalent of a property, mines, and money for EACH of his four surviving children.