This bust in Ashbourne Park is to one of the towns most famous daughters, Catherine Mumford, otherwise Catherine Booth.
She was born in Ashbourne in 1829 on the Sturston Rd where a plaque on the house marks the event. Her father, John Mumford, was a carriage maker and an occasional lay preacher. Later the family moved to Lincoln.
In 1851, she met William Booth. They were married on 16 July 1855 at Stockwell Green Congregational Church in London. In 1865 they began the East London Christian Mission which in 1878 was re-named The Salvation Army. She became known as the ‘Mother of The Salvation Army’.
Catherine Booth died at home, Crossley House in Clacton on Sea in 1890. William Booth died in 1912. They are interred together in Abney Park Cemetery, London.
The bust was unveiled in Ashbourne on Easter Sunday 1962 by two of her granddaughters. It had been created by the Morris Art Bronze Foundry of London who had made full length figures of them in 1929.
A walk around the heritage sites of Ashbourne can be found in the Ashbourne Treasures Town Heritage Trail, available from the Ashbourne Visitor Information Centre in Town Hall Yard on the Market Place.