Florence Eleanor Soper was the wife of Bramwell Booth, Second General of.
Background
Born in Blaina, Monmouthshire, she was the eldest daughter of Doctor Isobel Soper, a Plymouth physician, and his wife, Jenny Soper (née Levick), and had two sisters and a brother. Her mother died when she was only nine years old, and she lived with an aunt until her father remarried.
Education
Florence had just passed her last school examination and was visiting her two aunts in London when she converted at a Whitechapel meeting she had attended as a sightseer.
Career
She was a gifted girl fond of reading and music and also had a secret ambition to become a doctor. lieutenant was at this time that Bramwell asked her to marry him. As she was not yet 21 her father was against the marriage, but finally, on 12 October 1882, Captain Florence Soper married Chief of the Staff Bramwell Booth at Clapton Congress Hall before a crowd of 6,000 Salvationists, who were charged 1 shilling each to attend, the money being used to purchase the notorious "Eagle Tavern" public house.
The wedding ceremony was performed by General Booth.
Life for women in the early 1880s was difficult. Jobs were scarce, and prostitution was rampant.
Girls as young as 13 were selling themselves or being sold for money. Florence championed the cause and helped bring social reform.
In 1884 Florence inaugurated which was run from a small house in Hanbury Street, in Whitechapel, London.
"She was young, delicate, refined. Her remarkable powers of grasp and administration had not been developed at this time. She was typical of the well-educated, rather shrinking and self-conscious girl of the English professional classes — perhaps the last person in the world to whom any one would have thought of committing so hazardous and dreadful a business as this rescuing of fallen women.
Many of the residents were young, expectant mothers.