| Born |
August 31, 1899
|
| Died |
April 7, 1918
|
| Force |
Air Force
|
| Division |
43rd Training Squadron, Royal Air Force
|
| Home Address |
11 Madison Avenue
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Eddie Booth, one of the school’s two flying aces, entered UTS in 1910 and became a celebrated track and field athlete, establishing a record in the Annual Senior Cross-Country Run. He was also a member of the student government, serving as an athletic representative. He matriculated at University College before joining the Royal Flying Corps in March 1917, and even though he was only seventeen years old when he enlisted, he quickly gained a reputation as a skilled and courageous airman. A mere two weeks after his eighteenth birthday he was at the controls of his Sopwith Camel, making his first flight behind German lines. He was attacked by two enemy planes but brought one down and forced the other to retreat. In ten weeks “this daring youngster,” as he was called, was credited with destroying seven enemy aircraft, although the real total was eleven. These victories earned him a recommendation for the Military Cross. Booth was forced down twice, once in October 1917 by the pilot Hans Klein, and again in November 1917. After six weeks in hospital recovering from this second incident, he became a flight instructor, teaching at Camp Market Drayton and later at Salisbury Plain. He was killed while demonstrating stunts and his body was repatriated. Booth’s funeral was held at Saint Paul’s Anglican Church on Bloor Street, with members of the Royal Flying Corps serving as pallbearers; he is commemorated in the church’s memorial tablet, along his fellow parishioners and UTS alumni, Allan Denovan , Paul Pettit, and Philip Edward Williams. He is one of nine UTS students killed during the war to be buried in Mount Pleasant Cemetery. After his death, his father George donated the Edward Booth Memorial Championship Cup, a sterling silver trophy upon which the names of the Senior Cross-Country Run winners are engraved, and the Edward Booth Memorial Plaque, which bore the names of the head boys of Form IIIA, the form which his son joined when he entered UTS. George Booth also used the proceeds of a $1,000 Victory Bond to establish the Edward Booth Memorial Scholarship, given to a student who passes the penultimate year with distinction. The prize is still awarded to students passing from Senior V into Senior VI and is the school’s oldest scholarship. “And us they trusted. We the task inherit/The unfinished task for which their lives were spent/But leaving us a portion of their spirit/They gave their witness and they died content.”
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