Richard George William Pitt Booth (12 September 1938 – 20 August 2019) was a British bookseller, known for his contribution to the success of Hay-on-Wye as a centre for second-hand bookselling. He was also the self-proclaimed "King of Hay".

Biography

Booth was born in

Plymouth Plymouth () is a port city and unitary authority in South West England. It is located on the south coast of Devon, approximately south-west of Exeter and south-west of London. It is bordered by Cornwall to the west and south-west. Plymouth ...

, Devon. He was educated at Rugby School and

Merton College, Oxford Merton College (in full: The House or College of Scholars of Merton in the University of Oxford) is one of the Colleges of Oxford University, constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Its foundation can be traced back to the ...

, yet he dreaded seeing how young men like himself left their hometown for the city, and wondered what trade could save this small rural economy. Having inherited the Brynmelyn estate from his uncle, Major Willie Booth, he opened a second-hand bookshop in Hay-on-Wye, in the old fire station, and took the strongest men of Hay to America, where libraries were closing fast. They bought and shipped books in containers back to Hay-on-Wye. His example was followed by others, so that by the 1970s Hay had become internationally known as the "Town of Books". In 1973, he appeared on the American game show ''To Tell the Truth'', hosted by Garry Moore.
Episode #1555
On 1 April 1977, Richard Booth proclaimed Hay an "independent kingdom" with himself as king ''Richard Cœur de Livre'' and his horse as Prime Minister. The publicity stunt gained extensive news coverage and resulted in several spin-offs such as "passports" being issued. On 1 April 2000, Booth followed up with an investiture of "The Hay House of Lords" and created 21 new hereditary peers for the "Kingdom of Hay". The Hay Literary Festival was another spin-off from the burgeoning number of bookshops in the town, which gets an estimated 500,000 tourists a year. In recognition of his services to tourism, Richard Booth was awarded the MBE in the

2004 New Year Honours The New Year Honours 2004 were appointments by some of the Commonwealth realms to various orders and honours to recognise and reward good works by citizens of those countries. The New Year Honours are awarded as part of the New Year celebrations ...

List. In August 2005, Richard Booth announced that he was selling his Hay bookshop and moving to Germany. The bookshop is now under the ownership of Elizabeth Haycox and has had extensive refurbishment works carried out since 2009. Ultimately, Richard Booth did not move to Germany but continued to live in Brynmelyn, owning a bookshop called The King of Hay. He married his second wife Hope Stuart, a former freelance photographer, in the 1980s. In 1999, he published his autobiography ''My Kingdom of Books'' ( Y Lolfa, ) with the help of his stepdaughter Lucia Stuart.

Literary award

In 2014, Booth gave his name to an annual literary award in association with the Hay Writers' Circle. Judges and winners of the Richard Booth Prize for Non-Fiction have been as follows:

Politics

Booth stood as a candidate for the Socialist Labour Party in the 1999 Welsh Assembly elections and Wales constituency at the

2009 European Parliament election The 2009 European Parliament election was held in the 27 member states of the European Union (EU) between 4 and 7 June 2009. A total of 736 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) were elected to represent some 500 million Europeans, making th ...

. ;Welsh Assembly elections ;European Parliament elections

Sources

External links

BBC Arts
{{DEFAULTSORT:Booth, Richard 1938 births 2019 deaths People from Hay-on-Wye Alumni of the University of Oxford Welsh booksellers Members of the Order of the British Empire Micronational leaders People educated at Rugby School Socialist Labour Party (UK) members 20th-century Welsh businesspeople 21st-century Welsh businesspeople Alumni of Merton College, Oxford