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Richard George William Pitt Booth MBE (12 September 1938 – 20 August 2019[1][2]) was a British bookseller, bibliophile and micronationalist known for his contribution to the success of Hay-on-Wye as a centre for second-hand bookselling and founder of The Kingdom of Hay-on-Wye, a micronation that claims the town as an independent kingdom.
Richard Booth | |
|---|---|
 Richard Booth in 1984 | |
| Born | Richard George William Pitt Booth 12 September 1938 Plymouth, Devon, England |
| Died | 20 August 2019 (aged 80) Cusop, Herefordshire, England |
| Nationality | British |
| Alma mater | University of Oxford |
| Occupation | Bookseller |
| Political party | Socialist Labour Party (UK) |
| Awards | Order of the British Empire |
Booth was born in Plymouth, Devon and was educated at Rugby School and Merton College, Oxford.[3]
In the early 1970s, Booth opened a second-hand bookshop in Hay-on-Wye, on estate inherited from his uncle, Willie Booth. He requested local Hay-on-Wye residents to buy and ship books back to Hay-on-Wye to be re-sold, other booksellers followed Booth, until the town became known as "Town of Books".[citation needed]
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.[4]
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. [citation needed]
In recognition of his services to tourism, Booth was awarded the MBE in the 2004 New Year Honours List. [citation needed]
In August 2005, Booth announced that he was selling his Hay bookshop and moving to Germany. Ultimately, Booth did not move to Germany but continued to live in Brynmelyn, owning a bookshop called The King of Hay. The bookshop is now under the ownership of Elizabeth Haycox and has had extensive refurbishment works carried out since 2009.[citation needed]
In 1999, he published his autobiography My Kingdom of Books with the help of his stepdaughter Lucia Stuart.[citation needed]
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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:
| Year | Judge | Winner |
|---|---|---|
| 2014 | Rachel Cooke | Jo Jones |
| 2015 | Colin McDowell | Emma van Woerkom |
| 2016 | Dan Davies | Juliet Foster |
| 2017 | Noel Kingsbury | Ange Grunsell |
| 2018 | Oliver Bullough | Marianne Rosen |
| 2019 | ||
| 2020 | Rib Davis | Kerry Hodges |
| 2021 | Roland White | Gill Haigh |
| 2022 | Gilly Smith | Lily Rose King |
Booth stood as a candidate for the Socialist Labour Party in the 1999 Welsh Assembly elections[5] and Wales constituency at the 2009 European Parliament election.
- Welsh Assembly elections
| Year | Region | Party | Votes | % | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1999 | Mid and West Wales | SLP | 3,019 | 1.4 | Not elected[6] |
- European Parliament elections
In 2009, a revolt was held against the "King" by republicans, led by bookseller and proprietor of Oxford House Books, Paul Harris, who journalist Sean Dodson called a "Cromwell figure".[7] He was former employee of Booth's, reported as being "tutored at the knee" of the self-declared regent and helping him move large "lorry loads" of books from the United States to the UK, in an on-off "love/hate" working relationship that lasted over a decade. Despite Harris's leading of a trial of treason and symbolic "beheading" of Booth, they "remained on good terms".[7] After becoming independent of Booth and setting up his own bookshop in the town, subsequently setting up a commonwealth, became the "first minister" and planned to set up a Speaker's Corner, which would establish Hay as a bastion of "free speech".[7]
The "trial for treason" was not just a publicity stunt; like the initial declaration of independence by Booth, it was inspired by political concerns, but instead of economic decline, the rebels were inspired by concerns around the issue of Gentrification. Though Harris is not recorded as having used the word, he was concerned about the threat posed to the independent character of the town by the over-dependence on the commercial, outsider interests of the Hay Festival, "saying, we cannot trade off the profile of the festival for 52 weeks a year". Indeed, Harris's prosecuting argument was that the Hay Festival had become too publicly dominant and had negatively impacted the economic fortunes of the many secondhand books shops that made up the town.[8]
Harris argued that Booth, a promotional figurehead of the town due to his self-declared kingship, had been negligent in promoting the issues of the booksellers over the festival. He told the press in 2009, "You can fill a town with books, but that won't bring people to the town[...]You need publicity and promotion, which is now all sucked up by the festival. Richard used to be great at drumming up publicity and denouncing the festival. He's not able to do that any more, so we need to set up a council to replace him."[8] and "My point is we've retired him, and if you have any respect for him then let him have a rest – he's 71."[9] Another of the to-be commonwealth, bookseller and "Witchfinder General" Peter "Boz" Harries agreed, arguing that Booth had failed in his duties to the town, adding, "We think this is a natural continuation. There are one or two locals who think it is rather cruel, but when Richard had his coronation in the 1970s a lot of locals were vehemently against him."[9]
There were opponents to the republican mission, including Booth himself, who said "I don't think it's worth having an argument as they don't know what they're talking about [...]The revolting peasants are revolting."[9] The founder of the festival Peter Florence was similarly dismissive, blaming the decreasing fortunes of the booksellers individually and saying, they "need to rethink their (business) strategy".[10]
Several novelists spoke out in response to the planned trial and beheading, some in support, some against.Duncan Fallowell said, "I call the festival Waterstones-on-Wye. It's almost lost touch with intellectual value" but Matthew Engel said, "Many festival goers don't go into the town, but the idea that the festival detracts from Hay is clearly preposterous."[10]
However, Harris argued that booksellers had seen a 50% decrease in sales in the years leading up to the revolt . Popular British novelist Robert Harris commentating at the time, sympathised with the booksellers, also suggesting that the recession and the internet had affected their fortunes.[10]
The "beheading" of Booth's effigy took place on the 27th of September, 2009, in the old Butter Market in the centre of the town. The rebels were dressed like Roundheads and the pro-Booth royalists like Cavaliers. Paul Harris led the charge, and applause and jeers from the peripheries of the Butter Market could be heard when the fake head of Booth rolled into the bucket [11][12] .
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