Richard Booth
Richard George William Pitt Booth, MBE (born September 12, 1938 in Hay-on-Wye, Wales), is a Welsh bookseller, known for his contribution to the success of Hay-on-Wye as a centre for second-hand bookselling. He is also the self-proclaimed "King of Hay".
He was educated at Rugby School and the University of Oxford, yet he dreaded seeing how young men like himself left his hometown for the city, and wondered what trade could save this small rural economy. He then opened a second-hand bookshop in Hay-on-Wye, in the old fire station, and brought 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".
On April 1, 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 April 1, 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 now 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's Honours List. In August 2005, Richard Booth announced that he was selling his Hay bookshop and moving to Germany. As of September 2009 the bookshop remains under the King of Hay's control.
He married his second wife Hope Stuart, a former freelance photographer, in the 1980s. In 1999, he published his autobiography, "My Kingdom of Books", with the help of his stepdaughter Lucia Stuart.
Booth has stood as a candidate for the Socialist Labour Party in the 1999 Welsh Assembly elections[1] and Wales constituency at the European Parliament election, 2009.
[edit] Elections contested
Welsh Assembly elections
| Year | Region | Party | Votes | % | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1999 | Mid and West Wales | SLP | 3,019 | 1.4 | Not elected[2] |
European Parliament elections
| Year | Region | Party | Votes | % | Result | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 | Wales | SLP | 12,402 | 1.8 | Not-elected | Multi-member constituency; party list |
