Henry Booth was born in 1788. He became a Liverpool corn merchant and was an early advocate of railways. In 1822 he became the secretary and treasurer of the proposed Liverpool & Manchester Railway. Booth organised and raised the initial capital of £300,000, wrote all the prospectuses and most of the reports published by the company between 1824 to 1830.

Booth worked for the Liverpool & Manchester Railway until the company was merged with the Grand Junction Railway in 1845. Booth became a director of the new merged company London & North Western Railway until 1859.

Although mainly a railway administrator, Booth was interested in locomotive technology. It is claimed that he was influential in the evolution of the multi-tubular boiler. Henry Booth died in 1869.