BOY SCOUT LEADER

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXII, 29 November 1938, Page 8

BOY SCOUT LEADER

TO VISIT DOMINION FOR CENTENNIAL JAMBOREE j CAMP CHIEF AT GILWELL Mr J S. Wilson, camp chief at Gilwell Park. London training centre of the Boy Scout Ascsociation. has been appointed to represent the World Chief Scout. Lord Baden-Powell of Gilwell. and Imperial headquarters, at the i New Zealand centennial jamboree. The j CT ief Sco >t himself is not com ng. Next to the Chief Scout. Mr Wilson i is regarded as the most important ; figure in the scout movement to-day. i The jamboree headquarters has received notification from London that he will ! attend the jamboree and will possibly ; be accompanied by a number of English I scouts. INDIAN POLICE LIFE i Formerly in the Indian police force. I during which time he was a pioneer of I the scout movement in India. Mr Wilson has for some years been associated with the Gilwell camp training organnation, of which lie is in command. Gilwell Park, Epping Forest, was presented to the boy scouts in 1919 by Mr W. de Bois Maclaren, district scout commissionei for Roseneath. Scotland a* a camping ground for scouts in the vicinity of London, especially for the use ot boys from the East End. It has since become the main training headquarters of the movement, and Lord Baden-Powell has incorporated its name in his title. Many eminent scouts. including Prince Gustaf Adolph of Norway, Prince Emmanuel of Riechenstein, Count Hutara of Japan, and a number of British peers and j olitieal and social leaders, have been trained there in the past 20 years. BIRTH OF SCOUTING IN U.S.A. In the park is the famous bronze

I buffalo given by the scouts of America to "the unknown scout whose faithfulness in the performance of his daily good turn to William D. Boyce in 1909. brougnt the boy scout movement to tlie United States of America. The statue was presented in 1926 by the United States Ambassador, and was received on bahlf of the boy scouts of the British Empire by the Duke of Windsor. then Prince of Wales. It commemorates an incident of 30 years ago, when an American. William Boyce, was groping through a London pea-soup fog. He encountered ' a newsboy, of whom he asked his way. | the lad insisted on escorting him to his ' destination, and when Mr Boyce tendered him half-a-crown. declined on ’ the ground that he was a boy scout. Mr ' Boyce, who had never heard of the movement, was interested, made inquiries. and as a result launched | scouting in the United States. With such associations Gilwell is the ' Mecca of the scout movement through- ' out the British Empire. The camp chief is an important personage, and New Zealand scouts are looking forward 1 keenly to Mr Wilson’s visit in December. 1939.