LORD BADEN POWELL

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 88, Issue 6, 8 January 1944, Page 4

LORD BADEN POWELL

ANNIVERSARY OF DEATH. To-day is the third anniversary of the death of Lord Baden Powell, lounder of the Boy Scout movement and known throughout the world as the Chief Scout. It was in 1893-94, while serving with the 13th Hussars, that Lord Baden Powell realised that the peace training of soldiers was not sufficiently pracSeal and started classes in scouting and camping. The Boy Scout idea was first put into practice in Mafeking, where his chief staff officer, Lord Edward Cecil, organised the boys of the town into a corps for general utility on scouting lines and the experiment proved a great success. In 1907 Lord Baden Powell held a trial camp for scout-training on Brownsea Island. Its results exceeded all expectation and prompted him to go on. In January 1908, he issued “Scouting for Boys” which had a phenomenal sale and it was no time before troops were formed in all parts of the United Kingdom. A Royal charter was granted the organisation in 1912. In that year he married Olave Soames, who had organised the Girl Guides on the same lines as the Boy Scouts. They had a son and two daughters. Lord Baden Powell visited New Zealand, first in 1912 and twice after the last. war. His death occurred in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, on January 8, 1941, in his 83rd year.