Scouting’s earliest recruits recalled in rare pictures

For more than a century, the Boy Scout movement has inspired generations of youngsters, and these rarely-seen pictures from the archive trace the movement to its very beginnings.
circa 1908:  A group of Boy Scouts on camp haul a log of wood.  (Photo by Topical Press Agency/Getty Images)circa 1908:  A group of Boy Scouts on camp haul a log of wood.  (Photo by Topical Press Agency/Getty Images)
circa 1908: A group of Boy Scouts on camp haul a log of wood. (Photo by Topical Press Agency/Getty Images)

Robert Baden-Powell was already a national hero for his 217-day defence of Mafeking during the second Boer War, when in 1908 he wrote Scouting For Boys, the manual that has served the organisation ever since. His mission, he said, was to foster good citizenship, chivalrous behaviour, and outdoor skills in boys aged 11-15.

Save for his original omission of female scouts, the template he set down has little changed after two world wars and immense social upheaval. Boys, he said, should organise themselves into patrols of six or seven, each with a leader. They were to be trained in tracking, reconnaissance, mapping, knotting and first aid, and they would earn badges for each. The scout “oath” he set down for each new member has also endured.

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But while Baden-Powell might have conceived it as a singularly British diversion, scouting quickly became a worldwide phenomenon.

circa 1950:  A scout group lashing spars at the Morden Methodist Centre, Yorkshire.  (Photo by George Pickow/Three Lions/Getty Images)circa 1950:  A scout group lashing spars at the Morden Methodist Centre, Yorkshire.  (Photo by George Pickow/Three Lions/Getty Images)
circa 1950: A scout group lashing spars at the Morden Methodist Centre, Yorkshire. (Photo by George Pickow/Three Lions/Getty Images)

Within two years of the book’s publication, there were scout troops in South America, Scandinavia and throughout what was still the British Empire. Across the Atlantic, the Boy Scouts of America became one of the largest youth organisations the world, despite the anomaly of troops having to observe local customs on racial segregation.

Back home, cub scouts, sea scouts and air scouts were added to Baden-Powell’s army, and in 1910, in response to demand from its members’ female siblings, the Girl Guide organisation was formed. By the beginning of the First World War, with the creation of the Brownies – originally known as Rosebuds – the scouting umbrella covered every young age group.

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circa 1955:  A scout group in a prayer meeting in Morden, Yorkshire.  (Photo by George Pickow/Three Lions/Getty Images)circa 1955:  A scout group in a prayer meeting in Morden, Yorkshire.  (Photo by George Pickow/Three Lions/Getty Images)
circa 1955: A scout group in a prayer meeting in Morden, Yorkshire. (Photo by George Pickow/Three Lions/Getty Images)

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