Robert Stephenson Smyth Powell was born on the 22nd February 1857 in the family home at No. 6 Stanhope Street, South Kensington, London S.W. I., a four-story house in a pleasant residential area just north of Hyde Park.  He was the sixth son of the Revd. H. G. Baden Powell, a professor at Oxford University.  The two Christian names given to Robert Stephenson were in honour of the son of George Stephenson the famous engineer and designer of the locomotive called ‘The Rocket’.  Robert Stephenson was B-P's godfather.

Robert was only three years old when his father died in 1860.

When Mrs Powell made up her mind to have the family name changed to Baden-Powell in honour of her late husband and to perpetuate his name, the family lawyer undertook to legalise the surname. By ‘Public Notice’ on 21st September1869 all members of the family became ‘Baden-Powells’.)

Thus the future founder of Scouting became Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell, B-P throughout his childhood.  Within the family circle he had been called ‘Stephe’ or ‘Ste’, but insisted on being called Sir Robert when he became knighted.

At the age of nineteen Baden-Powell sat for an army examination, was gazetted into the 13th Hussars and drafted to India from 1876-1883.  On leaving India he carried out secret reconnaissance in Basutoland and took part in the 1888 Zulu War.  He served in Malta for 3 years and in 1897 was promoted to command the 5th Dragoon Guards, at the age of 40.

In 1899 came Mafeking, the most notable episode in his outstanding military career.  During the 217 days siege B-P's book 'Aids to Scouting' was published and reached a far wider public than was originally intended.  Following Mafeking B-P was given the task of organising the South African Constabulary and it was not until 1903 that he returned to England as Inspector General of Calvary and found his book 'Aids to Scouting' being used by people all over the country. 

In 1910 at the age of 53 B-P retired from the Army to devote his vitality to the development of Scouting and its sister movement, Guiding.  In 1912 he met and married Olave St. Clair Soames who was a constant help and companion in all his work.  At the International Scout Jamboree at Olympia, London in 1920 B-P was unanimously acclaimed ‘Chief Scout of the World’ and in 1929 at the 3rd World Jamboree at Arrowe Park, B-P was created a Peer.

The Baden-Powell family (as I know it) began with the marriage of Professor Baden (Christian name) Powell who was a Savilian Professor of Geometry at Oxford University and an ordained cleric, and Miss Henrietta Grace Smyth.  A little insight into the historical background of Professor Powell and Henrietta Grace Smyth will give you some idea as to their social standing in the Victorian era. 

They each came from a solid middle-class background.  Henrietta Grace (nee Smyth) was born in 1824.  Her father was Captain William Henry Smyth, a naval captain (later to become an Admiral), and his claim to fame was for charting the Mediterranean in the 1820s in HMS Adventure – he was known as ‘Mediterranean Smyth’.

Henrietta Grace’s mother had a half brother who married and is said to be a distant relative to Lord Nelson; Henrietta Grace took pride in always claiming herself to be the great-niece of Lord Nelson.  Not much information has been written about Henrietta Grace's mother but Henrietta Grace did come from a large family comprising three brothers and six sisters.

Captain Smyth was a gold medallist of the Royal Astronomical Society, became Vice-President of the Royal Society and an author of an encyclopaedic guide to the movement of the stars.  This gave Henrietta Grace an opportunity to mix with many famous scientists and scholars of the day.  It was on a visit to Oxford when Captain Smyth and his daughter called upon another Oxford acquaintance, one Reverend Baden Powell.  Miss Smyth and Professor Powell met again in 1845, and again six years later, by which time she was 21 and he was 48 and a widower for the second time.  Further meetings ensued and she eventually became his third wife in 1846.

As previously mentioned, the Professor had previously been married twice.  His first marriage was to Eliza Rivas in 1821; it ended with Eliza's death after fifteen years of marriage and without issue.  His second marriage was to Charlotte Pope in 1837 of which there were four children, a boy and three girls; the younger two were adopted by an aunt on their mother's death in 1844.  The other two (7 year old Charlotte Elizabeth and 4 year old Baden Henry) were living with their father at the time of his third marriage.  Mrs Powell was delighted to have received in her arms these two children.  With the Professor’s marriage to Henrietta, they had a further ten children, Warington, George, Augustus, Frank, Henrietta, Penrose, Jessie, Robert, Agnes, and Baden.  It was during 1855 and 1856 that three of these children, Henrietta, Penrose, and Jessie died in infancy with diphtheria probably accounting for two of the deaths and pneumonia for the third.  All the children carried the maternal family name of Smyth before their surnames.

The family, complete with children, moved from Oxford to live in London.

One third of Queen Victoria's long reign had passed for the year was 1857.  The Nile had not been discovered, nor had the invention of the motor car or aeroplane been made.  The dust had scarcely settled in the reckless but glorious Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava just three years earlier.  In America it would be another four years before the first shots were fired in the Civil War.

B-P was educated at various schools including Rose Hill School, Tunbridge Wells and it was at Charterhouse where he first became interested in the arts of scouting and woodcraft. It was there that he began to teach himself skills such as tracking and play acting, which were to become two of the many fundamental elements used by Scouts and Cub Scouts in their activity programmes and is still used today.  It was at Charterhouse School that B-P received another kind of training that was important to his development and that was character building.  Part of this training was achieved through the hands of his older brothers, who taught him teamwork, resourcefulness, and courage; these elements helped to make him tough.

It was with his brothers that he went off on various adventures for days at a time; these excursions consisted of such activities as canoeing trips, camping, catching their own fish, cooking for themselves, and swimming.

The slogan ‘Be Prepared’ (later to become the Boy Scouts’ motto) really came into being when B-P became the forces Inspector General (he previously established The South African Constabulary, a civil police force, on the instructions of Lord Roberts, some months before) and they chose for their slogan ‘Be Prepared’ partly because it bespoke of their readiness to take on any kind of duty at any time, and partly because of its play on their Commander's initials.  It was by founding the South African Constabulary that in certain aspects, particularly with the khaki uniform and the broad brimmed hat and its regimen, proved to be a 'dry run' for the founding of what was then to become the Boy Scout Movement.

It was after B-P attended a Drill Inspection and Review of the Boys' Brigade at the Albert Hall, that its founder Sir William Smith set a challenge for B-P.  The challenge was for B-P to improve the Boy's Brigade with activities, aims and ideals etc.  This youth organisation had already begun but was still very new in its concept and was having difficulty in attracting the youth of the day to join it.  Its programme needed to be developed in such way so as to increase membership.  Could B-P help?  B-P discovered that it copied the old-fashioned military drill of the army and suggested that if the programme was more varied it would increase the membership.

It was as the result of this work that B-P was carrying out for the Boy's Brigade that he found he had embarked upon creating a separate youth movement unintentionally, giving way to the birth of The Boy Scout Movement. As mentioned earlier his book ‘Aids to Scouting’ had circulated the nation and it had captivated much interest at this time.  B-P wrote many more handbooks on scout craft, development and life-skills in his lifetime.

It was on a fishing holiday in May 1907 that B-P met a charming couple in their late forties – Mr and Mrs Charles van Raalte who had a home in London and another on Brownsea Island in Dorset.  B-P had rewritten his book and he decided this was an ideal spot for an experimental camp to test his theories..  There were twenty-one boys in all under canvas.  It proved to be the first of millions of Scout Camps that have since been held all over the world.  Later ‘Scouting for boys’ was published in six fortnightly parts and it was then that boys of their own initiative began forming themselves into Scout Troops all over the country and this quickly spread to other countries.
 
Rations and equipment had to be ferried across to the island from Poole and the local Boy's Brigade undertook to do this – though some items of equipment B-P demanded were 'not readily obtainable in a small seaside town' – harpoons for instance! These had to be made by the local blacksmith.

What a thrill that first camp must have been!  Just to be living alongside the Hero of Mafeking would have been exciting enough, but to see the actual flag that flew over his H.Q. in the besieged town now fluttering from a lance-point outside his tent was romance indeed.

How exciting to be roused each morning by a deep blast on the koodoo horn he had brought back from the Matabele Campaign: to spend the days in woodcraft and scouting exercises: to spend evenings gathered round a camp-fire listening to the yarns that B-P told of far away places where he had served: to join together in prayer under the summer stars and then to turn in to listen to the unfamiliar sounds of the night, and to sleep the contented sleep that comes with fresh air and exercise and happiness! 

The boys learned to make the calls of their patrols.  The cry of the curlew was heard along the shores of Brownsea Island and bulls bellowed even in its woods.  There was cooking over open fires, harpooning' of log 'whales' on the island's lake, and stalking of each other and visitors to the island.  B-P remembered John Dunn's impi and the impression the deep-throated chant of the warriors had made on him.  He even remembered the words and the translation John Dunn had given him.  He taught the chant to those first Scouts and young voices sought to emulate the deep-throated chant of the Zulus.

Eengonyama Gonyama! Invooboo!
Ya-boh! Ya-boh! Invooboo!
He is a lion, Yes, he is better than a lion!
He is a hippopotamus!

The Boy Scout Movement was established and it spread very quickly to numerous countries the world over.

The Crystal Palace Rally in 1909 marked the first major event (the first International Scout Jamboree) and it was here that a party of girls dressed in white blouses, blue skirts, long black stockings, wearing Scout hats, Scout scarves and carrying Scout staves declared themselves as being Girl Scouts and were insistent that they wanted a movement as well - thus the Girl Guides were born and Agnes (B-P's sister) took charge and became that movement’s first President.

It was in 1912 that B-P met Olave St. Clair Soames, who was cruising with her father on board the S.S.  Arcadian.  The ship was sailing between Australia and England; on this occasion it was heading to New York via the Caribbean.  After a brief courtship, most of which was conducted through letters, B-P became engaged to Olave on the 20th September 1912 and she became Lady Baden-Powell on the 30th October 1912 with the wedding taking place at St. Peter's Anglican Church in Parkstone, Dorset.  Lady Baden-Powell became Chief Guide in 1916

The year 1914 also saw the establishment of the Wolf Cubs whose programme of activities is based on Rudyard Kipling's ‘Jungle Book’.  Rudyard was a close friend of B-P.  The Wolf Cub Handbook was published on 2nd December 1916.

In 1938 B-P went to live in Kenya.  He had become frail and ill and he died peacefully at Paxtu on 8th January 1941.  B-P was almost eighty-four years old.   Both he and Olave are buried in the cemetery in Nyeri.