Wife Olave St Clair Soames

Queer Places:
Charterhouse School, Charterhouse Rd, Godalming GU7 2DX, Regno Unito
9 Hyde Park Gate, Kensington, London SW7 5DG, Regno Unito
Westminster Abbey, 20 Deans Yd, Westminster, London SW1P 3PA, Regno Unito
Nyeri, Kenya

Image result for Robert Baden-PowellLieutenant-General Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell, OM, GCMG, GCVO, KCB, DL (22 February 1857 – 8 January 1941) was a British Army officer, writer, author of Scouting for Boys which was an inspiration for the Scout Movement, founder and first Chief Scout of The Boy Scouts Association and founder of the Girl Guides.[4]

After having been educated at Charterhouse School in Surrey, Baden-Powell served in the British Army from 1876 until 1910 in India and Africa.[5] In 1899, during the Second Boer War in South Africa, Baden-Powell successfully defended the town in the Siege of Mafeking.[6] Several of his military books, written for military reconnaissance and scout training in his African years, were also read by boys. In 1907, he held a demonstration camp, the Brownsea Island Scout camp, which is now seen as the beginning of Scouting. Based on his earlier books, he wrote Scouting for Boys, published in 1908 by Sir Arthur Pearson, for boy readership. In 1910 Baden-Powell retired from the army and formed The Boy Scouts Association.

The first Scout Rally was held at The Crystal Palace in 1909, at which appeared a number of girls dressed in Scout uniform, who told Baden-Powell that they were the "Girl Scouts", following which, in 1910, Baden-Powell and his sister Agnes Baden-Powell formed the Girl Guides from which the Girl Guides Movement grew. In 1912 he married Olave St Clair Soames. He gave guidance to the Scouting and Girl Guiding Movements until retiring in 1937. Baden-Powell lived his last years in Nyeri, Kenya, where he died and was buried in 1941.


Westminster Abbey, London

In January 1912, Baden-Powell was en route to New York on a Scouting World Tour, on the ocean liner SS Arcadian, when he met Olave St Clair Soames.[45][46] She was 23, while he was 55; they shared the same birthday, 22 February. They became engaged in September of the same year, causing a media sensation due to Baden-Powell's fame. To avoid press intrusion, they married in private on 30 October 1912, at St Peter's Church in Parkstone.[47] The Scouts of England each donated a penny to buy Baden-Powell a wedding gift, a car (note that this is not the Rolls-Royce they were presented with in 1929). There is a monument to their marriage inside St Mary's Church, Brownsea Island.

Baden-Powell and Olave lived in Pax Hill near Bentley, Hampshire from about 1919 until 1939.[48] The Bentley house was a gift of her father.[49] Directly after he had married, Baden-Powell began to suffer persistent headaches, which were considered by his doctor to be of psychosomatic origin and treated with dream analysis.[7] The headaches disappeared upon his moving into a makeshift bedroom set up on his balcony.

In 1939, Baden-Powell and Olave moved to a cottage he had commissioned in Nyeri, Kenya, near Mount Kenya, where he had previously been to recuperate. The small one-room house, which he named Paxtu, was located on the grounds of the Outspan Hotel, owned by Eric Sherbrooke Walker, Baden-Powell's first private secretary and one of the first Scout inspectors.[7] Walker also owned the Treetops Hotel, approximately 17 km out in the Aberdare Mountains, often visited by Baden-Powell and people of the Happy Valley set. The Paxtu cottage is integrated into the Outspan Hotel buildings and serves as a small Scouting museum.[50]

Baden-Powell died on 8 January 1941 and is buried at St. Peter's Cemetery in Nyeri.[51] His gravestone bears a circle with a dot in the centre "ʘ", which is the trail sign for "Going home", or "I have gone home". His wife Olave moved back to England in 1942, although when she died (in 1977), her ashes were sent to Kenya and interred beside her husband.[52] The Kenyan government has declared Baden-Powell's grave a national monument.[53]

In addition, when Olave's sister Auriol Davidson (née Soames) died in 1919, Olave and Robert took her three nieces, Christian (1912–1975), Clare (1913–1980), and Yvonne, (1918–1995?), into their family and brought them up as their own children.

Three of Baden-Powell's many biographers comment on his sexuality; the first two (in 1979 and 1986) focused on his relationship with his close friend Kenneth McLaren.[63][64] Tim Jeal's later biography discusses the relationship and finds no evidence that this friendship was of an erotic nature.[7] Jeal then examines Baden-Powell's views on women, his appreciation of the male form, his military relationships, and his marriage, concluding that, in his personal opinion, Baden-Powell was a repressed homosexual.[7] Jeal's conclusion is disputed.[65]

My published books:

Amazon Logo Nero 010.pngSee my published books

BACK TO HOME PAGE

  1. "RELIEF OF MAFEKING CELEBRATIONS". The Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1871 – 1912). NSW: National Library of Australia. 26 May 1900. p. 1225. Retrieved 17 July 2015.
  2. "Silver Buffalo Awards". Boy Scouts of America. 2014. Archived from the original on 13 January 2014.
  3. "The Library Headlines". ScoutBase UK. Archived from the original on 15 March 2005. Retrieved 2 December 2006.
  4. Deacon, Michael (8 January 2016). "The eccentric world of Robert Baden-Powell". The Telegraph. Telegraph Media Group Limited. Retrieved 21 February 2018..
  5. "Lord Baden Powell"/a>. Godalming Museum. Godalming Museum Trust. Retrieved 21 February 2018..
  6. Köhler, Karl (June 2001). "Some Aspects of Lord Baden-Powell and the Scouts at Modderfontein". Military History Journal. 12 (1). Retrieved 21 February 2018..
  7. Jeal, Tim/a> (1989). Baden-Powell. London: Hutchinson. ISBN 0-09-170670-X..
  8. "The life of Robert Stephenson — A Timeline"/a>. Robert Stephenson Trust. Archived from the original on 15 July 2011. Retrieved 13 October 2009..
  9. "The Scouting Pages"/a>. The Scouting Pages. 9 August 1907. Archived from the original on 26 March 2014. Retrieved 15 July 2014..
  10. Charles Mosley, ed. (1999). i> Burke's Peerage and Baronetage (106th ed.). Burke's Peerage (Genealogical Books) Ltd. p. 159.
  11. "Archived copy"/a>. Archived from the original on 30 December 2017. Retrieved 29 December 2017..
  12. Palstra, Theo P.M. (April 1967). i> Baden-Powell, zijn leven en werk [Baden-Powell, His Life and Work, a True Story]] (in Dutch). Den Haag: De Nationale Padvindersraad.
  13. Drewery, Mary (1975). i>Baden-Powell: The Man Who Lived Twice. London: Hodder & Stoughton. ISBN 0-340-18102-8..
  14. Jeal, Tim (2001). i>Baden-Powell: Founder of the Boy Scouts.. p. 134.
  15. Baden-Powell, Lieuth.-Gen. Sir Robert (1915). "My Adventures As A Spy". C. Arthur Pearson, Ltd. Archived from the original on 19 September 2017. Retrieved 24 December 2017.
  16. Baden-Powell, Robert (1884). i>Reconnaissance and scouting. A practical course of instruction, in twenty plain lessons, for officers, non-commissioned officers, and men. London: W. Clowes and Sons. OCLC 9913678..
  17. Baden-Powell, Robert (1897). i>The Matabele Campaign, 1896. Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-8371-3566-4..
  18. Proctor, Tammy M. (July 2000). "A Separate Path: Scouting and Guiding in Interwar South Africa". i>Comparative Studies in Society and History. 42 (3). ISSN 0010-4175..
  19. Barrett, C.R.B. (1911). History of The XIII. Hussars. Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons. Archived from the original on 21 October 2006. Retrieved 2 January 2007..
  20. "First Scouting Handbook"/a>. Order of the Arrow, Boy Scouts of America. Archived from the original on 11 December 2013. Retrieved 30 July 2013..
  21. Pakenham, Thomas (2001). i>The Siege of Mafeking..
  22. Jeal, Tim (1989). i>Baden-Powell. London: Hutchinson. ISBN 0-09-170670-X..
  23. Latimer, Jon (2001). i>Deception in War.. London: John Murray. pp. 32–35.
  24. Conan-Doyle, Arthur/a> (1900). "Chapter 24. The Siege of Mafeking". The Great Boer War.. Smith, Elder and Co.
  25. Pakenham, Thomas/a> (1979). The Boer War. New York: Avon Books. ISBN 0-380-72001-9..
  26. "Robert Baden-Powell: Defender of Mafeking and Founder of the Boy Scouts and the Girl Guides"/a>. Past Exhibition Archive. National Portrait Gallery, London. Archived from the original on 19 September 2011. Retrieved 2 November 2010..
  27. "Court circular". i>The Times (36585). London. 14 October 1901. p. 9.
  28. Jones, Spencer. "Scouting for Soldiers: Reconnaissance and the British Cavalry, 1899–1914". War in History. Archived from the original on 3 December 2011. Retrieved 27 June 2012..
  29. Reported as "a Yorkshire division" in i>The Times, 29 October 1907, p.6; the Dictionary of National Biography lists it as the Northumbrian Division,, which encompassed units from the North and East Ridings of Yorkshire as well as Northumbria proper.
  30. Baden-Powell, Robert; Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell Baden-Powell of Gilwell, Robert; Boehmer, Elleke (2005). Scouting for Boys: A Handbook for Instruction in Good Citizenship. Oxford University Press. p. lv. ISBN 978-0-19-280246-0. Archived from the original on 21 February 2018.
  31. "Lord Robert Baden-Powell "B-P" – Chief Scout of the World"/a>. The Wivenhoe Encyclopedia. Archived from the original on 3 October 2006. Retrieved 17 November 2006..
  32. Saint George Saunders, Hilary (1948). "Chapter II, Enterprise, Lord Baden-Powell". The Left Handshake. Archived from the original on 14 December 2006. Retrieved 2 January 2007..
  33. Peterson, Robert (2003). "Marching to a Different Drummer". Scouting. Boy Scouts of America. Archived from the original on 18 May 2006. Retrieved 2 January 2007..
  34. "Ernest Thompson Seton and Woodcraft"/a>. InFed. 2002. Archived from the original on 8 December 2006. Retrieved 7 December 2006..
  35. "Robert Baden-Powell as an Educational Innovator"/a>. InFed. 2002. Archived from the original on 5 February 2007. Retrieved 7 December 2006..
  36. Extrapolation for global range of other language publications, and related to the number of Scouts, make a realistic estimate of 100 to 150 million books. Details from cite class="citation book"> Jeal, Tim. Baden-Powell. London: Hutchinson. ISBN 0-09-170670-X..
  37. Mills, Sarah (2011). "Scouting for Girls? Gender and the Scout Movement in Britain". Gender, Place & Culture. 18 (4): 537–556.
  38. Mills, Sarah (2013). "'An instruction in good citizenship': scouting and the historical geographies of citizenship education". Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers.. 38 (1): 120–134. Archived/a> from the original on 9 January 2017.
  39. "Family history, Person Page 876"/a>. The Peerage. Archived from the original on 30 December 2006. Retrieved 1 January 2007..
  40. "What ever happened to Baden-Powell's Rolls Royce?"/a>. Archived from the original on 20 August 2008. Retrieved 8 November 2008..
  41. "span style="padding-left:0.2em;">"Johnny" Walker's Scouting Milestones". 20 July 2008. Archived from the original on 28 February 2014. Retrieved 21 February 2014..
  42. "Baden-Powell as an Educational Innovator"/a>. Infed Thinkers. Archived from the original on 6 February 2006. Retrieved 4 February 2006..
  43. Nagy, László/a> (1985). 250 million Scouts. Geneva: World Scout Foundation..
  44. Baden-Powell, Sir Robert. "B-P's final letter to the Scouts". Girl Guiding UK. Archived from the original on 23 November 2007. Retrieved 4 August 2007..
  45. Baden-Powell, Olave. "Window on My Heart". The Autobiography of Olave, Lady Baden-Powell, G.B.E.as told to Mary Drewery. Hodder & Stoughton. Archived from the original on 21 October 2006. Retrieved 16 November 2006..
  46. "Fact Sheet: The Three Baden-Powell's: Robert, Agnes, and Olave"a> (PDF). Girl Guides of Canada. Archived from the original (PDF) o on 9 March 2008.
  47. "Olave St Clair Baden-Powell (née Soames), Baroness Baden-Powell; Robert Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell"a>. National Portrait Gallery, London. Archived from the original on 6 June 2011. Retrieved 16 November 2006.<.
  48. "Wey People, the Big Names of the Valley"a>. Wey River freelance community. Archived from the original on 10 March 2007. Retrieved 29 April 2007.<.
  49. Wade, Eileen Kirkpatrick (1957). "5. Pax Hill". 27 Years with Baden-Powell. Blandford Press. Archived from the original on 30 December 2017. Retrieved 29 December 2017.<.
  50. "Why did Baden Powell choose Nyeri, Kenya as his last home?"a>. Scouts. World Organization of the Scout Movement. 24 January 2014. Archived from the original on 5 June 2016. Retrieved 24 July 2016.<.
  51. "pan style="padding-left:0.2em;">"B-P" – Chief Scout of the World". Baden-Powell. World Organization of the Scout Movement. Archived from the original o on 30 September 2007.
  52. "Baden-Powell"a>. www.scout.org. Archived from the original on 8 November 2015. Retrieved 1 August 2017.<.
  53. "Scouting family takes pilgrimage to Baden-Powell's grave in Kenya"a>. Bryan on Scouting. 11 April 2014. Archived f from the original on 8 September 2015.
  54. "Olave Baden-Powell – Home"a>. Archived f from the original on 9 June 2017.
  55. "Betty Clay – Home"a>. Archived f from the original on 19 April 2016.
  56. "Gervas Clay – Home"a>. Archived f from the original on 6 March 2016.
  57. Gresh, Lois H.a>; Weinberg, Robert (2008). Why Did It Have To Be Snakes: From Science to the Supernatural, The Many Mysteries of Indiana Jones. John Wiley & Sons. p. 127. ISBN 978-0-470-22556-1. Archived from the original on 8 January 2014. Retrieved 18 December 2013. ThThe symbol [swastika] was used on the Thanks Badge, created in 1911. The swastika had been a symbol for luck in India long before being adopted by the Nazis, and Baden-Powell would have come across it during his years serving in that country. In 1922, the swastika was incorporated into the design for the Medal of Merit. The symbol was dropped by the Boy Scouts in 1934 because of its use by the Nazi Party.
  58. "Boy Scout medal with fleur-de-lis and swastika, 1930s"a>. The Learning Federation. Archived from the original on 23 July 2008. Retrieved 3 September 2008.<.
  59. "Origins of the swastika"a>. 13 October 2017. Archived f from the original on 4 March 2009 – via news.bbc.co.uk.
  60. Swastika#Nazism
  61. Laqueur, Walter (1962). Young Germany: A History of the German Youth Movement. Transaction Books. pp. 201–202. ISBN 0-88738-002-6. Archived f from the original on 10 May 2017.
  62. Schellenberg, Waltera> (2000). Invasion, 1940: The Nazi Invasion Plan for Britain. Imperial War Museum. . London: St Ermin's Press.
  63. Brendon, Piersa> (1979). Eminent Edwardians. Martin Secker & Warburg. ISBN 0-436-06810-9.<.
  64. Rosenthal, Michael (1986). >The Character Factory: Baden-Powell and the Origins of the Boy Scout Movement. Pantheon Books. ISBN 0-394-51169-7.<.
  65. Block, Nelson R.; Proctor, Tammy M., eds. (2009). >Scouting Frontiers: Youth and the Scout Movement's First Century. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. p. 6. ISBN 1-4438-0450-9.<.
  66. Jackson (F.E.I.S.), John (1905). > Ambidexterity, Or, Two-Handedness and Two-Brainedness. . London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co. p. 258.
  67. I. Maris, ed. (1910). Essays on Duty & Discipline. 32. London: Cassell & Co. Archived f from the original on 24 April 2017.
  68. Young Knights of the Empire: Their Code, and Further Scout Yarnsa> at PrProject Gutenberg
  69. "B-P prepared a farewell message to his Scouts, for publication after his death"a>. Scouts.org. Archived 21 January 2007 at the Wayback Machine.<.
  70. West, James E.a>; Lamb, Peter O. (1932). He-who-sees-in-the-dark; the Boys' Story of Frederick Burnham, the American Scout. . illustrated by Lord Baden-Powell. New York: Brewer, Warren and Putnam; Boy Scouts of America.
  71. "Journal of the House of Delegates of the State of Virginia"a>. The Library of Virginia. Archived from the original on 10 October 2009. Retrieved 29 July 2007.<.
  72. "Supplement to the London Gazette"a>. London Gazette. 1 June 1920. Archived from the original on 3 November 2012. Retrieved 17 June 2009.<.
  73. "Decoration Conferred by His Majesty the King of the Hellenes"a> (PDF). The London Gazette. 22 October 1920. Archived from the original (PDF) on 16 August 2011. Retrieved 1010 February 2010.
  74. Pribich, Kurt (2004). >Logbuch der Pfadfinderverbände in Österreich ( (in German). Vienna: Pfadfinder-Gilde-Österreichs.
  75. Wilceczek, Hans Gregor (1931). >Georgsbrief des Bundesfeldmeisters für das Jahr 1931 an die Wölflinge, Pfadfinder, Rover und Führer im Ö.P.B. ( (in German). Vienna: Österreichischer Pfadfinderbund. p. 4.
  76. "Mount Baden-Powell"a>. USGS. Retrieved 17 April 2006.<.
  77. Burnham, Frederick Russella> (May 1931). "Dedication of Mount Baden-Powell". Archived from the original on 25 December 2017. Retrieved 24 December 2017.<.
  78. Burnham, Frederick Russella> (1944). Taking Chances. Haynes. xxv–xxix. ISBN 1-879356-32-5.<.
  79. "Mapping Service"a>. Mount Burnham. Retrieved 17 April 2006.<.
  80. "Nomination Database: Baden-Powell"a>. The Nomination Database for the Nobel Peace Prize, 1901–1956. Archived from the original on 19 August 2011. Retrieved 2 November 2010.<.
  81. "Lijst van Laureaten van de Carnegie Wateler Vredesprijs"a>. Archived from the original on 11 May 2015. Retrieved 11 July 2013.<.
  82. "BBC – Great Britons – Top 100"a>. Internet Archive. Archived from the original on 4 December 2002. Retrieved 19 July 2017.<.
  83. "Rasuwa peak named after Baden Powell"a>. The Himalayan Times. Retrieved 4 August 2012[dead link]<]
  84. London Gazette, 12 September 1876a> Archived 1 February 2014 at the Wayback Machine.<.
  85. London Gazette, 17 September 1878a> Archived 1 February 2014 at the Wayback Machine.<.
  86. London Gazette, 15 January 1884a> Archived 1 February 2014 at the Wayback Machine.<.
  87. London Gazette, 12 July 1892a> Archived 1 February 2014 at the Wayback Machine.<.
  88. London Gazette, 31 March 1896a> Archived 1 February 2014 at the Wayback Machine.<.
  89. London Gazette, 30 April 1897a> Archived 9 November 2013 at the Wayback Machine.<.
  90. London Gazette, 7 May 1897a> Archived 1 February 2014 at the Wayback Machine.<.
  91. London Gazette, 22 May 1900a> Archived 1 February 2014 at the Wayback Machine.<.
  92. London Gazette, 11 June 1907a> Archived 1 February 2014 at the Wayback Machine.<.
  93. London Gazette, 9 November 1909a> Archived 1 February 2014 at the Wayback Machine.<.
  94. London Gazette, 1 January 1923a> Archived 1 February 2014 at the Wayback Machine.<.
  95. London Gazette, 12 October 1909a> Archived 1 February 2014 at the Wayback Machine.<.
  96. London Gazette, 24 May 1912a> Archived 1 February 2014 at the Wayback Machine.<.
  97. London Gazette, 1 January 1921a> Archived 1 February 2014 at the Wayback Machine.<.
  98. London Gazette, 23 February 1923a> Archived 1 February 2014 at the Wayback Machine.<.
  99. London Gazette, 3 June 1927a> Archived 1 February 2014 at the Wayback Machine.<.
  100. London Gazette, 20 September 1929a> Archived 1 February 2014 at the Wayback Machine.<.
  101. London Gazette, 11 May 1937a> Archived 29 October 2013 at the Wayback Machine.<.
  102. London Gazette, 7 October 1919a> Archived 1 February 2014 at the Wayback Machine.<.
  103. London Gazette, 22 October 1920a> Archived 1 February 2014 at the Wayback Machine.<.
  104. London Gazette, 11 October 1921a> Archived 1 February 2014 at the Wayback Machine.<.
  105. "Edinburgh Gazette, 12 November 1929"a>. Archived from the original on 15 February 2017.
  106. Warren, Allen, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, retrieved 14 February 2018 She also quartered the Powell arms with those of the duke of Baden, to which she was not entitled: surprisingly, the College of Arms agreed to this.