Scout Founder's day

Robert Baden Powell

February 22, 1857 - January 7, 1941

Nearly all National Scout Associations throughout the world are celebrating Founder’s Day or World Thinking Day today in remembrance of Robert Baden-Powell, the founder of the Scout Movement, and his wife, Olave Baden-Powell, founder of Girl Guide movement. Coincidentally, the husband and wife team both share February 22 as their birthday.

Robert spend much of his life encouraging the growth of the movement and inspiring others to help train youths in responsible citizenship, character development and self reliance.
In honor of Founder’s Day, let’s take a look at how these famous former boy scouts are related to Robert Baden-Powell. And make sure to check how you’re related too!

Happy BP's day.
Happy Founder's day for all scouts.
Happy Thinking day for all guides and girl scouts.

His Life
Lieutenant General Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell, (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.

He was born as Robert Stephenson Smyth Powell in London on 22 February 1857. BP was the youngest of 7 children. His father died when he was 3 years old and his mother subsequently changed the name of her children to Baden-Powell.

BP was awarded a scholarship to Charterhouse, a prestigious school. He first was acquainted with scouting skills through stalking and cooking games while avoiding teachers in the nearby woods. He also played the piano and violin, was an ambidextrous artist, and enjoyed acting. Holidays were spent on yachting or canoeing expeditions with his brothers.

In 1876, BP went to India with the rank of lieutenant. He enhanced his scouting skills in the early 1880s in Natal in South Africa, where his regiment had been posted. During his travels, he came across a large string of wooden beads, worn by the Zulu king Dinizulu, which was later incorporated into the Wood Badge training programme of Scouts.

BP returned to Africa in 1896 to aid the British South Africa Company colonials under siege in Bulawayo during the Second Matabele War. Many of his later Boy Scout ideas took hold during this war. It was during this campaign that he first wore his signature Stetson hat and scarf.

A few years later he wrote a small manual, Aids to Scouting, to help train recruits. Using this and other methods he was able to train them to think independently, use their initiative, and survive in the wilderness.

BP returned to South Africa prior to the Second Boer War and was engaged in further military actions against the Zulus. By this time, he had been promoted to be the youngest colonel in the British Army. He was trapped in the Siege of Mafeking, and surrounded by a Boer army, at times in excess of 8,000 men. Although wholly outnumbered, the garrison withstood the siege for 217 days. Much of this is attributable to cunning military deceptions instituted at BP’s behest as commander of the garrison.

During the siege, a cadet corps, consisting of boys below fighting age, was used to stand guard, carry messages, assist in hospitals and so on, freeing the men for military service. BP was sufficiently impressed with both their courage and the equanimity with which they performed their tasks to use them later as an object lesson in the first chapter of Scouting for Boys. The siege was lifted in the Relief of Mafeking on 16 May 1900. Promoted to major general, BP became a national hero.

On his return from Africa in 1903, BP found that his military training manual, Aids to Scouting, had become a best-seller, and was being used by teachers and youth organisations. BP decided to re-write Aids to Scouting to suit a youth readership. In August 1907 he held a camp on Brownsea Island to test his ideas. The first book on the Scout Movement, BP’s Scouting for Boys was published in six instalments in 1908, and has sold approximately 150 million copies as the fourth best selling book of the 20th century.

Boys and girls spontaneously formed Scout troops and the Scouting Movement started inadvertently, first in the UK and soon internationally.

In January 1912, BP met Olave Soames. She was 23, while he was 55 and they shared the same birthday, 22 February. They became engaged in September of the same year, causing a media sensation due to BP’s fame. They married in secret on 31 October 1912. The Baden-Powells had three children, one son and two daughters.

In 1920, the 1st World Scout Jamboree took place and BP was acclaimed Chief Scout of the World. Baden-Powell was created a Baron in 1929 and is often referred to as Baden-Powell of Gilwell. By 1922 there were more than a million Scouts in 32 countries; by 1939 the number of Scouts was in excess of 3.3 million.

At the 5th World Scout Jamboree in 1937, BP retired from public Scouting life. 

22 February, the joint birthday of Robert and Olave Baden-Powell, continues to be marked as Founder’s Day by Scouts. 

In 1939, BP moved to a cottage he had commissioned in Nyeri, Kenya, near Mount Kenya. He died on 8 January 1941 and was buried in Nyeri, Kenya. 

His gravestone bears a circle with a dot in the center which is the trail sign for “I have gone home”. Kenya has declared BP’s grave a national monument.

Baden Powell's Last Message
BP prepared a farewell message to his Scouts for publication after his death. His advice of “try and leave this world a little better than you found it” is as relevant -if not more- today and continues to inspire young people all over the world.

He said:

Dear Scouts,
If you have ever seen the play Peter Pan you will remember how the pirate chief was always making his dying speech, because he was afraid that possibly, when the time came for him to die, he might not have time to get it off his chest.
It is much the same with me; and so, although I am not at this moment dying, I shall be doing so one of these days, and I want to send you a parting word of goodbye.
Remember it is the last you will ever hear from me, so think it over.
I have had a most happy life, and I want each of you to have a happy life too.
I believe that God put us in this jolly world to be happy and enjoy life.
Happiness doesn't come from being rich, nor merely from being successful in career, nor by self-indulgence.
One step towards happiness is to make yourself healthy and strong while you are a boy, so that you can be useful, and so can enjoy life when you are a man.
Nature study will show you how of beautiful and wonderful things God has made the world for you to enjoy.
Be contented with what you have got, and make the best of it; look on the bright side of things instead of the gloomy one. But the real way to get happiness is by giving out happiness to other people.
Try and leave this world a little better than you found it, and when your turn comes to die you can die happy in feeling that at any rate you have not waste your time but have done your best.
"Be Prepared" in this way, to live happy and to die happy; stick to your Scout Promise always- even after you have ceased to be a boy- and God help you do it.

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