Robert Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell

Baden Powel married Olave St Clair Soames on October 30, 1912 in a private ceremony. At that time he was 55 years old while she was 23. The couple had three children; Arthur Robert Peter Baden-Powell, Heather Grace Baden-Powell and Betty St. Clair Baden-Powel. However, researchers are the opinion that Baden Powel was a closet homosexual.

Baden Powel spent his last years in Kenya. He had a cottage in Nyeri, near Mount Kenya. He died there on January 8, 1941 and was buried S. Peter’s Cemetery, Nyeri. A circle with a dot at the middle has been engraved on his tomb stone. It is the scouting sign for going home.

Robert Stephenson Smyth Powel was born on February 22, 1857, in Paddington locality in central London. He was named after his godfather Robert Stephenson, a well known railway engineer and was popularly referred as Stephe.

His father, Baden Powel, was a famed mathematician, a priest and a prominent theologian. His mother, Henrietta Grace Baden Powel nee Smyth, was Baden Powel’s third wife. The couple had ten children, out of which Robert was the eighth. Baden Powel also had four children from his second wife.

Baden Powel died when Stephe was only three years old. To distinguish his children from their step siblings and to make sure that they inherit their father’s legacy, Henrietta changed their surname to Baden Powel. Henceforth, Stephe began to be known as Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden Powel.

Young Stephe was a sensitive child and often liked to play with dolls. His mother took him out for long walks, introducing him to the plant and animal world around him. Thus, the nature had always been a part of his upbringing.

Stephe started his education at Dame’s School in Kensington. In 1868, he joined Rose Hill School at Tunbridge Well in Kent. Two years later he went to Charterhouse School in Surrey and passed out from there. Here too he often sneaked into the forest nearby bypassing his teachers’ eyes.

Baden Powel joined the 13th Hussar as a lieutenant on December 6, 1876. The regiment was then stationed in India. He worked hard and within six years became a captain. However, he did not have to face any major conflict during his stint in India.

The 13th Hussar returned to England in 1884. During his stay in England, Baden Powel was required to travel to Germany, Austria and Russia to gather intelligence inputs and learn about their military development. He also published a book called ‘Reconnaissance and Scouting’ during this period.

In 1887, his maternal uncle General Henry Smyth was appointed as the Governor and Commander in Chief in South Africa. Baden Powel was deputed to serve under him. Here he was engaged in some non combating missions with the Zulus. Very soon he became a Brevet Major and was mentioned in the Dispatches.

In 1889, General Smyth became the Governor of Malta and Baden Powel served as his Military Secretary and Aide-de-camp for three years. During this period, he also served as an intelligence officer for the Director of Military Intelligence.

It is said that he traveled to different places in the guise of a butterfly collector. He then incorporated the information in the sketches of the butterflies he purportedly went to collect. Powel resigned from the post mainly because the position was noncombatant. He then went back to his regiment.

Although Baden Powel fought many wars he is best remembered for organizing the Boys Scout and the Girl Guide movements. He started taking active interest in them even while he was in the military service.

In 1907, he organized his first scout camp on Brownsea Island with only twenty boys. Quickly, the movement spread across the country. Children began to organize scout troops on their own.

In 1909, he first held a scout rally in the Crystal Palace in London. There he found many of the participants were actually girls. The next year he, along with his sister Agnes Baden Powel, organized the Girl Guide Movement. Today, these two movements have millions of members from all over the world.

His two books on scouting, ‘Aids to Scouting’ and ‘Scouting for Boys’ remained on the best sellers’ list for many years. Other than these two, Baden Powel found time to write around thirty other books on different subjects.