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THE INFLUENCE OF LORD ROBERT BADEN-POWELL ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE BOY SCOUT MOVEMENT WITH OBSERVATIONS ON ITS OPERATION IN QUEENSLAND 1907 – 1937 Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Education (Research) Robert D. Bruce B.Teach; B.Gen.Studies; A.Mus.A. Faculty of Education Queensland University of Technology October 2015 2 ABSTRACT This thesis examines important issues related to the influence that Lord Robert Baden- Powell had on the development of Scouting in Queensland in the period 1907 to 1937 with observations on its operation. Baden-Powell conceived the Boy Scout Movement as an answer to some of the social, economic, and political problems at the beginning of the twentieth century. Using Queensland as a case study, it argues his influence was profound. He moulded the Scout Movement according to character traits he valued, including loyalty, discipline and obedience. Regular promotion in the military saw him in many command situations, including the siege of Mafeking, which gave him fame and adulation as a hero of the Empire. That fame brought him into contact with influential people who saw merit in his scheme for training young boys who could be useful to the Empire. With encouragement, he held an experimental camp on Brownsea Island in 1907 and produced Scouting for Boys, which became the bible of Scouting for the next sixty years. In fashioning the Boy Scout Movement, this thesis argues that the Council of Control in Queensland, the original managing body for Boy Scouts, substantially adopted Baden-Powell’s values and objectives. Baden-Powell believed that it was his responsibility to determine policy, procedures, and the direction of the Movement; a belief that brought him into conflict with leaders within Scouting and with sections of the public. These conflicts were to cause secessions within the Movements in England, Australia, and America. In material focusing on Queensland, this thesis argues that the Executive of the Council of Control determined its own composition and dominated decision-making, replicating Baden-Powell’s attitudes towards control and management. It further argues that while Baden-Powell advocated decentralisation, the struggle between democracy and bureaucracy tended very much towards autocracy. Baden-Powell’s absolute belief in the supremacy of the Empire saw him introduce the Boy Scout Migration Scheme after World War I, as a means of expanding the Empire. Through a misunderstanding about the social conditions in both England and Australia, the initiative was inherently flawed and in Queensland failed in its greater objective. Policies determined by the Council of Control, particularly those concerning the qualities required of Scoutmasters, limited expansion of the Movement. Class and citizenship issues, reflecting the conservative nature of Scouting with its emphasis on obedience, discipline and loyalty did not attract the working classes. In Queensland, as 3 elsewhere, it became a white, Anglo-Saxon, middle class enclave. Attempts to integrate Queensland’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait youth into the Movement met with only moderate success. Issues of race dogged the Movement worldwide in the 1930s, leading to Baden-Powell’s forced ‘retirement’ from active involvement in 1937. 4 KEY WORDS character, citizenship, British Empire, honour, imperialism, militarism, pacifism, Baden-Powell, Scouts, Youth, Queensland. 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS Title 1 Abstract 3 Key Words 5 Table of Contents 6 List of Figures 8 Name of the Movement in Queensland 9 Management Structures of the Queensland Boy Scouts 9 Statement of Original Authorship 10 Acknowledgements 11 INTRODUCTION 12 The Promise of Scouting 12 Purpose 13 Research Objective 16 Context of the Boy Scout Movement 17 Thesis Outline 18 Narrative versus Theoretical 20 Historical Method 21 Critical Thinking 22 External Criticism 23 Internal Criticism 24 Synthesis 24 Difficulties with Data Collection 25 Introduction to the Literature 26 Note: Footnoting and Bibliography 31 Chapter 1: Origins 32 Introduction 32 Creation 33 Character 47 Citizenship 62 Conclusion 72 Chapter 2: Development 75 Introduction 75 Direction 76 Disagreement 87 Divergence 98 Conclusion 108 Chapter 3: A Coming of Age 111 Introduction 111 The Empire 112 The Executive 123 Engagement 134 Conclusion 146 6 Conclusion 150 Appendix: Original Scout Law 158 Bibliography 160 7 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Scout Master Septimus Davis and his Toowong Troop, Fones, p. 18b. Figure 2: Scout Master Leonard Lovejoy and his Ashgrove Troop, Fones, p. 18b. Figure 3: Dust Jacket of Rovering to Success, 1922. The romanticism of the iconography is deliberate. A young man — a frontiersman? in a canoe named Good Resolution navigating the ‘snags of life’ heading for calm waters and a ‘golden future’. Figure 4: Rangeville School Scout Troop, The Brisbane Courier, 31 July 1915, p. 13. Figure 5: Chief Scoutmaster Snow (rear) and his patrol — with rifles, Fones, p. 18b. Figure 6: Mafeking Cadet Corps. Original photograph in Scout Association Archives; copy in author’s possession. Figure 7: Sketch depicting Lord Edward Cecil and ‘Boy Scout’ in Mafeking: Scouting for Boys 11 th edn, 1924. Note the difference in the uniform; there were no ‘boy scouts’ in Mafeking. 8 NAME OF THE MOVEMENT IN QUEENSLAND 1907 - 1937 1909: The Australian League Boy Scouts, Queensland Section 1910: League of Baden-Powell Scouts, Queensland Section 1912: The Boy Scouts Association, Queensland Branch MANAGEMENT STRUCTURES OF THE QUEENSLAND BOY SCOUTS 1908-1937 Council of Control. This was the original managing body created in 1909. Central Executive Committee. The Council of Control appointed its members. Some documents refer to it simply as the ‘Executive’. In 1936, it became the State Executive. State Council. The Annual General Meeting of the League of Baden-Powell Boy Scouts, Queensland Section, known as the State Council, was a meeting, not a body of people. In 1921, this changed. The Council of Control formally expanded through the inclusion of clergy and influential business people and renamed the State Council. This was a body of people, and the Annual General Meeting called simply the AGM. At this time (1921), the Movement created several Sub-Committees, including: * Development * Finance * Property * Publicity * Religious * Special Purposes * Training 9 QUT Verified Signature 10 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS A number of people have made this dissertation possible. They deserve my sincere thanks. My heartfelt gratitude goes to my principal supervisor, Dr. Keith Moore for his acumen and encouragement, and for his insightful comments concerning the labyrinthine ways of thesis structures. My wife Margaret has endured my erratic work schedules and periods of isolation, but has unfailingly supported my efforts letting this story see the light of day. To Claire Woodforde, Archivist at the Scout Association (UK), and to Colin French of the Boy Scouts of America National Foundation, goes my thanks for their efforts in tracking down elusive documents, without which this thesis would be lacking. 11 INTRODUCTION The Promise of Scouting The Boy Scouts promised a world of excitement and adventure: a boy could go trapping with Canadian Frontiersmen, or track tirelessly through the Australian outback. With Kipling’s Kim , he could be a master spy ‘in the Secret-Service [with] a secret sign’, or explore the African jungles seeking the enemy. 1 Baden-Powell, the founder of the Scouting Movement invoked Captain Smith as a means of bringing a ‘wild-west’ imagination to Scouting, and Sherlock Holmes to track, detect spoor and find one’s way through foreign lands. 2 In Young Knights , Baden-Powell explained that Sir Ernest Shackleton was a peace-Scout of the Antarctic where he and his men played a gramophone record for the penguins and found insects that lived in the ice. Lord Nelson was a war-Scout who drove his ship between enemy lines and died at the moment of victory. The 13th Hussars and 5th Dragoon Guards, regiments that Baden-Powell eventually served in, distinguished themselves at Balaclava. 3 Scouting held instant appeal to boys through the ‘gang’ mentality of small groups, ‘but it must be of such a kind as to really interest them from the start’. 4 Scouting created an international brotherhood, which espoused tolerance to ‘every other Scout, no matter what social class the other may belong’.5 These qualities translated into games and activities with a practical bent. Camping in the bush, cooking over an open fire, and bathing in the creek taught ‘initiative, self-control, self-reliance, and self-direction’: qualities that Scouting set in great store. 6 Belonging to the Boy Scouts was an avenue of escape from the drudgery of every-day life in overcrowded suburbs where the very air was unhealthy. It was an escape from cramped schoolrooms that had an ‘over scholastic and rigid curricula [and] a preponderance of drill and cramming’, 7 where learning was largely ‘through graded 1 Robert Baden-Powell, Scouting for Boys , Facsimile edition of the original parts 1908, C. Arthur Pearson Ltd, 1957, p. 17. 2 Robert Baden-Powell, Yarns for Boy Scouts, C. Arthur Pearson Ltd, London, 1911, p. 23. 3 Robert Baden-Powell, Young Knights , C. Arthur Pearson Ltd, London, 1907, pp. 4-5. 4 Robert Baden-Powell, Winter Training Programs, Outlook, November 1910. 5 Baden-Powell, Scouting for Boys, 1908, p. 49. 6 Robert Baden-Powell, Aids to Scoutmastership , Canadian Sea Scouts, Homeport, 1920, p. 18. 7 W. O’Neill, ‘Francis Anderson’, in B.

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