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The Chief The life story of Robert Baden-Powell Eileen K. Wade Foreword by Sir William Gladstone, Bt., Chief Scout of the United Kingdom and Overdseas Branches First published 1924 under the title The Piper of Pax by C. Arthur Pearson Ltd The revised edition published 1975 by Wolfe Publishing Ltd. This electronic edition ©2007 Canadian Sea Scouts Homeport — http://www.seascouts.ca/ For handbooks, manuals, traditional Scouting program resources and historical documents, visit The Dump at Scoutscan.com — http://www.thedump.scoutscan.com/ The Editors gratefully acknowledge with thanks the invaluable assistance of Ric Raynor, Karl Pollak and others in preparing this edition. Editor’s Notes: The reader is reminded that these texts have been written a long time ago. Consequently, they may use some terms or express sentiments which were current at the time, regardless of what we may think of them at the beginning of the 21st century. For reasons of histori- cal accuracy they have been preserved in their original form. If you find them offensive, we ask you to please delete this file from your system. This book was written in England and thus contains English spelling and English terms. This file was downloaded from: “The Dump” at Scoutscan.com http://www.thedump.scoutscan.com/ or From the Canadian Sea Scouts Homeport — http://www.seascouts.ca/ Contents Foreword .........................................................................................................................4 London.............................................................................................................................6 Charterhouse ...................................................................................................................9 India ..............................................................................................................................13 India Again ....................................................................................................................17 The Cape .......................................................................................................................21 Zululand ........................................................................................................................25 Swaziland, Malta and Home ..........................................................................................29 Ashanti...........................................................................................................................33 Matabeleland .................................................................................................................38 Old Places with New Faces.............................................................................................44 The South African War..................................................................................................49 The South African Constabulary ...................................................................................57 A Second Life.................................................................................................................63 Pax.................................................................................................................................67 APPENDIX I .................................................................................................................75 A FAREWELL NOTE TO MY BROTHER SCOUTERS AND TO GUIDERS............75 APPENDIX II................................................................................................................76 B-P’S MEDALS AND DECORATIONS...................................................................76 FREEDOMS ............................................................................................................77 HONORARY DEGREES..........................................................................................77 APPENDIX III ..............................................................................................................78 B-P’S PUBLISHED WORKS....................................................................................78 Illustrations All the photographs were selected from the files in the Publicity Department at The Scout Association. Jacket photograph supplied by Handford Photography. Author’s Note This book was written over fifty years ago when I was in daily touch with B-P and was able to check the manuscript with the help of his pencilled notes which I still possess. I have slightly amended, and added to, the original book to bring it up to date for present-day readers, but the material which B-P saw and approved is still there. I should like to thank Rex Hazlewood for his help, and many suggestions in the rewriting of this story of B-P with whom I worked so happily for twenty-seven years. EKW Foreword Throughout human history, there has been a small company of men and women of different nations and of various professions whose lives and actions, ideas and ideals have enriched the world and added to the happiness of mankind. I do not doubt that among these Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell must be included. Although his original training methods and his exploits in India and South Africa and elsewhere (which these pages recall) had already made his name familiar to many of his fellow army officers, it was his high-spirited defence of the little town of Mafeking during the Boer War which made his name a house- hold word. He was a national hero, but particularly and understandably he was the hero of the British boys of that time, which was the early years of our present century. So when his book Scouting for Boys appeared in 1908, the author was no stranger to the boys concerned. Here in these ‘yarns’, as the chapters were called, were interesting things to be learnt and exciting things to do. Soon all over the country (and before long in other countries, too) boys were putting up their tents, cooking their meals over wood fires, learning to fend for themselves and using their eyes as they had never used them before. They were Scouts and he was their Chief. I suppose to today’s Scouts, Baden-Powell is just an historical figure, even if, to them, rather a special one. But among older folk, there will still be alive many who saw him, listened to him or knew him well: there will remain just a few who knew him very well indeed. And of these not many can have known B-P as well as the lady who is the author of this book. Mrs. Wade (or Miss Eileen Nugent as she then was) had been for some months a member of the staff of the Boy Scout Headquarters, then situated in Victoria Street, Westminster, when one Sunday morning in 1914, she was asked to go to 32 Princes Gate, Kens- ington where the Chief Scout and Lady Baden-Powell were living, to take down some letters. Thereafter she remained B-P’s confidential secretary until he left England in 1938. Anything written or edited by Mrs. Wade about B-P therefore carries the stamp of an original, contempo- rary and personal documentary source of history. This book of hers which was first published some years ago, now appears again with revisions. How fortunate for us that it does. I am sure that it will be widely read, much enjoyed and long remembered. There would have been no Scouts, no Guides, today, if B-P had not been the great and unique man he was—and here he is portrayed and recalled for us by someone who knew him well over so many years. Sir William Gladstone, Bt., Chief Scout of the United Kingdom and Overseas Branches - 4 - To the Scouts of today Into the street the piper stepped, Smiling first a little smile, As if he knew what magic slept In his quiet pipe the while. And the piper advanced And the children followed. Robert Browning - 5 - Eileen K. Wade The Chief London 1 London To the heart of youth The world is a highwayside. Robert Louis Stevenson In a quiet street, then known as Stanhope Street, on the north side of Hyde Park, there was born on 22nd February 1857 a boy whose future career was destined to have very wide reaching effects. Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell, 1st Baron, OM,GCVO, GCMG, KCB, FRGS, DCL, LLD, the Founder of the Scout Movement, was the sixth son and the eighth of ten children of the Rev. Professor Baden Powell by his third wife, Henrietta Grace. Baden Powell (Baden was his Christian name) came from a long line of gentlemen farmers and mer- chants, but from his boyhood he had wished to become a clergyman. He was a clever boy who became a learned man. After some years as a curate (of Midhurst in Sussex) and then as a vicar (of Plumstead in Kent) he accepted the University of Oxford’s offer of The Chair of Geometry and so became a professor of mathematics. His intellectual interests were wide ranging, but particularly educational, scientific and philosophical. He was a member of the Royal Commission of 1850 which widened the scope of univer- sity’s curriculum and was a contributor to a book of essays concerned with Christianity and science, called Essays and Reviews, which created a great stir in its day. But all his life he remained true to his Christian faith in his way of living and in his preaching and teaching. He was a friend of the leading authors and scientists of his day. In his memoirs fifty years after his father’s death, B-P said: I had a peculiar father, a man of striking personality. He just breathed Love. He had a brain which placed him in the front rank of scientists whether in astronomy, geology, chemistry or light. He was at the same time a leader

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