Baden Powell was born in 1857 and went to Charter House, a Boarding School.

His Mother insisted on him joining the British Army, this he did and was an officer in the 13th Hussars Cavalry Regiment. He found Army life easy and soon worked his way up through the ranks to become the youngest Colonel in the Army at the age of 43.

Baden-Powell returned to England a national hero, after defending the town of Mafeking for seven months from the besieging Boer troops, the first real British triumph in the Boer War.

He returned to England during a depression and he thought the youth needed something to keep them busy and set them on the "right path". He started writing a weekly column in a magazine called Scouting for Boys. It was initially printed in six fortnightly parts, and sold very quickly

Scouting for Boys is now in fourth place in the all time best sellers list, behind the Bible, the Koran and Mao-Tse-Tung's Little Red Book

Copies sold out as soon as they hit the shelves, the youth loved it. Baden Powel organised a trial camp at Brownsea Island in Poole, Dorset, where he tried out his ideas on four patrols of boys from London and Bournemouth. It was a success!

Scouting officially started in 1908 and by the end of that year there where already sixty thousand scouts in the U.K.

And the rest as they say is "HISTORY"……………

Also visit Scouting history - A Scouting Timeline