About Cub Scouts

How it all began

Baden-Powell returned to England a national hero, after defending the town of Mafeking (Mafikeng as it is now spelled) for seven months from the Boer troops, the first real British triumph in the Boer War. When he returned to England, he discovered that many boys and young men were avidly reading his book Aids to Scouting. This book was intended as a military training manual, teaching soldiers techniques such as observation, tracking, initiative and so on.

B-P. met with various influential people in youth movements across the country, and was persuaded to write a version of Aids to Scouting aimed at teenage boys, Scouting for Boys was published in 1908 (after a camp on Brownsea Island, Poole Harbour, Dorset, where B-P. tried out his ideas on four patrols of boys from London and Bournemouth). Scouting for Boys was initially printed in six fortnightly parts, and sold very quickly.

Baden-Powell had originally intended the scheme outlined in Scouting for Boys to supplement the programmes of youth organisations that were around at the time, like the Boys Brigade and the Boy’s Clubs. But boys not in other youth movements bought the book, and set themselves up as Patrols of Scouts, and quickly found themselves leaders to train them. It was soon realised that some form of organisation was required to support these Scouts.

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

 We want to be part of it too!

To address the problem of what to do with the younger brothers, Scouting first turned a blind eye to the unofficial Troops that were forming. In 1914, though, B-P. outlined a scheme for the training of these Junior Scouts, but it was not what he really had in mind. He replaced this two years later with a new Scheme, under the title Wolf Cubs based around the Jungle Books of his close friend Rudyard Kipling, with the Cubs having their own distinct uniform, badges, motto, sign, salute, etc.

Wolf Cubs dealt with those too young to be Scouts, what was to be done with those too old to be Scouts, in 1917, just before the end of The Great War, B-P. set up a scheme for Senior Scouts, which changed its name to Rover Scouts the next year, for anyone over the age of 18, with Outdoor Adventure and Service as the mainstays of its programme.

There are 155 countries with internationally recognised National Scout Organisations. There are more than 28 million Scouts, youth and adults, boys and girls in 216 countries and territories.