Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell of Gilwell in the County of Essex, OM, GCMG, GCVO, KCB, LLD, DCL (February 22 1857 – January 8 1941), also known as B-P, was a Lieutenant-General in the British Army, writer, and founder of the world Scouting Movement. After having been educated at Charterhouse School, Baden-Powell joined the British Army in 1876, and was posted in India and Africa, and served three years in the British Secret Intelligence Service. In 1899, during the Second Boer War in South Africa, Baden-Powell succesfully defended his fortress and the surrounding city in the Siege of Mafeking. In 1910 he retired from the Army.

Baden-Powell was a prolific painter and writer. His 1899 book Aids to Scouting, written for military scout training, was also used by boys. In 1908 he rewrote it as Scouting for Boys for youth readership after testing his ideas through a camping trip on Brownsea Island in 1907, which is now seen as the beginning of Scouting. After his marriage with Olave StClair Soames, he, his sister Agnes Baden-Powell and notably his wife actively gave guidance to the Scouting Movement and the Girl Guides Movement. Baden-Powell died in Nyeri, Kenya.

History

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Early life

Baden-Powell was born in 9 Stanhope Street, Paddington in London, England in 1857. He was the seventh of eight sons among ten children from the second marriage of Reverend Baden Powell (1796-08-22 – 1860-06-11), a Savilian professor of geometry at Oxford University. His father died when he was three, and as tribute to his father, the family name Powell was changed to Baden-Powell. Subsequently, Robert Baden-Powell was raised by his mother, Henrietta Grace Smyth Powell (1824-09-03 – 1914-10-13), a strong woman who was determined that her children would succeed. Baden-Powell would say of her in 1933 "The whole secret of my getting on lay with my mother."

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