A Brief History Of Scouting

The Scout movement was originally started by Lord Robert Baden-Powell(22/02/1857-08/01/1941), who was a Lieutenant-General in the British Army. The idea came during his time in service, where he was required to train troops to survive in harsh terrain, building make-shift shelters and eating foods that nature provided.

In 1907, after returning to Britain and finding that he was getting a lot of interest from youths around the skills he taught, Baden-Powell arranged what is now considered to be the first ever boy scout camp. He took a group of children to Brownsea Island, where he taught them the same skills that he had been teaching the soldiers.

The success of the camp led Baden-Powell to publish "Scouting for Boys". This went on sale in 1908 and is to this day, the fourth bestselling book of all time.

Today, there are scouts in 216 countries, consisting of 41 million scouts. The biggest population is in Indonesia, where there are over 17 million, compared with the UK which has around 1 million.