TY - JOUR
AU - Johnston, Scott
AB - Abstract This article explores how the Boy Scout movement moved from an inward looking and decidedly militaristic programme to one which embraced liberal internationalism following the First World War. It argues that the Boy Scouts' wholehearted embrace of internationalism was not inevitable; in fact it was a complex and inconsistent transition, and the result of unintentional circumstances. Furthermore, internationalism did not replace but merely supplemented the movement's older aims of organizational autonomy and the promotion of empire. During the inter‐war period, these competing motives informed and strained the Boy Scouts' interactions with the public and with other internationalist organizations such as the League of Nations and the League of Nations Union. In 1911, the British secretary of state for war, R. B. Haldane, proposed to integrate the various youth organizations of Britain into a standardized cadet programme, as part of a ‘second line’ of national defence. Several organizations, such as the Church Lads Brigade, accepted easily, considering recognition by the War Office to be beneficial rather than controversial. But those programmes were unknowingly setting themselves up for failure. After the First World War they were in a state of severe decline, while those organizations which had avoided connections with the War Office before the conflict saw their membership blossom. Something significant had changed in the British public, who now directed their youth towards internationalist organizations rather than cadet programmes.1 Of these, the most popular option of all was the Boy Scout movement, and its counterpart for girls, the Girl Guides. Historians have long recognized the discontinuity between pre‐ and post‐First World War Britain, observing a new internationalism which had not been there before. But how that change occurred, and how extensive it was, is still contentious. For the Boy Scout movement, as for the broader public, the process of change in values, from militaristic manifestations of duty and service towards pacifism and internationalism, was arduous and complex. Indeed, as this article argues, the Boy Scouts' internationalism in the early nineteen‐twenties is best described as accidental, stumbled into by administrators struggling to manage a rapidly expanding membership both within the British empire and beyond it. Only later, upon recognizing the potential of internationalism as a rallying cry for the movement, did administrators make it a core value of the programme, and a calculated strategy for expansion. Since the centenary of the Boy Scout movement in 2007, there has been a resurgence of academic literature on the successful youth organization.2 Until recently, most of the historical debate surrounding the Boy Scouts has concerned its origins in 1907.3 The dominant narrative, championed by Michael Rosenthal, argues that Scouting, invented by war hero Robert Baden‐Powell, was meant as a character‐building, loyalty‐inducing and militaristic training ground for Britain's supposedly degenerate youth. Rosenthal describes it as ‘a remedy to Britain's moral, physical, and military weakness … It was not just a question of an efficient army but, more critical, an efficient citizenry’.4 The Boy Scouts, he argues, were meant to be the solution to imperial decline, a way to ensure that the next generation maintained Britain's empire in the face of external threats. Rosenthal and the other historians who subscribe to the militarist argument certainly make a strong case.5 The embarrassment of the Boer War several years earlier had indeed brought on cries for imperial efficiency and for a curbing of the degeneracy of Britain's youth, both defining issues of Edwardian Britain.6 Boy Scout administrators attempted to remedy these perceived problems, and elements within the programme they developed justify the charge of militarism.7 But this simplistic view of the Scout programme is misleading, and there have been some attempts at revising this picture of the Boy Scouts' purpose and origin.8 Tim Jeal's thoroughly researched biography of Baden‐Powell, for example, notes that non‐military influences lay alongside militaristic ones in the creation of the Boy Scout movement. Baden‐Powell held many often competing beliefs which found their way into the programme.9 Another of the revisionists, Martin Dedman, also observes this fact, stating that ‘Baden‐Powell's Boy Scouts scheme was a complex mixture of many different ingredients’.10 Baden‐Powell's career was made in the military, but the military did not inform the entirety of his world‐view. Furthermore, as Sam Pryke has shown, youth were not attracted to the Boy Scouts by its military style drill, but rather by its willingness to give them some autonomy as they explored the countryside in imitation of the nation's heroes, frontiersmen and legendary chivalric knights alike.11 The militarist explanation, therefore, is valid but unbalanced. Scouting had multiple purposes and influences. Both sides of the debate bring important contributions to our understanding of the Boy Scouts' origin, and taken together paint a vivid picture of Edwardian values and insecurities. Only recently, however, has there been much attention paid to the transition which took place in the years immediately following the First World War, as the Boy Scouts became a more internationally oriented organization and expanded its membership overseas. While earlier works seem to assume that the movement followed an almost natural progression from an inward‐looking imperialist scheme into a global, internationally minded phenomenon, new research has begun to explore in more detail the changes that occurred in the inter‐war years.12 The theme that has emerged in this new literature is that Scouting faced immense difficulties in its attempts to pursue an internationalist agenda. Tammy Proctor argues that after the First World War, its rhetoric changed from an aggressive nationalism to an international pacifism.13 However, she also argues, that international rhetoric masked deep divisions in the movement. British Scout administrators reconciled ‘their conceptions of white supremacy with their stated policy of non‐racial policies by erecting boundaries within countries. Indians could be Scouts, but in separate divisions’, for example.14 Race, ethnicity, nationality and class, she reveals, were all dividing lines despite the global reach of the movement.15 Timothy Parsons has recognized the same divisions in African Scouting, and demonstrates how the Boy Scout programme was used by African youth and leaders to resist British imperial impositions by appropriating Scouting's values for their own purposes.16 Kristine Alexander has recognized similar trends in the international Girl Guide movement.17 At home in Britain, too, divisions were apparent. The movement attracted mostly middle‐class youth.18 It also failed to be entirely nonpartisan, as its administration tended to have Conservative leanings, and did not act impartially in their open denunciations of communism.19 This new body of literature has brought the perceived teleological progression towards internationalism into doubt. This article also questions that straightforward process of change. It examines the organization's administrative documents and channels of dissemination, which chronicle the decision‐making process that brought Baden‐Powell and other administrators to promote internationalism in Britain itself. While many of the recent works have ‘widened’ the frame, so to speak, looking at Scouting in the colonies, dominions and elsewhere to get a sense of the complexities involved in the transition to internationalism, this article aims to ‘deepen’ the discussion, looking pointedly at the actions of policy‐makers in Britain and their interactions with the community of new international bodies such as the League of Nations and other non‐governmental organizations. The evidence suggests that Baden‐Powell and the rest of the Scout administrators were forced to change more quickly than they wished, conservatively resisting expansion rather than boldly leading the way. Baden‐Powell and his Boy Scouts would eventually champion the cause of peace and internationalism, but it would take a series of difficult events and pressure from external forces to bring it about.20 In order to approach this question, this article is divided into three sections. The first explores the intellectual ‘baggage’ carried over through the First World War in the Scout movement. Imperialism had been at the heart of Scouting since its inception. It now had to sit alongside a new internationalism, and Baden‐Powell struggled to articulate a vision in which the two were compatible partners. At the same time, a desire for organizational autonomy, which had been developed in the pre‐war period, continued to inform the way Scouting interacted with the public and other institutions. These ideals, which were carried over into the inter‐war years, demonstrate that the shift to internationalism was neither immediate nor was it a complete break with the past. The second section focuses on the means of dissemination by which the Scout movement's goals and values reached its widespread membership. Three channels were especially important for the successful distribution of Scouting's ideals: the Scout law, the Scout handbook, and the various Scouting magazines published by Arthur Pearson. Each of these played a role in defining for its members the intentions of the movement. By comparing these documents at earlier and later dates, the thought process of the administrators and the changes in their emphasis become very clear. While rhetorically these sources spouted internationalism, a closer reading suggests an emphasis on empire and the maintenance of an Anglo‐alliance rather than a true internationalism. The final section examines the Boy Scouts' major post‐war initiatives, and argues that its internationalism was at first accidental, and subsequently became a calculated marketing strategy, using the League of Nations and the official project of internationalism to expand the organization's membership. These initiatives include the Boy Scouts' first world jamboree at Olympia, London, in 1920, and the subsequent creation of an International Bureau for Scouting. The section also considers the development of relationships with the League of Nations and its advocacy group in Britain, the League of Nations Union (L.N.U.), both of which were strained affairs but nonetheless bolstered Scouting's public image as an agent of internationalism. Taken together, these relationships, along with the jamboree and other initiatives of the early nineteen‐twenties, reveal that Scouting's brand of internationalism was one still deeply intertwined with imperial values, and was focused primarily on an Anglo‐alliance with America and the Commonwealth. Pre‐ and post‐war values were not so different in their immediate manifestations after the war, and the ideology of internationalism emerged only cautiously from an unintentional beginning. What, and how much, of pre‐war British society was carried over into the inter‐war years has been debated quite thoroughly. As Stephen Heathorn notes, the war's cultural impact has been seen either as ‘a catalyst, as a complete rupture, or as an event of no long‐term significance’.21 From an economic standpoint, for example, Arthur Marwick argued that the war was absolutely a break with the past, discontinuity caused by war's destruction.22 As for the emotional and psychological impact of the conflict, Mark Connelly argues that the disillusionment about the futility of the First World War was actually a mindset created only after 1945.23 Until then, it was seen by much of the middle class as a just cause, a good fight which had upheld pre‐war values. Heroic literature and popular histories of warfare persisted to the end of the conflict.24 As John Mackenzie points out, ‘the ideas and attitudes of the 1890s and the Edwardian era continued in many respects to be promoted in immensely popular media like the cinema’ well into the nineteen‐twenties.25 Certainly many conservative elites were hoping to return quickly to the world of 1914 when the war ended.26 In any case, it is clear that changes brought on by the war occurred gradually through the nineteen‐twenties, not immediately in 1918. Concepts of duty and service remained strong in 1918 in elite society, only really changing from 1922 onwards, as Sonja Levsen shows.27 The Boy Scout movement, too, had its own intellectual baggage left over from the pre‐war years. Change came slowly and erratically. Concepts of manliness, duty, internationalism, imperialism and pacifism were re‐evaluated in the aftermath of the war, and it was a period of tremendous flux. But this change was always informed by the past and by Scouting's powerful invented traditions, which had been established in 1908.28 One major element of that intellectual baggage was the formation of a desire for organizational autonomy. Before the war, Scouting had run into two major threats to its independence. The first was the possibility of being rendered redundant by rival cadet programmes and absorbed into Haldane's ‘Second Line’ of defence. In response, Baden‐Powell advertised Scouting as a useful ‘pre‐cadet programme’.29 He argued that the soldiers who were products of the regular cadet programmes were ‘not fighting men, they were parade machines’.30 Boy Scouts, by comparison, were independent, able to look after themselves without officers, and were trained for any walk of life, not just the military. In addition, he argued, Scouting was not necessarily a rival to the cadets but a useful ally in training boys in citizenship.31 The strategy seemed to work, but the incident instilled a deep‐rooted fear of losing autonomy, one which lasted well into the inter‐war years, and is visible in Scouting's interactions with other organizations like the League of Nations in the nineteen‐twenties. The second threat came not from the military but from pacifists. In 1909, the Scout commissioner for London, Sir Francis Vane, became disturbed by the militarism that he saw in the Boy Scouts. Vane was a dedicated pacifist, and after arguing with the rest of the administration, was dismissed from the organization.32 In response, he organized a protest, joining and then leading a breakaway pacifist group known as the British Boy Scouts (B.B.S.). Most of the Scout groups in London left with him. It was a disaster for the Boy Scouts, who only survived the new rival B.B.S's challenge because Vane's financial troubles caused his movement to decline.33 Vane's actions threatened Scouting not just at home but abroad as well, because the B.B.S. began to advertise in British dominions overseas. As Tim Jeal points out, it was this action which impelled ‘Baden‐Powell to take positive steps for the first time to establish control over the movement in the colonies and dominions’.34 The Vane rebellion, like the cadet rivalry, would haunt the Boy Scouts as they unfolded their internationalist agenda in the nineteen‐twenties. Besides the desire for autonomy, the Boy Scouts also carried over from the pre‐war period their staunch defence of empire, which had been central to the movement since its inception. As Emily Baughan notes, the inter‐war years can in some ways be considered the high point of popular imperialism, and the Boy Scouts took advantage of that popularity.35 For the most part, this manifested itself in Scouting as a patriotic imperialism, a flag‐waving ideology which can be described as a sort of nationalism, but extended to the empire rather than to a single nation. In other words, it was intended to instil a feeling of pride in being part of the empire, in much the same way as the propagation of national ideals which took place within the formal school system in Britain, but continued outside the classroom.36 The language of that imperialism did change, however, as the Boy Scouts addressed the need for a more appealing specimen of empire, which spoke to British and non‐British members of the organization. While support for the empire remained constant, its rhetoric changed quite dramatically, from a chauvinistic imperialism, with an emphasis on superiority and asserting influence over others in a Social Darwinist struggle, to a more patriotic imperialism, focusing on partnership rather than subjugation, and pride in being a part of such modern and paternal imperial relationships. This shift was not universal, nor was it so simplistic, but there was a concerted effort within the Scout movement after the war to instil the patriotic and erase all traces of chauvinistic imperialism from its programme. Most of these efforts, nonetheless, were directed at the white dominions in particular. The Boy Scouts' international efforts prioritized bonds with the Commonwealth and with America over interracial colonial ties. Because these imperial aims were carried over into the inter‐war years, the new internationalism did not replace, but was rather integrated into, an imperial vision. As Patricia Clavin notes, liberal internationalists of the inter‐war years had to reconcile several theoretical contradictions, embracing both imperialism, internationalism and the primacy of the nation state.37 They did so by viewing internationalism not as the opposite of imperialism, but rather as its highest form. As Frank Trentmann argues, internationalism was thought of as ‘a global extension, even a historical culmination of the British Empire’.38 International politics required an arbiter between nation states to maintain order.39 Internationalist thinkers of the nineteen‐twenties believed that liberal international institutions such as the League of Nations could help do this, but so could empires, by controlling their spheres of influence and guiding them towards peaceful solutions to international conflicts. Internationalism, defined as the advocacy of co‐operation and understanding between nations, existed on two scales for the Boy Scout administrators. The first was extensity: they could include all nations, or only those with similar values and interests. Second, internationalism was also measured by degrees of intensity: the organization could merely declare that it promoted co‐operation between nations, or it could actively pursue that goal. There was a definite movement up both scales in the first few years after the end of the First World War, as Scouting adjusted to an altering public mood, but it was a forced and difficult change. The next section measures the extensity and intensity of Scouting's internationalism by examining its publications and other means of dissemination, and reveals that the organization's internationalism was pursued reluctantly at first, and was not at all universal, prioritizing an Anglo‐American alliance over global co‐operation. The Scout movement's values were governed by a centralized administration. Though regular members could write to Scout headquarters with suggestions, they had little real influence.40 This was explained away by Baden‐Powell in a 1917 article: ‘Thus these officers [scouters] are not bothered with committee or office work, as is so often the drawback in other societies, but are free to devote the whole of their spare time and energy to the main work, namely, the training of the boy’.41 As a result, Baden‐Powell ruled his movement autocratically. He was helped by an appointed national committee, as well as local area commissioners who represented local concerns to headquarters. This structure was copied in national organizations around the world, all of which were put under an international bureau after 1920.42 The bureau's job was to ‘recognize’ and register one national organization per country, and to set certain standards for qualification. The dominions were a special case, and chose to remain under the British Scout headquarters, which was renamed imperial headquarters (I.H.Q.). Baden‐Powell took this as a promising sign for the empire and its future strength and unity. As policy‐making was enacted at the top, and then disseminated to the members through various channels, reliable means of communication were paramount. The shift in emphasis towards internationalism, if it is to be observed, is best seen through these very channels. This author has identified three specific ways in which these changes in ideology manifested themselves: first, the Scout handbook, Scouting for Boys; second, the Scout law, which was the movement's ideological core; and third, Scout magazines and publications. The first of these indicators of change, Scouting for Boys, went through twenty‐two editions before 1944. Each edition of the handbook contained slight, but sometimes significant, alterations in emphasis. Elleke Boehmer has noted that ‘Baden‐Powell worked hard between editions to widen and globalize the text's cultural and social references, in order that Britain no longer be placed at the centre of the Scouting world’.43 A prime example of this sort of editing is an anecdote from the first edition concerning colonial subjugation in India. The story described an incident in which a British gentleman named John Nicholson forced an Indian leader to take off his shoes as a sign of inferiority to the British.44 The unmasked chauvinistic imperialism on display in this story would not have sat well in colonial circles; it was dropped from the book as early as the second edition. Similarly, a play, prominent in the early versions of the book, concerning the capture of John Smith in America, was removed by the 1922 edition. It exemplified the British hero, who was depicted as a commanding figure in contrast to the noble but uneducated and easily frightened Native Americans.45 Baden‐Powell also experimented with individual national versions of the handbook, such as a Canadian edition published in 1911. This edition had only minor differences from the British one, but included a short history of the dominion, emphasizing its place in the British empire.46 It was a clear attempt to instil a sense of imperial belonging in Canadian youth. Meanwhile, Baden‐Powell allowed the Boy Scouts of America to make free use of Scouting for Boys despite his copyrights.47 His ‘widening’ of the text was clearly directed towards uniting dominions of the empire, and towards America, in whom he hoped Britain might find an ally. Imperial works which highlighted the positive characteristics of the empire and its frontiersmen were left in place in the text. Rudyard Kipling's Kim, for example, was given a central place. The young, resourceful hero of the story, Kimball O'Hara, was held up as the perfect Boy Scout. In his adventures, he frustrates an attempt by Russian intelligence agents to disrupt British control in the Himalayas. Kim is not only the ideal Boy Scout, but the ideal Edwardian figure of masculinity, doing his duty to the empire on the frontier, and using his wit and pluck to outdo his enemies and win ‘the Great Game’ for Britain. At the same time, however, Kim is shown treating the Indian population as equals, and is given the name ‘little friend of all the world’.48 This is a very different imperialism from that shown by the figure of John Nicholson. The Scout law, meanwhile, as the central pillar of Scouting's ideals, had even more significant impacts when it was altered. Though at first glance just a childish mantra for youth to observe in their schoolyard lives, the law was actually quite important at the administrative level, as it served as a sort of business ethics code or company policy guideline.49 It went through two significant changes in the early years. One came in 1911, when Baden‐Powell turned the nine‐part law into a decalogue, adding ‘a Scout is pure in thought, word, and deed’.50 This reflected old Edwardian notions of cleanliness, where morality was intrinsically linked to the physical. In doing so, the tenth law reaffirmed old notions, rather than creating new ones. The second change to the law was more significant. It came in 1910, and concerned the fourth law, which was originally aimed at preventing class conflict in the highly stratified and class‐conscious Britain. It originally read ‘A Scout is a friend to all, and a brother to every other Scout, no matter to what social class the other belongs’.51 In 1910, however, Baden‐Powell changed the emphasis of the law so that, instead of focusing solely on the domestic issue of class, it became the more all‐encompassing statement ‘A Scout is a friend to all, and a brother to every other Scout, no matter to what COUNTRY, CLASS, or CREED the other belongs’.52 It is clear that Baden‐Powell, even at this early stage, was at least thinking about the possibilities of a global movement. In this pre‐war period, however, there is no real sense of a change in ideals. Indeed, even in the inter‐war years this fourth law was often a point of contention. Colonial Scouts used the statement to demand equality, for example, but were often rebuffed. In South Africa Scouting remained segregated along racial lines.53 Actual international and interracial equality was not the goal of the fourth law. Baden‐Powell was making these international appeals for strategic, not ideological, reasons. First of all, it was an attempt to counter the threat that Vane's B.B.S. posed as a rival in the dominions, and second, it was becoming increasingly obvious that some form of administration and standardization was going to be necessary outside England, as membership in the movement expanded rapidly worldwide. Unchecked and uncontrolled, the results could be potentially chaotic.54 The most important of these international branches was the American Scout organization, started in 1910. Britain had been keen since the beginning of the century to stay on good terms with America, for strategic reasons if nothing else after the reduction of the navy under Admiral John Fisher and the withdrawal from North America.55 Baden‐Powell, like many Britons, was anxious to maintain close ties with this growing giant. Proctor argues that Baden‐Powell ‘looked to the US for the construction of a British/American alliance to “peacefully penetrate” countries and instil Anglo‐American values’.56 Baden‐Powell's attraction to America went beyond even the inculcation of values, however, as he saw Scouting as a tool quite literally to unite the youth of both countries as allies, and wrote earnestly to groups of British youth visiting America: ‘The least friendships, though they may look small in themselves will have a big importance in promoting international friendships and especially friendships between Great Britain and America, which will have a great future importance in the world’.57 The change to the fourth law reflected this desire for strong bonds between allies. It was a reactionary move, a necessary adjustment made to reflect the changing situation on the ground, not a progressive step. At this early stage, it was merely a recognition that something needed to be done to embrace these foreign Scouts, or else risk losing influence over them. After the law and the handbook, the next most important means by which Baden‐Powell indicated his intentions for the movement was through the various Scout magazines. These were modelled on the other children's magazines and penny weeklies of the period, publications like the Boys Own Paper and Chums, for example. These magazines printed exciting stories of British heroes in exotic colonial settings, and attempted to instil a sense of imperial pride.58 Scouting's magazines, produced by Pearson's publishing company, followed this format. One unique feature was that Baden‐Powell reserved one page per issue for himself.59 He used these pages as a personal podium, to preach on issues of the moment, and indicate what course the Scouting community ought to take. By comparing the articles that Baden‐Powell wrote for these magazines over the years, the way in which his thought process evolved is quite evident. One of the earliest manifestations of internationalism in Baden‐Powell's writings is from a December 1911 article entitled ‘International brotherhood’: The different foreign countries – some twelve there are – which have adopted Scouting for their boys are now forming a friendly alliance with us for mutual interchange of views, correspondence, and visits, and thereby to promote a closer feeling of sympathy between the rising generations. International peace can only be built on one foundation, and that is an international desire for peace on the part of the peoples themselves in such strength as to guide their Governments. If the price of one Dreadnought were made available to us for developing this international friendliness and comradeship between the rising generations, I believe we in the Scouts would do more towards preventing war than all the Dreadnoughts put together.60 Internationalism seems to be prominent in this early piece, but upon closer inspection it presents a very conservative approach to international relations. First, it is clear that it was the ‘foreign countries’ which approached the British Scouts to create some sort of interaction, rather than the other way around. Second, the Dreadnought analogy points to a more reserved approach to international relations. For the analogy to be exact, Scouting friendliness would have to be used in the same manner as the Dreadnoughts: these battleships were part of a race to build arms for national defence, and therefore Scout networking must be part of a race to build alliances for the same purpose. Tellingly, his choice of word for these international interactions was ‘alliance’. Baden‐Powell was talking about classic coalition‐building rather than about a true internationalism. In June 1913, a second, much longer article on international brotherhood appeared in The Scouter. Baden‐Powell wrote it immediately after returning from a world tour. The article stated that if the sentiment of brotherhood ‘were only promoted, it would mean an immense deal for the strengthening of the bonds of our Empire, and even beyond that, for the assurance of peace in the world through a better understanding and fellowship between the nations’.61 By this time, Baden‐Powell had begun to believe that Scouting could be a useful tool to break down borders. The article went on to talk about the problems it could overcome in various places: Anglo‐French antagonism in Canada, Eurasian and white in India, Boer and Briton in South Africa, Irish and English in the United Kingdom. But all of these were domestic issues. While he recognized the usefulness of Scouting in promoting unity, he applied it primarily not to the world, but to the empire and its constituent parts. In April 1914, Baden‐Powell wrote another article, this time confirming more bluntly his actual understanding of international affairs. Entitled ‘Anti‐war, but not, therefore, anti‐military’, it did not contain any form of liberal internationalism, but instead advocated a policy grounded in a realist understanding of international relations. The article stated: ‘you cannot do away with war by abolishing armies; you might as well try to do away with crime by abolishing the police’; ‘Building palaces for peace conferences’, it continued, was not the way to ensure peace.62 Instead, the Scouts could bring peace by continuing to strengthen their mutual goodwill between nations. But it is clear that the main thrust of his argument was to ensure that Scouts, both in his country and in those allied with Britain, would do their duty and support military rearmament. Despite the impressive number of times ‘internationalism’ in this embryonic form was mentioned in these magazines in the pre‐war years, it is clear that it was not yet a priority, being secondary to domestic and imperial aims. The weakness of internationalism as a pillar of the Scout movement was confirmed when war broke out, at which time Baden‐Powell wrote to his Scouting audience: [The outbreak of the war] shows how little are the people of these countries as yet in sufficient mutual sympathy as to render wars impossible between them. This will be so until better understanding is generally established. Let us do what we can through the Scout brotherhood to promote this in the future. For the immediate present we have duties to our country to perform.63 The last sentence is key. Any international bonds that may have been formed were immediately to be thrown aside when faced with war, and replaced with ‘duty to country’. In line with Edwardian jingoist patriotism, instilling an inward‐looking, defensive nationalism was still the dominant aim and purpose of the Scout movement at the outbreak of the First World War. Internationalism was only a secondary aim, catered to primarily because of the movement's global membership. That would change in the nineteen‐twenties as a direct result of the Boy Scouts' post‐war initiatives: the creation of an international bureau, the holding of the first world jamboree, and the development of a new relationship with the League of Nations. This next section examines these initiatives, which were the most obvious manifestation of the Boy Scouts' new aims, being highly visible and designed to send a message of reform. It was out of these that the Boy Scouts' accidental internationalism emerged to become a calculated strategy for expansion. The international bureau was conceived at the first international Scout conference in 1920, at which thirty‐three countries were represented.64 The bureau was given the role of regulating all of the national Scouting organizations. Interestingly, the dominions were given the choice to create their own national organization under the international bureau, or to stay under I.H.Q. control. ‘In giving them this option’, Baden‐Powell wrote, ‘we followed the precedent of the League of Nations on which the dominions are separately represented’.65 The dominions' Scouts decided, however, to stay under the jurisdiction of I.H.Q.66 Hubert Martin, a long‐time Scout official, was elected as the bureau's first director.67 Two years later, in 1922, an international committee was elected, and the bureau became a fully functional organization.68 The Boy Scouts' movement could now claim that it was an international actor, modelling itself on the League of Nations. The fact that it needed to create this new, international brand for itself reflects the changing ideas of what constituted a responsible and respectable organization in British society. Despite the new initiative, Boy Scout officials were still quite resistant to change, altering only what was necessary to remain relevant. The earlier historiography, as described above, saw the Boy Scouts as leading the way, a view that tacitly implies a sort of idealist vision – internationalism was possible in the world of the child, through Scouting, before it was possible in the world of the adult at the League of Nations. But that is not the case. Scouting's policy‐makers were very much in the adult world, and were rather slow to take up internationalism. Progressive initiatives such as the international bureau were tempered by militaristic initiatives like the rover programme for older boys. This scheme, begun in 1918, was almost identical to the character‐building, loyalty‐inducing Scouting of the pre‐war years. Its handbook was published in 1922. Called Rovering to Success, the book was almost a step backwards in time, out of touch with the post‐war mood.69 The rover programme, Baden‐Powell wrote, was ‘framed to meet the views of educationists desiring an extension of the school age for technical training, and of the military authorities for compulsory cadet training. It is one which possibly may commend itself also in the overseas dominions as well as at home to run side by side with the cadet system’.70 The association with the cadets implies that Baden‐Powell clearly had not yet been fully convinced that the movement needed to move away from militarism altogether. That is not to say that Baden‐Powell was forced to champion the cause of peace; he, too, had witnessed the horrors of the war while in France in 1915.71 But for him, as for many others, peace still lay in the defensive security of the empire, and only secondarily in liberal internationalist projects. The driving force behind the Scouts' shift to internationalism lay elsewhere, in sometimes accidental revelations. The best example of this accidental internationalism can be seen in the first international jamboree, held at the Olympia exhibition centre in London in 1920. A total of 8,000 boys from around the world gathered in the hall, where the floor had been covered with turf on which Scouts pitched tents, and participated in demonstrations and events for a full week of summer fun.72 Games and competitions were tempered with formal ceremonies and presentations. London newspapers covered the event with daily stories, drawing crowds of Londoners to visit, to see what all of the hubbub was about. Most were thoroughly impressed with the theatrics. ‘Most real of all’, effused The Times, ‘was the great moment when the Chief Scout charged the boys to keep the peace, which their brother Scouts had bought with their lives, to make the world worthy of those who had fallen. “Will you do this thing?” he cried; and the reply came from thousands of throats, “I will do my best”’.73 Besides this majestic call‐and‐answer ceremony, which closed out the rally on the last day, the jamboree programme involved a flurry of activity, including a ritualistic snake dance based on Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book, displays of firefighting and first aid, singing, and cycling. Also included were competitions in tug of war, hurdle racing and bugling. Dignitaries such as the duke of Connaught and Princess Mary attended, alongside Robert Cecil, chairman of the L.N.U., who opened the event. As The Spectator implied, the jamboree had a high purpose: First and foremost it stands for universal brotherhood and the upholding of the dignity and authority of government expressed in law and order – a Scout promises on his honour to do his best to do his duty to God and the King. The brotherhood of mankind – expressed in action by the feeding of the hungry, visiting the sick, the helping of those in distress … [and] the wonderful tonic of the Scout smile.74 As far as putting on a show was concerned, the jamboree was a spectacular success. Held at Olympia, the connection with another great international gathering, the Olympics, was not by chance. The symbolism of this great show was planned to present to the world a vision of unity and brotherhood. In the build‐up to the jamboree, Baden‐Powell wrote publicly in The Scouter: Even if the Jamboree did nothing towards enthusing the boys, towards educating the public, or towards bringing help to the Scoutmasters, yet it would be worthwhile if through bringing together the representatives of foreign countries on the one ideal of good citizenship, it should have promoted the spirit of fraternity and mutual goodwill without which the formal League of Nations can only be an empty shell.75 This confident, unrepentant internationalism was only a public facade, however. Private correspondences and reports show that the international nature of the jamboree was unexpected and quite unintentional. On 23 July, in a letter to Robert Cecil requesting that he open the jamboree, Baden‐Powell registered his surprise at the event's size: ‘The Boy Scout Jamboree next week at Olympia is turning out to be a bigger international meeting than we had anticipated. Some twenty‐six foreign countries are now sending representative parties’.76 Despite being caught off guard, Baden‐Powell was able to turn this enthusiasm into a spectacular show of internationalism. But the jamboree had gone far beyond its original scope. At first Baden‐Powell had been hesitant, unsure about the wisdom of inviting foreigners. He laid out his reservations to the committee in 1920: Personally speaking I never intended it to be more than our after‐the‐war Jamboree – and a resumption of our usual biennial inspiring show. Inviting foreigners to attend it came as a second thought. The committee only advanced money for our own show and the charter would not allow it for foreigners. We have advertised that any proceeds are to go to our own endowment fund – not to an international one. If it is an international show it would be insulting the other nations not to have asked their opinion. An international committee should manage it … We have made the foreigners our guests because it is our show – otherwise they would have come on their own (and would not necessarily have had it in London). For the above reasons I think we should explain that we only call it ‘international’ in the sense that we invite all Scouts to attend – and that as an outcome we shall hope for a real international one within the next few years.77 Clearly, the jamboree was a turning point. It is obvious that Baden‐Powell was initially forced into making it an international event. However, the last sentence suggests that, upon seeing its success internationally, he accepted the idea wholeheartedly. Indeed, he would come to champion that cause, making the jamboree his ‘weapon’, as Tim Jeal calls it, in his crusade for peace.78 Soon, world jamborees became central to the Boy Scout programme, running every four years, again similar in form and symbolism to the Olympics. While Baden‐Powell preached brotherhood from his pulpit at the jamboree, the actual young attendees had mixed feelings about their foreign brothers. Baden‐Powell, writing to the Boy Scouts of America after Olympia, recounted a story where he had asked a young British Scout whom he liked best of all the visiting nations at the jamboree. The boy answered the Americans: ‘Because, well, they weren't foreigners. They were just ourselves.’ Yet for the first day or two the British boys kept more distance between themselves and the Americans than they did with other nations. There was a different feeling about them, it was deeper than the mere surface courtesy meted to others; in their slow British way our boys were sizing up these lads of the same tongue and the same characteristics. On the third day the ice melted away, admiration came and it began respect, and thence friendship grew – it grew fast and strong. Today the Boy Scouts of America are looked on as brothers by the Boy Scouts of Britain.79 This account makes the transatlantic relationship seem quite amiable and heart‐warming. Another young British participant, however, remembered things slightly differently: The Americans had come over intent upon carrying off every competition they were eligible for … but the Americans did not do so well as they were fully convinced they would, and when competition after competition was wrested from them, they allowed their chagrin to become too obvious. The climax came when Scotland won a tug‐of‐war final that America had already counted as hers. Feelings ran high, and it was rumoured that the Scottish Lines would be raided that night, and tents let down upon the sleepers.80 The expected ‘attack’ never materialized, but this reflection shows that some of the more high‐minded of the jamboree's aims may not have reached every youth in the way Baden‐Powell hoped. Still, the jamboree is important because it represents the moment that internationalism in Scouting finally came into its own. Prior to this, internationalism as an ideal was called upon only when it was convenient or advantageous. But the jamboree made a strong impression, enough to be a turning point of sorts. From 1920 onwards, internationalism became a core value of Scouting. It did not do so at the expense of empire, however. In fact, the first world jamboree's most immediate impact on Baden‐Powell was the realization that, since it was so successful in bringing together foreigners, a similar rally might be equally successful in uniting the empire's disparate colonies and dominions. He proposed the idea of an imperial rally to the I.H.Q. high commissioner in 1922: The Boy Scout Jamboree in 1920 was originally planned merely for the Boy Scouts of the United Kingdom, but overseas states and foreign countries desired to send contingents and automatically it developed into a most successful international meeting. The results have been remarkable in producing a new and widespread spirit of brotherhood and mutual goodwill. With this experience to go upon we could make a big thing of an empire Jamboree as suggested, such as would have far reaching effects in the future.81 The imperial jamboree was held in August 1924 at Wembley stadium in London, and was attended by over 12,000 Scouts from around the empire. Held under the auspices of the British empire exhibition taking place that year, it was an imperial display of the highest proportions. Tammy Proctor states that the 1924 gathering at Wembley was reminiscent of an ‘old‐style imperial pageant’, and cites the 1929 world jamboree at Arrowe Park as the first real show of internationalism in the Boy Scouts, not the 1920 jamboree.82 She is perhaps correct in this. The 1920 jamboree was accidentally international, and the 1924 gathering was clearly imperial. Events at Wembley included a historical pageant of Canada, and other such displays from the far corners of the empire.83 Imperialist poet Rudyard Kipling attended for a day, to see how his literature had been incorporated into the movement. More significantly, the prince of Wales himself attended. He addressed the jamboree, joined in a campfire and even stayed overnight under canvas.84 The year 1924, however, also saw an international jamboree, an event which neatly demonstrates the way Baden‐Powell and his administration reconciled their imperialist and internationalist visions. The second world jamboree was held in Denmark one week after the imperial gathering at Wembley. Many of the contingents who had come a long way to be at Wembley attended the Denmark jamboree as well. Since contingents could come for both events, the imperial jamboree had the effect of vastly increasing the variety and number of long‐distance travellers to Denmark's world jamboree. This is exactly as Baden‐Powell envisioned it. He would have found it fitting that the imperial jamboree was used as a stepping stone to reach the world jamboree, because in his understanding of international relations, the empire was a stepping stone towards global governance. After Wembley, he wrote to The Times: The British Commonwealth of states is a great Brotherland … There lies before us yet a wider Brotherland even than this empire of ours. There are other motherlands besides Great Britain; there is France: there is America and Holland and Denmark – indeed every civilized country in the world. All these have their sons. These are sons of the One Father and therefore the world itself is a Brotherland … it is for this reason that our empire Jamboree, big though it has been in its results and its possibilities, is only a step in progression to the greater rally, with its still more far reaching possibilities, of the nations at Copenhagen.85 Baden‐Powell clearly understood the empire as one of several spheres of influence, among which the world was divided. If each of these spheres could co‐operate, they would create a more effective form of global governance. He wrote the fullest expression of this vision in 1939, as a sort of lament, and broadcast it to Copenhagen and Berlin: Nations are grouped generally according to race, and if those which are racially connected were to form groups of states united in comradeship it would be a step gained … We have already the United States of North America, those of Latin America, the British Commonwealth of states and so on. If all such groups cultivate more friendship and mutual cooperation and less of rivalry and suspicion (as very many are actually doing) we shall only have one more step to attain and that is the closer relationship of these various groups about the world.86 The idea of regional building blocks contributing towards global governance was central to the League of Nations system. Imperial realities were built into the new system under other names. Within this framework, imperialists and internationalists were seen as working towards the same goal. Uniting the empire was also helping to unite the globe, through its various regional blocs. The League of Nations quickly became the hub of international relations after the war, though opinions on its purpose varied considerably. It was clear in 1919 that this was to be a new instrument of foreign policy, but there was significant debate about how it was to be used. Did the new institution have the power necessary to arrange international co‐operation, as envisioned by Woodrow Wilson and Jan Smuts, or was it a new forum for the old power politics of the great powers? The British government certainly believed that the League was merely a sort of revamped and enlarged version of the nineteenth‐century Concert of Europe.87 In either case, whether perceived as a liberal internationalist institution, or as a realist tool, the League took on a great deal of importance. The Scouts, having established international co‐operation as an important goal intellectually, were quick to attach themselves to this rising star. Relations with the League, however, were not easy. International relations are a form of politics, and Scouting had a very strict policy against any sort of political involvement. Non‐partisanship was as much a core tenet of Scouting as internationalism, and a significant degree of tension was therefore created between these two beliefs. Any sort of official affiliation with the League was out of the question, but at the same time Boy Scout administrators wanted to associate their programme with the League in people's minds. After seeing the demise of the Church Lads Brigade, the movement was attempting to change its image quickly from militarist to internationalist, and the fastest way to do that was by association with the peace process represented by the League. Relations between the Boy Scouts and the League of Nations in this period were always informed by an attempt to strike a balance between these two opposing aims, to be both distant from, and yet on board with, the official project of internationalism. During the League's planning stages in 1918, its educational committee reached out to Baden‐Powell, looking for support.88 A loose relationship between the League and the Scouts began to grow. League representatives attended most of the Scouts' world jamborees as observers.89 In 1926 Katharine Furse, who was Hubert Martin's equivalent for the Girl Guides, represented the Scout and Guide movements on the League of Nations advisory committee on the protection of children.90 Baden‐Powell himself also remained within the circle of those concerned with international education, as he attended a congress of moral education at Geneva in 1922, after which he corresponded briefly with a Mr. Folkerma about a scheme for international literature with anti‐war morals.91 In an interview from the same period, he demonstrates that he was personally interested in educational reform which aimed to instill a global outlook in youth: A passionate desire to see a League of Nations a success must be fostered in the young, so that antiwar spirit may be one of the dominant characteristics of the next and succeeding generations. This great idea I think ought to be encouraged to grow up in the spirit of the people if the official League of Nations is to be successful. Already I believe there has been sown in the Boy Scout Movement seeds which will go a long way to make for better feeling between the white races of the world and the coloured …92 Support for the League's initiatives was tied up in this interview with a not‐so‐subtle advertisement for the Boy Scouts' own work in the field. Even more significantly, Baden‐Powell separated the pacifist ‘spirit of the people’ from the ‘official’ League of Nations. He was very careful to assert the Scouts' independence in their efforts at peace. Remaining an autonomous organization had been a priority since before the war, part of Scouting's pre‐war ‘baggage’. It had distanced itself from Haldane's cadets, and now it did so from the League of Nations. This did not mean that the Boy Scouts would ignore an opportunity to use the League to strengthen its visibility and authority. In 1923, it asked the council of the League of Nations to pass a resolution which urged governments to facilitate travel for Scout troops. Hubert Martin managed to get support from the very highest circles at the League, as the League's secretary‐general, Eric Drummond, approved of the resolution, with one caveat: it would be ‘more effective to get a resolution passed by the Assembly of the League, rather than by the Council’.93 Drummond's advice was followed, and the resolution was drafted and presented to the assembly that September. Martin spent the week of the meeting rushing around to scavenge up support for it, writing to Baden‐Powell on 24 September: Urgent. I attach a copy of the resolution now before the League of Nations. It passed its first reading on Friday and is expected to come up for final consideration this week. I have written and telegraphed to all Scout Associations in Europe asking them to get their national delegates to the League of Nations to support it. I suggest you telegraph to Lord Robert Cecil, Societie [sic] des Nations, Geneva, asking him to support it.94 The solicitation paid off, and the resolution passed the next week. The assembly, however, altered the wording during the process. The draft of the resolution had publicized the Scouts' outstanding work in ‘rendering very real and valuable services in the cause of world peace’.95 It asked member states to give travelling Scouts any help necessary when abroad. The final resolution, however, shifted the focus away from Scouting somewhat. It is given here in full: The assembly, considering the importance of encouraging contact between the younger generations of different nationalities, invites the governments of the states members of the League of Nations to grant all possible facilities for travel by land or by water: To groups of students at higher or secondary educational institutions, To groups of Boy Scouts and Girl Guides, belonging to a registered national association of all states members of the League, when such groups are travelling from the territory of one state member of the League either through or to the territory of another state member.96 The changes are significant. Not only was the praise for the Scout organization removed from the text, it made the Scouts only one of several groups to benefit from the resolution. The practical use of the resolution stayed the same as in the draft, that is, travel for Scout troops would be facilitated, but the form of the resolution was significantly altered. The goal of the original draft was to aid the Scouts; the goal of the final resolution was to aid the cause of contact between youth, using schools and the Scouts as tools to this end. The League had tacitly put the Scout movement in its place. Education was certainly important, but the Boy Scouts were still just one youth organization among many. This did not put off Baden‐Powell. He continued to promote the Scouts as an organization that was doing just as much, if not more, work towards world peace than the official League. Less than a year after the resolution passed, he was proclaiming that the Scout movement itself was a ‘Junior League of Nations’.97 The Scouts would use that name as a sort of brand, with or without actual League support. Indeed, Baden‐Powell's articles for Scouting's various publications became even blunter in their attempt to demonstrate that Scouting was as invaluable as the League. This excerpt from January 1924 is representative: The other day I was speaking with an official of the League of Nations, and I asked him, ‘How is the old League getting on?’ His reply was, ‘All right, but it can never fully function until the time arrives when its members are men who have been trained as Boy Scouts.’ This answer took me rather aback, and I said, ‘Do you mean that they should go into camp and cook their own grub?’ He said, ‘No, not that; but the only school I know of that teaches service as the first rule of life is the Boy Scout Movement.’ ‘The League should not be a mere committee of representatives of different countries, each watching the interests of his own particular nation, but rather a “combine” of experts in consultation to bring about the good of mankind.’ So here we have another tribute that should inspire our work, since it indicates that we are already on the right track.98 Whether or not this conversation with the unnamed League official happened exactly as recorded here, it is clear that Baden‐Powell was hoping to use the League ideal to promote his own organization, despite the lack of any official ties to the League itself. The rise of the British advocacy group for the League, the League of Nations Union, was another indicator of a change in public attitudes towards militarism and international relations. The L.N.U. was formed in late 1918, after the merger of two older organizations, the League of Nations Society and the League of Free Nations Association. Liberal politician Edward Grey was its first president, with Robert Cecil, an influential Conservative, as chairman of the executive committee. The L.N.U. also courted Labour supporters, and those without any party ties. In doing so, it gained a degree of authority and respectability from all sections of society. It was able to claim, like the Scouts, that it was non‐political. The L.N.U.'s main aim, according to its constitution, was ‘to secure the whole‐hearted acceptance by the British people of the “League of Nations” as the Guardian of International Right, the organ of International Co‐operation, the final arbiter in International Differences, and the supreme instrument for removing injustices which may threaten the Peace of the World’.99 As Helen McCarthy notes, the broad nature of this goal gave the L.N.U. a large degree of ‘ideological flexibility’, allowing it to be acceptable across the political spectrum. It did not specify how the League would do these things, just that the British people should support it in doing them. This way, those who saw the League as secondary to old‐style diplomacy could still support it, as could those on the other end of the spectrum who saw the League as a step towards a world government, a ‘parliament of man’, and wanted to reform it until it became such a parliament. Both realists and liberal internationalists could find common cause with the L.N.U.100 Baden‐Powell, as a public figure and head of a vast, non‐partisan organization, was an ideal ally for L.N.U. officials. The Boy Scouts already had a vast publication system in place for disseminating ideas to youth and their families, one of which the L.N.U. might perhaps take advantage of to distribute its own pamphlets. As such, Cecil corresponded often with Baden‐Powell, discussing various means of co‐operation between the two organizations. As noted above, Cecil opened the Scouts' world jamboree in 1920, and Baden‐Powell wrote frequently describing how the Scouts' aims were in accordance with those of the League. Baden‐Powell was wary of getting too close to the L.N.U., however. Despite its claim of neutrality, it was sometimes too ‘political’ for his liking. Cecil and the L.N.U. lobbied the British government over multiple political issues in the nineteen‐twenties. To take just one example, the L.N.U. opposed a bilateral pact with France in 1922, arguing that it was a ‘relapse into the old diplomacy’. Instead, the L.N.U. argued, Britain ought to strengthen ‘the League's security provisions through a draft treaty of mutual assistance’.101 Baden‐Powell would have found these initiatives inappropriate for a supposedly non‐partisan organization, and distanced himself from the L.N.U. for several years afterwards. In 1928, Cecil tried again to bring Baden‐Powell on board with the L.N.U. This time, he played on Baden‐Powell's vanity, offering him the position of vice‐president. At first, Baden‐Powell rejected it outright, citing occurrences where League advocacy groups in other countries had become involved ‘politically’. Cecil's response was sympathetic but resolute: I am sure I do not wish to press you in any way to do anything which you think would be inconsistent with your great work for the Boy Scouts. I will only say that the LNU is not regarded I think by anyone as being in any degree responsible for the action of the League of Nations Societies in other countries; any more than the freemasons here are responsible for the revolutionary activities of the Grand Orient and other continental lodges.102 But Baden‐Powell again refused. He had other reasons for fearing inter‐organizational affiliations of this sort, having had bad experiences affiliating with the Salvation Army in 1919 and the Red Cross in 1921.103 If possible, he preferred that the Boy Scouts remain entirely autonomous. Matters would have been left that way, had it not been for the interference of Hubert Martin. Martin managed to convince Baden‐Powell to accept a vice‐presidency of the L.N.U., doing so by playing off Baden‐Powell's own concerns about political involvement: ‘I have thought this over carefully’, he wrote ‘and, in view of our recent agreement with the Union, I think it would be policy for you to accept. There is the additional consideration that it will give us some hold over them because if they should start any political hanky‐panky again you could threaten to resign!’ 104 This argument convinced Baden‐Powell, and he finally accepted, joining the L.N.U. in September 1929. Nonetheless, it is clear that Baden‐Powell's and the Boy Scouts' relationship with the L.N.U. and with the official international relations system was strained and somewhat forced. The conclusions that can be drawn from the Boy Scouts' relationship with the League of Nations and the L.N.U. fall into three parts. First, Scouting's supreme concern in this period was its own independence. It wanted to ensure that it entered the post‐war period on a strong footing, and on its own terms. The second significant feature is what the organization chose to do with its new‐found authority and respectability: it began to champion internationalism as never before, but in a way that was decidedly separate from the ‘official’ international institutions. Finally, it is clear that internationalism, though now a priority, was not the only priority. Duty to king and country, as had been the case since 1907, still held an important place in the canon of duties and values promoted by the Scout movement. This article has presented a framework for the process of change in the Boy Scout movement by which it adopted an internationalist agenda in the early inter‐war years. That development was neither straightforward nor inevitable; the organization was influenced by external pressures and events which led it to contrive an internationalist language amenable to its members, especially those within the white Commonwealth and America. The transition from the pre‐war to the post‐war period was one of continuity as much as it was of change. Scouting carried over pieces of intellectual ‘baggage’ into the new era, including a strong desire for organizational autonomy, which shaped its interactions with other international organizations in the nineteen‐twenties. The movement also retained a strong imperial ideology, which it reconciled with the new internationalism by constructing a vision of international relations in which a peaceful global order was the ultimate outcome and culmination of empire. This imperial internationalism, however, was limited in scope, extending primarily to the white Commonwealth and America, while excluding to a degree racial and ethnic ‘others’ by instituting segregated divisions within national branches. This Anglo‐American emphasis is reflected in Scouting's articles and publications from the period, through which the Scout administrators disseminated the movement's goals and values. Finally, through an examination of Scouting's major post‐war initiatives, this article has demonstrated that the Boy Scouts' internationalism was at first unintentional. The first world jamboree in 1920 proved so popular that it impressed on Baden‐Powell the power of internationalism as a rallying cry for the next generation. His development of a relationship with the League of Nations was a calculated strategy designed to aggrandize Scouting's role in maintaining international peace. He aligned the Scouts with the official peace process, while maintaining the organization's autonomy. In some respects, then, the shift to internationalism was calculated and selfish, intended to increase membership and influence. These findings concerning the Boy Scout movement also say something about the nature of inter‐war Britain more broadly. While the shift towards internationalism in the Scout movement may have been somewhat insincere, the British public was clearly willing to consume the new internationalism that Scouting was selling. Scouting's values of internationalism and pacifism (mixed with patriotic imperial overtones) were more appealing, for example, than the militarism of youth movements like the Church Lads Brigade, whose membership declined drastically. Post‐war attitudes towards internationalism, imperialism and Edwardian ideals of masculinity, service, duty and militarism had indeed changed. These ideals were re‐evaluated and repackaged by the Scout movement, but only because those same ideals were being re‐examined by the British public in general. Among the middle class especially is where Scouting had the most success, suggesting that it was the middle class who were driving the change towards internationalism. This research also offers a jumping off point for further studies concerning the nature of that new internationalism beyond British Scouting and the British public. Historians have just begun the process of expanding the field of view to include different geographies. What did this new internationalism mean for other publics, other nationalities, other members and other administrators, and how did this play out on the local, the national and the international stages? Though only elaborate games for children, as Baden‐Powell insisted, the Boy Scout and Girl Guide movements deserve attention from historians because they were imprinted with adult anxieties and aims; a lot can be gleaned about a society from what it teaches its children.105 Footnotes 1 The Church Lads Brigade, which had accepted Haldane's offer, found that its ties to the military were a death knell after the war. In 1911, it had approximately 36,000 members. By 1925, however, that number had halved, falling to just 18,189. Comparable, but more pacifist, organizations such as the Boys' Brigade, meanwhile, grew exponentially in membership during that time ( Springhall J. , Youth, Empire and Society: British Youth Movements, 1883–1940 ( 1977 ), pp. 29 – 30 , 139). 2 See, e.g., Scouting Frontiers: Youth and the Scout Movement's First Century , ed. Block N. R. and Proctor T. M. ( Newcastle upon Tyne , 2009 ). Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC 3 Some of the major works include: Jeal T. , Baden-Powell ( 1989 ); MacDonald R. H. , Sons of the Empire: the Frontier and the Boy Scout Movement 1890–1918 ( Toronto , 1993 ); Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Rosenthal M. , The Character Factory: Baden-Powell and the Origins of the Boy Scout Movement ( New York , 1984 ); Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Springhall. 4 Rosenthal , pp. 3 – 4 . 5 See also Springhall. 6 As just one example, see White A. , Efficiency and Empire , ed. Searle G. R. ( Brighton , 1973 ). Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC 7 The Scout handbook, for example, asks boys to learn ‘how to shoot and drill’ as well as instructing on how to shoot well, not just at fixed targets or animals, but at moving targets like men ( Baden-Powell R. , Scouting for Boys: the Original 1908 Edition , ed. Boehmer E. ( Oxford , 2004 ), pp. 277 , 286). Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC 8 Not the least of these revisionists was Baden-Powell himself. His 1933 autobiography makes a clear separation between his military career and Scouting (R. Baden-Powell, Lessons from the Varsity of Life (1933)). 9 For a more detailed study of the contradictions Baden-Powell introduced into Scouting, see Boehmer E. , ‘ Introduction ’, in Baden-Powell, Scouting for Boys 1908 , pp. xi – xxxix . 10 Dedman M. . ‘ Baden-Powell, militarism, and the “invisible contributors” to the Boy Scout scheme, 1904–20 ’, Twentieth Century British Hist. , iv ( 1993 ), 201 – 223 , at p. 221. Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat 11 Pryke S. , ‘ The popularity of nationalism in the early British Boy Scout movement ’, Social Hist. , xxiii ( 1998 ), 309 – 324 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat 12 As just a few examples of those who make this assumption, see Dedman , p. 219 ; Parsons T. , Race, Resistance, and the Boy Scout Movement in British Colonial Africa ( Athens , O., 2004 ), pp. 54 – 55 , 62; Rosenthal , pp. 280 – 281 . 13 Proctor T. , On my Honour: Guides and Scouts in Interwar Britain ( Philadelphia, Pa. , 2002 ), p. 86 . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC 14 Proctor , On my Honour , p. 132 . 15 Proctor examines South Africa in particular as an example of how Scouting had to reconcile internationalism with imperial hierarchies and divisions ( Proctor T. , ‘ A separate path: Scouting and Guiding in interwar South Africa ’, Comparative Studies in Society and Hist. , xlii ( 2000 ), 605 – 631 ). Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat 16 Parsons . 17 Alexander K. , ‘ The Girl Guide movement and imperial internationalism during the 1920s and 1930s ’, Jour. History of Childhood and Youth , ii ( 2009 ), 37 – 63 ; Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Alexander K. , ‘ Similarities and differences at Girl Guide camps in England, Canada, and India ’, in Block and Proctor, pp. 106 – 120 . Crossref Search ADS 18 Greenspoon S. and Heathorn D., ‘ Organizing youth for partisan politics in Britain, 1918–c.1932 ’, The Historian , lxviii ( 2006 ), 89 – 119 , at p. 92. Google Scholar OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat 19 See Scout Association Archive (hereafter S.A.A.), TC 54, ‘Report: countries in which there are no Scouts’, undated; S.A.A., TC 9, Baden-Powell R. , ‘ Diary of South African Tour, 1931: Pathfinders ’, 15 June 1931 ; Baden-Powell , Scouting for Boys 1908 , p. 377 ; Mills S. , ‘ Be prepared: communism and the politics of scouting in 1950s Britain ’, Contemporary British Hist. , xxv ( 2011 ), 429 – 450 . Google Scholar OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat 20 The transformation of the ‘imperial element’ of Scouting was very much complete by Baden-Powell's death in 1941 (see Warren A. , ‘Citizens of the empire: Baden-Powell, Scouts and Guides and an imperial ideal, 1900–40’, in Imperialism and Popular Culture , ed. Mackenzie J. ( Manchester , 1986 ), pp. 232 − 253 , at p. 250). Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC 21 Heathorn S. J. ‘ The mnemonic turn in the cultural historiography of Britain's Great War ’, Historical Jour. , xlviii ( 2005 ), 1103 – 1124 , at p. 1105. Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat 22 Marwick A. , ‘ The impact of the First World War on British society ’, Jour. Contemporary Hist. , iii ( 1968 ), 51 – 63 , at p. 60. Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat 23 Connelly M. , The Great War, Memory and Ritual: Commemoration in the City and East London, 1916–39 ( Woodbridge , 2002 ), p. 8 . 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T. , ‘Vane, Sir Francis Patrick Fletcher, 5th baronet (1861–1934)’, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography ( Oxford , 2004 ; online edn., May 2006 ) <http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/77196> [accessed 4 March 2013]. Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC 33 Jeal , pp. 404 – 409 . 34 Jeal , p. 408 . 35 Baughan E. , ‘ “Every Citizen of Empire Implored to Save the Children!” Empire, internationalism and the Save the Children Fund in inter-war Britain’ , Hist. Research , lxxxvi ( 2013 ), 116 – 137 , at p. 117. Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat 36 See Baden-Powell , Scouting for Boys 1908 , pp. 273 – 294 ; Heathorn S. J. , For Home, Country, and Race: Constructing Gender, Class, and Englishness in the Elementary School, 1880–1914 ( Toronto , 2000 ), p. 6 . 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Scouts were supposed to be thrifty and find ways to earn money rather than ask for donations (S.A.A., TC 29, Red Cross , 1921 ; S.A.A., TC 29, General Booth and Baden-Powell Robert interview, 31 March 1919 ). 104 S.A.A., TC 29 , Martin H. to Baden-Powell R. , 3 Sept. 1929 . 105 Baden-Powell R. , ‘ Scouting is a game, not a science ’, in B-P's Outlook , p. 135 . Footnotes * The author would like to thank Dan Gorman, Geoffrey Hayes and RyanTouhey, who provided valuable comments and suggestions on an earlier draft of this article. © 2014 Institute of Historical Research This article is published and distributed under the terms of the Oxford University Press, Standard Journals Publication Model (https://academic.oup.com/journals/pages/open_access/funder_policies/chorus/standard_publication_model) © 2014 Institute of Historical Research
TI - Courting public favour: the Boy Scout movement and the accident of internationalism, 1907–29
JO - Historical Research
DO - 10.1111/1468-2281.12079
DA - 2015-08-01
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/courting-public-favour-the-boy-scout-movement-and-the-accident-of-OluZqHrx3c
SP - 508
EP - 529
VL - 88
IS - 241
DP - DeepDyve
ER -