The Boy Scout Association was founded in 1907 by Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell. After serving in military campaigns in India and Africa, in 1899 Baden-Powell had written Aids to Scouting, a manual designed to train soldiers as army scouts. On his return from South Africa in 1903, he had been surprised to discover that the manual was popular with boys and teachers. After consultation with Sir William Smith, the founder of the Boy's Brigade, and other leaders of youth groups, he organized a trial camp on Brownsea Island in 1907, selecting boys from varied social classes and dividing them into smaller units or patrols. Based on this experiment, Baden-Powell wrote Scouting for Boys, published in 1908 in six fortnightly parts.
In 1910, he resigned from the army to devote his time to scouting, travelling throughout the British Empire to ensure that the main principles of his scheme were observed. In 1920, the first international rally for scouts [Jamboree] was held in London.
In 1936, the expedition ship of the British National Antarctic Expedition, 1901-1904 (leader Robert Falcon Scott), Discovery, was given to the Boy Scout Association as a training ship for Sea Scouts and as a memorial to Scott. Due to the high cost of maintenance, the ship was offered unconditionally to the Admiralty in 1953.
Boy Scouts have participated in several polar expeditions, notably with Ernest Henry Shackleton in Quest on the Shackleton-Rowett Antarctic Expedition, 1921-1922, and with Richard Evelyn Byrd in the United States Antarctic Expedition, 1928-1930.
From the guide to the Boy Scouts Association collection, 1929-1960, (Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge)
