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IN Hawstead Church, Suffolk, there is a memorial window to John Powell who died in 1725. His second son, David, was apprenticed to a Salter of London. When this son married, his father wrote to him, 'Let us know when you have hired a house that we may send something to fill the cupboard, for you will find it chargeable as our old say is, to buy salt for the cat, likewise soap and candles must be had. Afterwards it is to be hoped a cradle. I pray God to bless you both, and continue so that you may say at 33 years ' end, as your mother and I can, that we have lived in peace and plenty which must be imputed to the great God's blessing'. His other letters to David show a similar mingling of the practical and the pious. One passage was selected by his descendants for the inscription beneath the memorial window.
I conclude all with hearty prayer for God Almighty's Blessings on you all and good wishes for your good success in all your undertakings, which Good God, if you take care to serve in your family and elsewhere as you ought, you need not fear His care for you, and it will entail His Blessings on all your posterity which still I heartily pray for.
This John Powell was descended from William Powell who was settled at Mildenhall, Suffolk, in the fifteenth century. The name suggests a Welsh origin, but of this nothing certain can be said.
David Powell married Susanna the granddaughter of Andrew Baden of New Sarum. (Salisbury) and so the name Baden came into the family. He prospered as a merchant of Old Broad Street, and retired to his native county where he bought the manor of Wattesfield. A grandson, Baden, became possessed of the manor of Langton and Speldhurst, near Tunbridge Wells, Kent. His son, Baden, born in 1796, after taking a first-class degree at Oxford was ordained and became Vicar of Plumstead in 1821.
The Revd. H. G. Baden Powell, the father of B.-P., was a scientist of note. He was an authority on optics and radiation and worked with Herschel on these subjects. In addition he had a wide knowledge of natural history. In 1824 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, and in 1827 Savilian Professor of Geometry at Oxford. His standing in the University may be judged by his appointment as one of its representatives on the Royal Commission of 1850. He was a pioneer in advocating that Natural Science should be given a recognized place in University studies. In theology he was a Broad-Churchman and in the unreal but bitter conflict between religion and science, he took his place with those who held that there was nothing in the progress of knowledge incompatible with a sincere and practical Christianity. With Jowett, Mark Pattison and Temple, he contributed to that volume of Essays and Reviews which caused such a storm in 1860. His own essay set out to show that the truth of Christianity did not depend on a belief in miracles. Had he not died shortly after the volume was published, he would undoubtedly have been prosecuted as a heretic as were two of his colleagues. The verdict against them was, however, reversed by the Privy Council --- an action irreverently described at the time as 'dismissing eternal punishment with costs'.
He must not be pictured as a strong controversialist; he disliked violence in print as much as in speech while remaining firm in his own opinions. In private life he was the kindest of men. The words written in a letter by his most famous son in 1915, echoed the opinion of many contemporaries.
'I have only recently', wrote B.-P., 'owing to the death of my mother, come into possession of my father's diaries, etc. But these and his sketch books show he was in practice what we try to teach the Scouts to be --- a God-loving (not "fearing") man: manly, and very honest in his convictions; full of humour, an ardent nature-student, full of kindness for others, fond of his family, always cheery, eager to help to raise the tone, moral and material, of the Nation.'
Professor Baden Powell was married three times. His first wife died without issue. By his second wife, he had two daughters and a son: the latter, Henry Baden (1841-1901) became a judge of the Chief Court, Lahore, and wrote an authoritative book on the Land Systems of British India. His mother died in 1844. Two years later, Professor Baden Powell married Henrietta Grace, one of the daughters of Admiral William Smyth (1788-1865) the son of a loyalist who refused to fight against England in the War of American Independence. He lost considerable estates in New Jersey. The Smyths claimed descent from the family of Captain John Smith, the Elizabethan adventurer who was one of the colonizers of Virginia.
The future Admiral's work in charting the Mediterranean earned him the nickname of 'Mediterranean Smyth'. His researches, particularly in astronomy, brought him a Fellowship of the Royal Society and other honours. He was a founder of the Royal Geographical Society, and of the United Service Institution. His somewhat spartan way of living is illustrated by his belief that no man needed more than five hours' sleep a day. He was a prolific writer and as soon as they were old enough his children earned pocket-money by proof-reading at the rate of a penny for every four errors detected. The mother was an accomplished artist and the children inherited her talent as well as the scientific interests of the father. The eldest son, Warington, was knighted for his work as a geologist, and another son became Astronomer Royal of Scotland. One daughter married William Henry Flower who was knighted for his. services as Director of the Natural History Museum.
When Henrietta Smyth married Professor Baden Powell, her eldest stepdaughter was eight years old, the youngest was three, and Henry was five. She became the mother of ten children. Three did not survive infancy. The eldest was Henry Warington Smyth (all the children were christened Smyth, but not Baden) born in February 1847. He early showed a passion for the sea, and after a Conway training he entered the merchant service, but later he changed to the law and became an Admiralty barrister and a King's Counsel. He died in 1921. The second son, George, was born in December 1847. He became interested in colonial affairs and for his work as a Member of Parliament and on many Commissions he was knighted. He died in 1898. A third son, Augustus, was born in May 1849 and died at the age of thirteen. Frank, the fourth son, was born in July 1850. He became a barrister, but he also made a name for himself as an artist, exhibiting paintings and sculpture at the Royal Academy and the Paris Salon. He died in 1933. Robert Stephenson Smyth, the subject of this biography, was born on the 22nd February 1857 at his parents' home, 6 Stanhope Gardens, London. A daughter Agnes was born in December 1858. The last child, Baden Fletcher, was born in May 1860. One month later Professor Baden Powell died.
The task which faced Mrs. Baden-Powell might easily have daunted a less able woman. On moderate means she had to bring up a family of seven children of whom the eldest, Warington, was thirteen years, and the youngest one month, old. There were also the three stepchildren, the eldest of whom was twenty-two. She was something more than a good manager; she inherited her mother's skill as an artist. Evidence of this can be seen in the Cardiff Public Library which possesses a number of her water-colour and other drawings of Cardiff done about 1840 when Admiral Smyth lived in that city as adviser to Lord Bute on the construction of the first dock. She must also have been a woman of attractive personality, for amongst her friends were such men as Jowett, Dean Stanley, Ruskin, Browning, Thackeray and Tyndall. Nor did she allow her family cares to absorb all her goodwill, for she found time to help the hospitals in the poorer districts of London, and she worked with Miss Shirreff and her sister Mrs. Grey for the better education of girls. She was a member of the Central Committee of the Women's Education Union, which in 1872 founded the Girls' Public Day School Company.
B.-P. was known in the family as 'Ste' --- a shortened form of his second name, Stephenson, which was from his godfather, Robert Stephenson, the bridge-builder and engineer, and Professor Baden Powell's greatest friend. His earliest schooling came from his mother who was doubtless following the methods used by her husband with the older children, for he would take them out into the country and talk to them about the animals and the plants, and at home they were allowed to amuse themselves in his study with his books of natural history or his specimens; even when he was busy writing, they could interrupt him with questions. With such an example, and the added encouragement of her father the Admiral (who died when B.-P. was eight), and of her brothers and brother-in-law, all of whom were expertly interested in natural science, it is not surprising that the early education of the children was more concerned with the observation of outdoor life than with the reading of books; that this was not purely superficial may be judged from a sentence B.-P. wrote in a letter to his mother during the Matabele war of 1896. He was referring to his association with the famous American Scout, Burnham, and said, 'We got on well together, and he much approved of the results of your early development in me of the art of inductive reasoning --- in fact, before we had examined and worried out many little indications in the course of our ride, he had nicknamed me Sherlock Holmes'.
The moral atmosphere of the home can he gauged by the following 'Laws for me when I grow old' written down by B.-P. just after his eighth birthday:
I will have the poor people to be as rich as we are, and they ought by rights to be happy as we are, and all who go across the crossings shall give the poor crossing sweeper some money and you ought to thank God for what He has given us and He made the poor people to be poor and the rich people to be rich and I can tell you how to be good. Now I will tell you. You must pray to God whenever you can but you cannot be good with only praying but you must try very hard to be good
by
R. S. S. POWELL,
Feb. 26, 1865.
Robert Stephenson Smyth Powell.
His grandfather, the Admiral, who died a few months later, said this was rather like Jack Cade's wish to make 'the rich and poor share alike in purse'. He reminded his grandson of Jack Cade's fate.
The chief interest, however, in these 'Laws' lies in their revelation of the mother's teaching, and the outlook of the home. Admiral Smyth may have thought them a bit socialistic, but the attitude towards others was of the age of Charles Kingsley. B.-P. remained true to part of that teaching, for no man has more vehemently held that 'you cannot be good with only praying'.
One of the virtues of the large Victorian family was that no individual member could receive special consideration unless the parents deliberately favoured one at the expense of the others; and while there often was strict discipline of the kind not approved to-day, the very number of the children made for the rough-and-tumble freedom of a happy family life. Such certainly was the experience of the Baden-Powells.
Out of doors they were encouraged to satisfy their curiosity about all forms of Nature, and indoors to keep themselves busy with whatever interests their abilities suggested.
A glimpse of this home-life is given in an incident connected with one of John Ruskin's visits. He was taken upstairs to see what the children were doing. One boy was busy with a book about stars; B.-P. was painting. This naturally interested the great art critic. He looked at the boy's work and then gave him a lesson on how to use his box of colours. Using the top of his tall hat as a desk, he sketched and coloured a small vase. Mrs. Baden-Powell was a little worried because the boy seemed to use either hand with equal skill. She asked Ruskin's advice. His answer was reassuring, 'Let him draw as he will, madam'. So B.-P. developed his ambidexterity, and could draw the outline with one hand, and shade in with the other; and as a parlour-trick could even do two drawings at the same time.
A meeting with another famous man was perhaps B.-P.'s first association with Charterhouse, for W. M. Thackeray was a famous Carthusian. At dinner one evening the creator of Colonel Newcome noticed that 'Ste' had slipped in amongst the company. He quietly bribed the child with a shilling to go off to bed again before his mother noticed him. A Dame's School in Kensington Square provided B.-P. with his first formal schooling, but in 1868 he went to the Rose Hill School, Tunbridge Wells. Nearly sixty years earlier his father had attended the same school, as it was near his home at Speldhurst. B.-P.'s visits there took him through Shadwell Woods and so added to his outdoor experiences and knowledge.
In 1869 he gained scholarships at both Fettes and Charterhouse Schools, and it was decided that he should go to the more ancient foundation. This decision was probably made on the obvious grounds that Charterhouse was in London and Fettes in Edinburgh, and the Baden-Powells had no Scottish connection of any kind. But it was to prove of great importance in the boy's development, for he came under the influence of that remarkable man Dr. William Haig Brown --- an influence all the more powerful since B.-P. had lost his father ten years previously.
Charterhouse School was still in London in 1870 when B.-P. joined the school as a Gownboy Foundationer. A contemporary described him at this period as 'a boy of medium size, curly red hair, decidedly freckled, with a pair of twinkling eyes that soon won friends for him'. Three years previously an Act of Parliament permitted removal, and Dr. Haig Brown had chosen a site at Godalming where the first sod was turned on Founder's Day (1 December) 1869. It was not until 1872 that the new buildings were occupied. B.-P. therefore had the benefit of two years in the ancient London buildings with all that they meant in tradition; there famous Carthusians such as Steele and Addison, John Wesley and Thackeray had been educated. In The Newcomes the last immortalized the pensioners or 'Old Codds' who shared with the boys the benefits of Thomas Sutton's foundation. Those last two years in the old buildings (now bombed to ruins) must have had all the stimulus of any period of transition. The figure of Haig Brown --- well called the second Founder of Charterhouse --- dominated all..
He had a genius for governing boys and something of his methods remained indelibly impressed on the mind of the observant new Gownboy. The boys were given an unusual measure of independence and responsibility, for he was no lover of rules and regulations. He relied on a thorough personal knowledge of each boy for guidance, not on any preconceived theory of education; each boy was a personality to be respected as such. His teaching in his sermons was direct and simple, and the most memorable were studies of Old Testament characters. He did not encourage intellectual difficulties, but felt that during boyhood plain directions for decent living were more important as a foundation for after life. With this was linked a quickness of wit which has become legendary. His repartees were famous. To one parent who said he wished his son 'interred' at the school, he promptly replied that he would be glad to 'undertake' the boy. And a lady who asked him if all the boys were the sons of gentlemen was informed that 'we do not include the education of the parents'.
One incident may be given as typical of his relationships with the boys. B.-P. in after years used to describe this as his first lesson in tactics. An intermittent traditional war was waged between the Charterhouse boys and the butcher boys of Smithfield. On this occasion the school wall divided the combatants who were hurling stones and brickbats at each other. Suddenly 'Old Bill' --- Dr. Haig Brown --- arrived on the scene, and after watching the progress of the battle he remarked to some boys who were not big enough to be active combatants, 'If you boys go through that door in the side wall you could outflank them'. B.-P. was one of these smaller boys. They pointed out that the door was locked. The Doctor at once produced the key from his pocket, and the enemy was soon routed. When B.-P. related this incident at the dinner given to him by Carthusians after the Boer War, Haig Brown recalled the names of the boys of the outflanking party.
When the school removed to Godalming in June 1872, there were about a hundred and twenty boys --- still a small enough number for the Head Master to know each one. In London, the Gownboys had been housed separately, and life had not been too easy, but in the new school they were distributed, and B.-P. became a member of Mr. Girdlestone's House, and so another friendship was formed. It is noteworthy that as a schoolboy B.-P. had no close boy friend: he was very reserved and seems to have preferred when possible to talk with the masters rather than with boys. Not that he was unpopular --- far from it; but he did not fit into the few types recognized by boys; his equable temper and exuberant spirits, and his readiness to take part in any activity, brought him recognition as a good fellow, but a bit odd. Haig Brown said that at the period of removal from London to Godalming, 'he proved most useful. He showed remarkable intelligence and liberality of feeling --- most boys are so conservative by nature --- helping to smooth over the difficulties involved in the change'.
He was not an outstanding scholar nor a brilliant athlete. The Head Master remarked on one of his reports that his 'ability was greater than would appear by the results of his form work'. He took his part in games, but football was his favourite, and his prowess as a goal-keeper is frequently praised in the pages of the school magazine. On one occasion at least he played out of goal. The report of a match in 1875, the Seven v. the Eleven, says, 'Powell by a good run down and lively shot obtained the first goal for the Eleven', but it unkindly adds, 'chiefly because the Seven had no goal-keeper'. At moments of great excitement he would let out a great war-whoop of his own.
Haig Brown encouraged all kinds of societies in the school, and B.-P. took part in most of them, and he was on the committees of the boat club, the museum, Sports Day, and the hockey club. He took part in debates and seems usually to have opposed whatever motion was put forward, whether it was 'That Thackeray is a greater writer than Dickens', or 'That Cremation is a barbarous and unchristian practice'. He was a member of the rifle club and was in the school team, but here again he was not an outstanding member; his skill was above the average but never great enough to bring him to the highest position. He thus escaped the perils of being worshipped by his fellows as the leading sportsman.
Not content with these many organized interests he formed with a few Girdlestoneites a private society known as the Druids Club. This lasted from 1873 to 1876. Each member had a special name: there was Captain Perriwinkle and Professor Sheepskin, while he himself was Lord Bathing Towel. The Minute Book is still preserved; it contains the rules, such as 'Any brother not producing a song or speech (within a minute after being called on) the latter in length not less than 5 minutes, or one yard, shall be fined a bottle of lemonade', and the proceedings are decorated with those comic sketches with which B.-P. delighted his schoolfellows.
But he found his greatest pleasure in theatricals and concerts. At home M's powers of mimicry and his ability to reproduce the cries and calls of animals had been a family pleasure. At school he was to develop considerable powers as an actor and entertainer. Haig Brown was a great believer in the value of theatricals and his own numerous family and the masters and their wives all joined with the boys in producing plays, musical entertainments and improvised concerts. B.-P. was a singer and a passable performer on the fiddle as well as an actor, so his services were in constant demand. He took such parts as Cox in Box and Cox, Dog-berry in Much Ado About Nothing, and Mrs. Bundle in The Waterman. As an impromptu entertainer he won his greatest popularity. A typical incident was related by Haig Brown in after years.
On one occasion when a school entertainment was in progress, a performer scratched at the last moment. The boys were beginning to get somewhat impatient at the long pause, so I said to Baden-Powell. who was sitting next to me, 'We must do something. Cannot you fill the gap?' He immediately consented, and, rushing on to the platform, gave them a bit of his school experiences. Fortunately, the French master was not present, for he described a lesson in French with perfect mimicry. It was illimitable. It kept the boys in perfect roars of laughter.
There was another, almost secret, side of Charterhouse life, which played an important part in the boy's development. The country round the school was wilder than it is now; an expanse of woodland, known as 'The Copse', stretched up the hill-side beyond the school playing-fields, and was out-of-bounds. To any boy with a love for the wild it offered a strong temptation which could not be resisted by one who by nature was a lone hunter. B.-P. soon discovered the delights of this woodland, and it was there he taught himself some of the elements of scouting. When the school was celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of its removal from London, he contributed to the pages of The Greyfriar an account of his escapades.
Why, man, it was only the other day --- it can't be fifty years ago --- that I was learning to snare rabbits in the copse at the 'new' Charterhouse, and to cook them, for secrecy, over the diminutive fire of a bushman. I learned, too, how to use an axe, how to walk across a gully on a felled tree-trunk, how to move silently through the bush so that one became a comrade rather than an interloper among the birds and animals that lived there. I knew how to hide my tracks, how to climb a tree and 'freeze' up there while authorities passed below forgetting that they were anthropoi --being capable of looking up (or was it perhaps that they were real men who refrained from looking up knowing that they would discover one?).
And the birds, the stoats, the watervoles that I watched and knew!
Those things stand out as if they were of yesterday. Cricket? Football? Athletics? Yes, I enjoyed them too; but they died long ago, they are only a memory, like much that I learnt at school. It was in the copse that I gained most of what helped me on in after life to find the joy of living.
Holidays with his brothers provided other and more exacting kinds of training. The eldest, Warington, was 23 years old when B.-P. went to Charterhouse, George was 22, Frank 20 and Baden was 10 The three older brothers had gone to St. Paul's School, and two, George and Frank, had gone on to Balliol College, Oxford. Baden was to follow his brother to Charterhouse. Warington's passion for ships and the sea meant that holidays were spent on the water in yachts of his own design. His brothers formed the crew under strict discipline. One of their earliest exploits, however, was in a collapsible boat. Their mother had taken a house for the holidays near Llandogo on the Wye; Warington decided that the crew should go by water. They went up the Thames, portaged across the hills, crossed the seven miles of the Severn, and so up the Wye. But Warington's yachts were to provide greater excitements. A 5-tonner was the first of several and was the training ground for the crew. Warington found his young brother 'most dependable', but as the junior member he had to do many of the chores, and on one occasion when his efforts to cook a stew ended in a mess, he was ordered to 'eat this muck yourself', an order which was enforced to the last spoonful.
A 10-tonner, the Koh-i-noor, gave more scope. The brothers cruised round the coasts of Scotland and England and across to Norway and at times got into, and out of, dangers. One experience might well have ended in disaster. They were off Torquay when a gale came up from the southwest. At first they tried to make Dartmouth, but the sea and wind were too strong; Warington decided that they must wear ship and run before the gale for Weymouth. Night was coming on and the storm showed no signs of abating. Accustomed as the boys were to the sea, they all, except the skipper, turned sick. They were lashed with sufficient length of rope to get to their jobs and Warington kept to the helm and shouted his orders against the noise of wind and towering seas. Through the night and following day they battled on, but at last found refuge under the lee of Portland Bill.
In describing these days, B.-P. wrote:
Much as I liked these boating expeditions, I liked tramping ones just as much. In the holidays we used to walk through countries like Wales and Scotland, each of us carrying a bag on his back and sleeping out at night wherever we might happen to be.
Generally we would call at a farm and buy some milk, eggs, butter, and bread, and ask leave to sleep in a hay-loft if it was bad weather. Otherwise, in summer time, it was very nice to sleep in the open alongside a hedge or a haystack, using hay or straw or old newspapers as blankets if it was cold. In this way we got round a lot of splendid country, where we could see all sorts of animals and birds and strange flowers and plants, of which we took notes in our log; and we had to make our way by the map which we carried, and at night we used to learn to find our way in the dark by using different sets of stars, as our guide. We made sketches of any old castles, abbeys or other buildings that we saw and read up or got someone to tell us their history.
When we got to any big town we used to ask leave to go over one of the factories to see what they made there and how they made it, and we found it awfully interesting to see, for instance, how cloth is made from the sheep's wool, how paper is made from logs of wood, iron from lumps of stone, china from bones and flints powdered up and mixed in a paste and then turned on a potter's wheel, how furniture is made, how engines work, how electricity is used and so on.
In this way we got to know something about most trades and learnt to do some of them ourselves in a small way, which has often come in useful to us since.
By 1876, at the age of 19, B.-P. was in the VI Form and second Monitor of his House. The question of career must by then have been considered. He does not seem himself to have had any strong inclinations --- merely a vaguely felt longing for eastern travel. There was no family tradition to help: the Powells for centuries had been small landowners, merchants, lawyers or bankers, with occasional clergymen and army and naval officers. He was sent up to Oxford to be interviewed by his father's old friend, Jowett, the famous Master of Balliol. George Baden-Powell had that year won the Chancellor's prize, and Frank was also at Balliol. Jowett decided that B.-P. was 'not quite up to Balliol form'; Haig Brown remarked, 'This opinion shook my faith in Jowett's judgement of men'. Dean Liddell of Christ Church was more favourably impressed. But before any decision could be taken, the question of B.-P.'s future was otherwise determined.
He had sat for an open examination for an army commission; his school records did not suggest any brilliant success, and his expectations were not high. When the results were published he was spending a holiday on the yacht of another of his father's old friends Dr. Acland. Amongst the other guests was Dean Liddell who one morning remarked to B.-P. that a namesake of his had done remarkably well in the Army Examination. So B.-P. learned of his own success --- the result, as Haig Brown suggested, of his mother wit. Out of 700 candidates he had taken second place for cavalry and fourth for infantry. By a curious rule, the first six on the list were excused training at Sandhurst and their commissions were antedated two years.
On the 11th September 1876 B.-P. was gazetted a sub-lieutenant in the 13th Hussars. The regiment was then stationed in India, and on the 30th October the new subaltern boarded the Serapis at Portsmouth, and landed at Bombay on the 6th December.
ON the voyage to India B.-P. began that practice described by him in a letter to his mother printed as the Preface to The Matabele Campaign.
It has always been an understood thing between us, that when I went on any trip abroad, I kept an illustrated diary for your particular diversion. So I have kept one again this time, though 1 can't say that I'm very proud of the result. It is a bit sketchy and incomplete, when you come to look at it. But the keeping of it has had its good uses for me.
Firstly, because the pleasures of new impressions are doubled if they are shared with some appreciative friend (and you are always more than appreciative).
Secondly, because it has served as a kind of short talk with you every day.
Thirdly, because it has filled up idle moments in which goodness knows what amount of mischief Satan might not have been finding for mine idle hands to do!
The diary-letters he wrote from India were afterwards used as the basis of his book Indian Memories which gives a picture of a type of soldiering which is almost as remote from us now as that of the bow-and-arrow period. It was a time of 'small' frontier and punitive wars in which the general public showed little concern except when some disaster such as the defeat at Maiwand in 1880 occurred, or a spectacular achievement such as the march under Roberts from Kabul to Kandahar in the same year was considered to wipe out the previous disgrace.
The Indian Mutiny of 1857 --- the year of B.-P.'s birth --- had shown up many weaknesses in the defence of India, not the least of which was that there were two armies in control: John Company had its own troops, and there were also regular regiments under the Crown. By the time B.-P. landed at Bombay, the command was unified, but there was much to be done in improving conditions of army life. The soldier still marched in full regimentals under the Indian sun, and he was regarded more as an automaton than as an individual. The canteen was his sole relaxation and beer his chief solace. It was one of the achievements of Lord Roberts that he did so much during his forty-two years in India to raise the status of the private and to give him a greater measure of self-respect. In this work B.-P. was to have his share, for he was never able to regard men as machines; to him each soldier was an individual who became more interesting and efficient the more he developed his personal abilities and characteristics.
The officers formed a rigid class; although the purchase of commissions had been abolished, they were usually men with private means to whom the army offered a not too strenuous career. The pay of a subaltern was £120 a year ---a quite inadequate sum if the officer wished to 'cut a figure' in social life. B.-P. was determined to avoid calling on his mother's small resources, and he set himself at once to live within his means. Thus he wrote home: 'I have altogether given up smoking ... It saves a big item in the mess bill ... I am keeping my mess bills very low by drinking very little and taking no extras in the way of fruit, etc. Then by staying in the mess during the day I don't have to employ punkah coolies, etc., in my bungalow, which is a saving of about 20 rupees a month. Last month mine was the lowest mess bill, being 175 rupees.' The next lowest was 275 rupees!
This self-discipline might easily have made another man somewhat unpopular. But this was far from being so. His batman of those days, William Henry Wood, recalled in his 87th year the impression B.-P. made on the regiment.
I remember young Mr. Baden-Powell's arrival very well and his selection of me as officer's servant. My recollection of him is that he was full of good humour and lively spirits, just as, apparently, he was all through his life. It was a pleasure to work for him. Nothing stand-offish about him at all. He was a general favourite, and he brightened up the life of the regiment considerably.
Another glimpse of him is given in the following memory written down by a friend more than sixty years afterwards:
I first remember B.-P. in the early part of 1877 when he joined the 13th Hussars in Lucknow.
My elder sister and I always 'inspected' the new young officers who came out from England, and in the evening of his arrival we walked up the drive to the bungalow where he was to live with two or three others, and found them all reclining in their long chairs in the verandah. We immediately demanded the new subaltern's name.
'Charlie,' he said, laughing at the two funny little girls with their bushy brown hair and inquisitive eyes. And 'Charlie' he has been to us ever since.
He was a great pal to us in those days, as he has probably been to many children since, for he was undoubtedly fond of children. When my father told him not to be bothered with us, his only answer was, 'Oh, they are the pudding after the meat!', and most evenings when his work was done he would come over to our bungalow with his ocarina, and with one child hanging on each side of him, he would take us out into the quieter roads, playing tunes to us and teaching us to be observant. He sometimes had to be reprimanded for waking my small sister up with his cat-calls and jackal noises. On wet evenings we would sit in his room and he would draw, paint or sing for us.
It was not long before his varied talents were being used in theatricals and concerts. He began as a scene painter, but soon came to be regarded as an indispensable actor and performer, and in times of emergency he was always able to fill a gap with some form of improvisation.
But behind this lightheartedness was a serious devotion to his chosen career. An old soldier who was an instructor in horsemanship when B.-P. arrived in India, put the matter to me in these words, 'On parade he was ON PARADE, but off parade, he was up to all kinds of devilment'.
On joining the regiment he went through an eight months' garrison training at Lucknow in place of the Sandhurst course which he had been excused. He did this as thoroughly as he did everything else to which he put his hand, whether work or pastime, and at the subsequent tests he passed in the first class with a special certificate in surveying; in consequence his commission as lieutenant was antedated two years. The hard study had been enlivened by the compilation of a mock record of the course written by a fellow subaltern with caricatures of the instructors by B.-P. Unfortunately the sketches for these had been delivered in error by a native messenger to the officer in charge of the course who lodged a complaint with the commanding officer. The culprits were called before him and reprimanded. Some years later this officer showed B.-P. a scrapbook in which were collected a number of such caricatures picked up in the lecture-room. Fortunately the commanding officer had a sense of humour but he warned B.-P. of the dangers of ridiculing one's superiors --- a warning which was not taken too seriously.
It was at this period that he had his first meeting with Roberts, for whom he came to have a deep respect and affection. He described the meeting in these words, 'It was very many years ago that I first got to know him. It was at Simla, in India. I had just joined the Army, and was enjoying myself in all the glory of my new uniform at a ball. I had gone. to the refreshment-room to get something for my partner, but I could not make the native waiter understand what I wanted, as I had not at that time learnt any Hindustani.
'A very small but very polite officer alongside me kindly explained to the servant what I wanted. Then he said to me that if I wanted to enjoy India I ought to learn the language as soon as possible --- I should get much more fun out of the country if 1 could talk to the natives. And he asked me my name and where I was staying.
'After thanking him, 1 thought no more about the matter till next day, when there arrived at my house a native teacher of languages, who said that Sir Frederick Roberts had sent him to give me some lessons!'
Two forms of sport, polo and pigsticking, soon captured the enthusiasm of the young Hussar; their attraction lay mainly in the skilled horsemanship involved, for he was first and foremost a cavalryman. 'In India, I possessed no better friends than the horses I owned and rode.' He could not afford to buy trained ponies. 'Part of the pleasure attaching to polo', he wrote, 'was that involved in getting a raw pony and training it for the game. It was a real satisfaction to a poor man to pick up ponies in all sorts of out-of-the-way places, such as country villages, fairs, etc., and then to break them in, make them handy, balance them, and educate them into playing the game. This training was not only a pastime of itself but incidentally an education to the rider as well. We felt almost inclined to pity the millionaire who bought his ready-made polo ponies, since he could not know the satisfaction of using the instruments made by his own hand for the purpose.'
Soldiering, sport and theatricals did not exhaust his interests. That love of observing nature which had been fostered in him as a child was not deadened by his new enthusiasms. On the voyage out he had noted in his letter-diary such observations as the following:
17th November.---Have you ever heard of the blue waters of the Mediterranean? If you don't believe it just come here and you will see a blue there is no mistaking. A robin and a wagtail were on board, i.e. flying about and settling on the rigging. They had come with us from Malta. Where they get food 1 don't know. Talking about birds, tell G. to notice this fact in his handbook, when we started from Portsmouth two sparrows accompanied us to the Land's End where they left us. When we left Queenstown a robin, a lark and a starling came out with us. The starling soon went back again, but the robin and lark came with us till we were out of sight of land, but were not to be seen next morning.
Of his early days in India he wrote:
I liked to sit in the verandah of my bungalow, watching all that went on in my garden. There was a squirrel just in front, three of them had made their nests in the verandah roof; a bulbul bird whose horn made him look as if his mouth were wide open; then there was a hoopoe with his handsome crest who had a nest in the thatched roof of the house. There were also a crow and a hawk, always on the look-out to pick up something --- you could not drop a piece of paper at once to take it. There was also a fly-catching bird, who looked something like a big swallow. without one being there In the garden were five mongoose, living in different holes and corners.
A great friend of mine was a cheeky little black and white robin. In the corners of the verandah were two doves' nests. There were a cheeky sort of bullfinch and a mina, a big kind of starling or blackbird. He is as common as a sparrow in India and full of jabber. There was also a little blue bird, like a humming-bird, who sat with his head turned up, chattering to himself all day, and a green parrot who came to steal the plums from our tree --- he had to he shot. Finally there was a beastly old white hawk with a yellow bald head, in character much the same as the brown hawk.
Those first years in the army were strenuous ones; he had an intensive training in the rudiments of his new profession, and the fresh activities which attracted him made considerable demands on his physique as well as on his time. It is not surprising therefore that his health suffered; he had bouts of fever which he treated in his own fashion.
During my first year in India it seemed to me that I was being plugged full of medicine almost every day, sometimes for liver, sometimes for fever, and sometimes for my inside. When I had fever I would proceed to treat it in a way that will make many smile. My way was at dinner to eat very little, drink some good champagne, and before going to bed to have for twenty minutes a boiling hot bath with a cold stream on one's head, then a dose of castor oil and then to bed in flannel clothes. Next day I would lie down and take quinine and then the fever went. But my old liver hurt sometimes, especially after jogging about on duty or in the riding-school, and I became so wretchedly thin that I had to have my pantaloons taken in and I could put three fingers between my legs and my top boots, which once were quite tight.
He was ordered home on sick leave and he sailed on the Serapis in December 1878, exactly two years after the same ship had brought him to India.
As was always his custom on returning home, he immediately visited his many relatives and was particularly attentive to those of the older generation. He had a strong clan feeling, and when away he would pen many short letters which kept him in touch with them all. He was not a writer of long and intimate letters; if he wrote on business he set down his ideas without any waste of words, but to his numerous friends he sent notes which though brief were personal enough to maintain a warm association. I have seen many of these, and to the end of his long life he kept this contact with some of his earliest acquaintances, though as the years went by the number of friends grew to vast proportions. Old soldiers --- some surviving from those first years in India --- have shown me their treasured collections of notes received from him over the course of many years. He must have spent many hours writing these short letters, but his habit of using every waking moment made it possible to carry on this practice, which endeared him to all who came into that wide circle of friendliness.
His first leave was extended so that he could take the musketry course at Hythe, which he passed first class with an 'extra' certificate. He also seized the opportunity to add to his repertoire of songs and to his knowledge of plays and light operas. Gilbert and Sullivan's H.M.S. Pinafore was first performed in 1878, and The Pirates of Penzance followed two years later. Here was a new source of delight, and the garrisons in India were later to get the benefit. He made sketches of costumes and scenery for future use, and on his return to Lucknow at the end of 1880, he played Dick Deadeye in H.M.S. Pinafore as well as painting scenery and providing designs for the costumes.
Much had happened in Afghanistan during his two years' absence. In May 1879 the British Resident and his staff at Kabul had been massacred; Roberts defeated the Afghans at Charasia in the following October, and it looked as though peace might come, but in July 1880 a 'holy' war broke out and the British were defeated at Maiwand. This was the occasion of Roberts's famed march of over 300 miles from Kabul to Kandahar in August 1880, after which agreement was reached for the gradual withdrawal of the British troops.
When B.-P. returned to Lucknow he found that the regiment had left for Afghanistan and he was ordered to join it at Kokoran. One of the small girls of Lucknow records how they took the news.
He immediately collected us to go to help him to pack, and my sister and I sat and watched the operation with tears and smiles, B.-P. singing most of the time, 'Oh, yes, I must away, I can no longer stay'. Before we said goodnight, we kissed his sword and laid it under his pillow for luck, and he left early the next day to catch the others up. It was a long journey in those far-away days, but gradually we got letters from him, one of them wishing we would cut off our hair and send it to him to stuff his pillow with as it was so hard!
He hoped to catch up the regiment at Quetta and the last 50 miles of the journey he did by horse in two days, but the regiment had already left. Still, 'It was great fun, that ride by myself --- twenty miles of it across sandy desert.' He wrote home his opinion of the country.
I do not know what is the good of keeping this country; it is nearly all a howling desert, with a little cultivation along the few river banks. However, personally, I do not mind how long they keep it, it is a jolly climate. These Afghans are awful-looking sportsmen, fine big fellows with great hooked noses and long hair, in loose white clothing. and very murderous. Since we have been here six of our native servants have disappeared and have never been seen again. One of them was the head cook of our mess; we suspected a village nearby of murdering him, for he went to buy eggs, so we sent a squadron out there with the political officer and they searched the place, but of course found no signs of the old boy.
He was given one important task when at last he joined the regiment at Kokoran; he surveyed the site of the battle of Maiwand, and the maps he drew were used in the subsequent court-martial; one was sent to Wolseley, and this was the beginning of an important connection. Although he was to get no first-hand experience of fighting during this expedition, he was working under active service conditions. His skill in reconnaissance was quickly recognized. 'We succeeded in getting a great deal of experience, as we were constantly expecting attacks, and the long and bitterly cold nights on outpost duty hardened us thoroughly.' Occasional opportunities came for him to use those powers of observation which he had been encouraged to train since his childhood. Thus one night the horses broke loose in a storm; all but one were recaptured without much difficulty.
I was very anxious to find this horse, so I took a long ride round on 'Dick' to see if I could find its tracks anywhere. I had long practised the art of tracking and was now able to put it to some use: also I had taught 'Dick' among other circus tricks to stand alone when 1 left him and wait till I returned. These two accomplishments came in useful on this occasion. After some searching I came across the trail of a horse galloping away from the camp. I followed this up for two or three miles until it struck up into the mountains over such steep rugged ground that I left 'Dick' standing where he was and clambered on foot after the runaway. After a time I spied him outlined against the sky, right on the top of the mountain, and after a long time I got to the place and found him standing there shivering with cold, apparently dazed and very badly cut about the legs with the iron tent peg which was still hanging on to his head rope. It was an awful job to get him down the mountain side, but at last I managed it, and was very pleased when I got him safely back to camp.
Inevitably there were regimental concerts while the regiment waited at Kokoran for more active work. At one of these B.-P. carried out a typical bit of foolery which under some commanding officers might have led to serious trouble, but as we shall see, Colonel Baker Russell was an exceptional man. During the concert, there was a disturbance at the back of the hall on the unexpected entry of a visiting General. The Colonel welcomed him, but was rather surprised when his guest offered to perform: he mounted the platform and sang the Major-General's song from the new Gilbert and Sullivan opera The Pirates of Penzance. Then it was realized that the performer was B.-P. himself! He had previously ascertained that his Colonel had never met a General who was stationed at Kandahar, and had borrowed a uniform from an A.D.C.
At last the orders to withdraw were given.
The 13th was ordered to form the rear-guard and to parade at a certain hour so as to move off from Kokoran immediately in the rear of the infantry, but the Colonel had told me to find out the best road to follow, and I found that by one particular short cut we could save at least two hours' marching. So he ordered the regiment to delay its departure accordingly. The General heard of this and asked his reason. When the Colonel gave it the General said that his staff officers knew the country perfectly well and would not have given the order for parade for that hour had it been possible to economize time as he suggested. The Colonel replied more politely but generally to the effect that he did not care what the staff officers' ideas of the country were, he knew better and proposed to rest his men and horses until the last moment: and he used my short cut accordingly, and we were exactly at the right time at the appointed place. I mention this little incident because it was from it that I date my ultimate promotion at the hands of Sir Baker Russell.
On the day we were to march from Kokoran our mounted sentries were relieved by those of the Afghan army of Abdurrahman, and it was an amusing contrast to see the Hussars, who for this occasion were dressed in full kit, relieved by rough-looking 'catch-'em-alive-o' warriors who while on duty carried umbrellas to protect themselves from the sun. After we had marched out some distance I suddenly recollected that we had left in our mess a coloured print from the Graphic of Millais's 'Cherry Ripe'. I somehow did not want it to fall into the hands of the Afghans, so I rode back and fetched it away with me, and for a long time afterwards it decorated my tent and bungalow; so, accidentally, I was the last Britisher to leave Kandahar.
It was during this withdrawal that B.-P. accidentally shot himself in the leg: he convalesced in the gardens of the Residency at Quetta. Here he was attacked by a so-called tame leopard; the animal was afterwards chained to a nearby tree, and B.-P. characteristically recorded, 'I used to watch it by the hour and try to sketch it in its beautiful, graceful movements and positions. I was genuinely sorry when some weeks later it got its chain caught up in the tree and so hanged itself.'
He was fortunate in his commanding officer at this period and he always acknowledged very fully the debt he owed to the training he received under a somewhat unconventional soldier. Baker Creed Russell, who became Lt.-Colonel of the 13th Hussars in 1880, was one of Wolseley's men. He fought in the Indian Mutiny, and was in command of the native levy in the Ashanti war of 1873-1874 under Wolseley, and again served under him in South Africa during 1879. Russell. left the 13th Hussars in India to join Wolseley in Egypt during 1882 for the campaign which led to the battle of Tel-el-Kebir. 'Sir Baker Russell', wrote B.-P., 'was not an orthodox Colonel. He was in no way guided by the drill book, and knew little and cared less for the prescribed words of command; but he had a soldier's eye for the country and for where his men ought to be in a fight, and he led them there by his own direction rather than by formal .formulations as laid down in a book.' And again, 'He gave responsibility and trusted his officers. Also gifted with quick intuition he made quick decisions and, whether right or wrong, carried them. through with a bang'.
It is not without significance that both Haig Brown at Charterhouse, and Baker Russell in India, were men who had small respect for rules and regulations and encouraged those under them to use their own judgments even at the risk of mistakes.
In B.-P. the Colonel found a pupil after his own heart, and he gave him every opportunity to develop his special abilities in reconnaissance and scouting. Some of Russell's methods --- such as the sending out of men on lone rides to fend for themselves --- were adopted and further developed by the willing pupil. It was probably Russell who first brought B.-P. to the notice of Wolseley --- the Commander-in-Chief who said, -'Use your common sense rather than book instructions'.
That the pupil was quick to learn is shown by the following incident:
It was at Quetta that I got my first trial as a scout. Some of our regiment were told off to act as enemy in some night operations for the protection of the cantonment, and we were told to creep in as far as possible and find out how the sentries, supports, and pickets were posted. Eager to do the work well, we of course started the moment that we were allowed to try and carry out our duties. Naturally the sentries were very much on the qui vive, and a good many of our scouts were observed by the sentries and either captured or driven back. Some of us managed to find out a good deal as to the location of the enemy's outposts and were then glad to lie down and have a sleep on some heaps of bhoosa (chopped straw). Waking up some hours later, from the cold, I thought it might warm me up to go and try again to get more information. Knowing pretty well where the sentries were posted, I was able to evade them and to crawl past them to one of the supports.
Having had all their excitement in the earlier part of the evening in driving us back, they apparently supposed we had retired for good and therefore the look-out was not so sharply kept as in the earlier part of the night. I had therefore no difficulty in getting past the support, and then in keeping along in rear to find the position of other supports, and eventually by following one of their visiting patrols I found the exact location of the reserve. Having gone so far as I could, I left my glove under a bush on the bank of the ravine by which I had arrived, and made my way back with my report to my own people, just as dawn was breaking. Later on, when the dispositions of both sides were being criticized by the General, a doubt was expressed whether our scouts had really gathered their information from personal observation or had merely made guesses of the outposts, since the defenders maintained that it was impossible for scouts to get through at the spots mentioned. I was able, however, to prove our case by directing them where to find my glove.
In 1882 the Regiment marched 900 miles to Muttra, and B.-P. was appointed musketry instructor. This meant a welcome addition to his pay, which he was already supplementing by articles and sketches in the Graphic, Badminton and other papers.
At Muttra pigsticking became a passion, and he gained the skill which later on enabled him to write an authoritative book on the subject. His greatest thrill was the winning of the Kadir Cup in 1883. He entered three horses which he had trained himself. two of them, 'Patience' and Hagarene', won through to the final. He described the event in a letter to his mother.
Away goes a great pig. 'Ride' and away we go. Hagarene soon gets away from the rest. The pig dashes into thick grass jungle, but I'm pretty close to him and can just see him every now and then. Great tussocks of grass, six feet high, Haggy bounding through them, then twenty yards of open ground, then into a fresh patch of jungle thicker than the other. Suddenly bang, down we go --- no we don't --- very nearly though. one of the grass tussocks had a solid pillar of hard earth concealed in it which the mare struck with her chest. Now then, we're close on him --- get the spear ready --- now ready to reach him; suddenly a bright green sort of hedge appears in front as the pig disappears through it. Haggy leaps it and there, eight feet below it, is a placid pond, the pig goes plump under water and Haggy and self ditto almost on top of him. Right down we go to any depth --- a deal of struggling --- striking out --- hanging on to weeds, etc., and I emerge on the far bank and see Haggy climbing out too, and away she goes for Camp, and the pig I can just see skulking away in some reeds. Up come the other three men in the heat and look over the hedge at me. I point out the pig and away they go, and McDougall all gets first to him and spears him and so wins the Cup for me, and a funny object I look when all the fellows come up to congratulate me, covered with mud and garlanded with weeds.
In the previous year he had been appointed Adjutant to the Regiment, an office he held for four years; in 1883 he was gazetted Captain at the age of 26. The office work involved meant less time for his varied interests, but sports, sketching and theatricals could still be fitted into the timetable of a man who was incapable of being idle. For a time he was on the staff of the Duke of Connaught when the Duke was a Divisional General at Meerut, and so began another lifelong friendship.
The Regiment was due to leave India in 1884 after ten years' service, but trouble threatened in South Africa and orders came to disembark at Port Natal in case reinforcements were needed. The Transvaal Boers were contemplating the annexation of part of Bechuanaland. To prevent this, Sir Charles Warren was ordered to the district with four thousand men. On his staff was George Baden-Powell. The matter was settled without fighting.
Colonel Baker Russell had naturally made plans for marching from Natal to assist Sir Charles Warren if the need should arise. He wanted information of lesser known passes across the Drakensberg Mountains as he knew that the usual routes would be watched. For the task of getting this information he selected B.-P., who thus gained his first intimate knowledge of the land which was to mean so much to him not only as a field for active service but as a second home-land. The information had to be obtained with the greatest secrecy, so B.-P grew a beard and dressed himself inconspicuously and set off on a 600-mile ride. His powers as an actor and artist now proved invaluable. Most of the time he played the part of a newspaper correspondent collecting material on the attractions of the country for immigrants. He put up at farms and so came to know the Boers on their own land, and learned to respect them.
One of his outstanding characteristics was his keen interest in men as individuals; he was curious to know how they lived and what they thought. It did not matter of what race or colour they might be; he was quickly on good terms with them, for few can resist an obviously sincere interest in their lives. It was a secondary matter that this eager curiosity was a valuable quality in a scout or spy; it was genuine whether the information was gleaned for service purposes or just for personal satisfaction.
The information gathered on this expedition was not needed at the time, so was filed away and forgotten. Had it been noted, some setbacks of the Boer War might have been avoided. B.-P. corrected the existing map in several important features; thus he noted that the map gave wrong information about the mountains near the Tugela River, and this would have proved of great importance to Buller who was using the old map during the Colenso campaign. A further note made was that if the British had to fall back, they should go south of the Tugela and not attempt to hold Ladysmith: this too was forgotten or ignored later.
When it was clear that the 13th Hussars would no longer be needed, orders were given for them to resume their journey to England. B.-P., however, got six months' leave, and with five companions he set off for a hunting expedition in Portuguese East Africa. A few notes from his diary show his usual keen observation.
22nd July. --- Breakfasted in a kraal in the 'enemy's country'. Chief civil aid told us where to go to get game.
Beehives used in this country are a cylinder of bark about 4 feet long and 18 inches in diameter, covered at both ends and a few holes bored in the sides. These are put up in the branches of the bare white trees near each village.
23rd. The correct way to wash your hands in this country (owing to the scarcity of water) is to fill your mouth with water and then let a thin stream trickle on to your hands while you wash.
16th August. --- On the march, when I started to overtake the rest after stalking the wildebeeste, I found my way back to their trail by sun and landmarks and then followed it up easily, all diverging tracks having been marked with a few strokes in the sand to show that they were not to be followed.
26th. --- Our regular food at this period is breakfast of porridge, standing stew (only rice and meat of any game or birds we killed, always kept handy ready to serve up) and tea: dinner, stew, fry. 'bachem' (toddy) --- the juice of palm plants (water is unobtainable), and dampers. These we made very light by using bachem in making the dough instead of water and putting in lots of baking powder --- let stand for an hour and then fry or, better, bake them by inverting an earthenware pot over a plate of them and standing them on hot wood ashes and lighting a pyramid fire over the pot. If left all night they come out hard and crisp like rusks and can be kept for days. Ate a lot of kaffir oranges on the march, they are hard round fruit which when broken open give you a coffee-coloured pulp full of big pips, till I got used to it the flavour was that of pomade.
After this expedition, B.-P. followed his regiment to England.