Robert Baden-Powell

Robert Baden-Powell (1857-)[1] was a military officer, author, founder of the Boy Scout movement and amateur artist and actor.

Biography

Born Robert Stephenson Smyth Powell in Paddington, London, on 22 February 1857, he attended Rose Hill School, Tunbridge Wells and was given a scholarship to Charterhouse, a prestigious public school. He entered the military in 1876, when he joined the 13th Hussars in India. Would go on to see service in various parts of the Empire, among which three postings in Southern Africa (in the early 1880s during the Zulu wars in Natal, in 1896 when he led reconnaissance missions into enemy territory during the Second Matabele War, and most famously during the Anglo-Boer War, when he and his forces held out for 217 days during Siege of Mafeking.) It was such experiences which led to his writing of a small manual, entitled Aids to Scouting (and many other similar publications later), and thence the founding of the international Boy Scout and Girl Scout movements (the latter with his sister, Agnes Baden-Powell). His manual, Scouting for Boys (published in 1908) would become the fourth best-selling book of the 20th century.

He was married to Olave St Clair Soames, and the couple had three children. Baden-Powell died on 8 January 1941 in Kenya.

For more on his military and scouting activities, see the Wikipedia entry on him at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Baden-Powell,_1st_Baron_Baden-Powell

Contribution to South African theatre and performance

Besides his military skills and role as author, Baden-Powell played the piano and violin, was an ambidextrous artist, enjoyed acting and was regarded as an excellent storyteller, who told "ripping yarns" to audiences. It is thus to be assumed then that he also participated in Garrison entertainments and performances while in South Africa.

One specific example of his displaying his storytelling abilities is provided by his participation in a Smoking concert held for the two teams that had participated in what is reputed to be The first official English/South African cricket test in 1888, when he gave an amusing talk on public entertainers. The rest of the concert had two parts, first a Christy Minstrel show, that included a comic ditty called "The Man that Struck O'Hara", sung in black-face by the captain of the English team, the actor C. Aubrey Smith. The second half saw songs by local celebrities such as Tom Graham, Baden-Powell's talk on public entertainers, and performances of songs by other team members, such as the manager Major Warton and the popular English bowler Johnny Briggs. The critic and chronicler of theatre in the Cape, D.C. Boonzaier, was himself involved in the event, helping to blacken the faces of the performers in the Christy show.

Sources

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Baden-Powell,_1st_Baron_Baden-Powell

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoking_concert

F.C.L. Bosman. 1980. Drama en Toneel in Suid-Afrika, Deel II, 1856-1916. Pretoria: J.L. van Schaik: p. 389.

D.C. Boonzaier, 1923. "My playgoing days – 30 years in the history of the Cape Town stage", in SA Review, 9 March and 24 August 1923. (Reprinted in Bosman 1980: pp. 374-439.)

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