An Account by George Mesley
In 1924, George Mesley came to the U.S. to attend Graceland College and, with Lord Baden-Powell's blessing, was intent on extending the wolf [cub] scout movement here. The following was written in George Mesley's own words and presented to the regional Wood Badge Scouts meeting in Kansas City, Missouri, on March 4, 1989, where George was guest speaker. They were adapted for this webpage format in June 1999 by James S. Jones [the subheadings are for readability, creations of the editor --J.S.J.].
I appreciate the privilege of sharing my scouting and cubbing experiences with their founder, Lord Baden-Powell, with this distinguished group of wood badge leaders and their most supportive ladies.
As a British Army leader, Major Baden-Powell had unusual ideas of action for his soldiers. He called them "Scouts". To record his army methods and train his leaders he wrote a small manual titled "Aids to Scouting". After the Boer War in South Africa was over, this manual became a favorite reading study of boys of England. Baden-Powell didn't like the idea of young boys thinking about and preparing for war by reading his soldier's manual. He wanted a book to prepare them for peace. None was available, so in 1907-1908 he organized the world's first Boy Scout Troop of 24 boys in four Patrols. They all responded whole-heartedly to the idea. He took this troop camping at Brownsea Island. As a result of this good experience Baden-Powell then wrote a handbook, "Scouting For Boys", and a leader's manual for Scoutmasters.
This Boy Scout movement was an instant success. In a few months, tens of thousands of boys had become Scouts. Then, the British Boy Scout Association was formed. Scouting soon spread around the world-- organized in U.S.A. in 1910.
Baden-Powell became Chief Scout of all the World Organization, though he never had dreamed that his Boy Scouts would become a world-wide movement for peace. Later, a Girl Scout program was initiated to meet the needs of growing girls [in large measure due to the influence of Baden-Powell on other leaders and the success of his boys program-- J.S.J.].
I was most fortunate to enjoy scouting and cubbing experiences in three continents - Australia, Europe and U.S.A.
Time does not permit me to share with you my Australian experiences. Briefly, I organized my first Scout Troop in 1918. With parents' help we built a good scout hall in a large public park. I took my troop hiking and cubbing on the shores of several rivers and lakes, and along the Mighty Mile ocean beach. All available to us nearby. As also [available to us] was an Aborigine Station, similar in many ways to your Indian Reservations. There we learned to throw boomerangs.
In 1924 a British Empire Scout Jamboree was planned in London, England, and an International one in Copenhagen, Denmark. 250 Australian Scouts elected to attend including two from my Troop. Australia's National Scout headquarters office requested me to go and to serve as one of the leaders for this unique expedition. I can testify that helping to care for that many boys on a small ocean going liner for a seven week's period was quite a new experience for me.
In London, the Empire Scout Jamboree was held afternoons at Wembley-- a new stadium, seating 10,000. Various scouting competitions and games were held. Scout leaders and the Royal Prince of Wales addressed the visiting throng, and the boys. For the pageant of Empire they needed 12 Aborigines throwing their boomerangs to oppose the landing in Australia of its discoverer, Captain Cook. I was one of the dozen chosen.
We had to color our bodies all over with burnt cork. The first night it took me 2 1/2 hours to get that dark chocolate color washed off-- the longest scrub bath I've taken in my life. The next nights were better, I just washed my face, hands, and knees, leaving my whole body colored dark chocolate for the rest of the week-- a secret half-caste Aborigine I was.
After these Jamborees I took the official Scout Master Wood Badge Training course at Gilwell Park under Lord Baden-Powell and his camp Chief, Robert Wilson. There we were organized to camp in tents as patrols. Each man served one day as Patrol Leader. You cooked your own meals, went on an overnight hike, lived and did everything a good scout troop would do-- expertly directed.
Gilwell Park was given to Scouting by a Scotch Lord, so his tartan appears as a patch on the official Gilwell neckerchief.
At this camp, contacts with Baden-Powell and class lectures by him were very interesting. He stayed at Gilwell's Lodge house and made personal contacts with all the men taking that training course.
As you know, the Cub and Scout Wood Badge today is made of a leather thong holding two replicas of the carved wooden symbols that hung neck to ankle on the Zulu Chieftain who was captured by Lord Baden-Powell in the Boer War siege of Maffeking. In England, a round green bead is added to this wood badge to indicate that you have passed all three sections of the Wood Badge program for Scouters. A yellow bead is added when you also pass the similar Wolf Cub Leaders program.
I enjoyed, and learned so much from this Scouters Course experience that I enrolled in the next Cubmasters Course at Gilwell. I also did the necessary theory papers on the principles involved in Cubbing, but I still lacked the required two years of Wolf Cub Leadership service, so I had to wait for my Wood Badge, yellow bead for Cubmasters.
Both camps for leadership were a delight and the Cubmasters course gave me the opportunity to get acquainted personally with Lord Baden-Powell. One day he asked me to meet him in Gilwell's outdoor chapel. He said that during the 1900 Boer War siege of Maffeking he had, as a personal support, a Captain George Mesley from Australia, and asked me were we related. He stated that Captain Mesley of Victoria came from a gold mining town and region there but he had forgotten the name of the town. I asked, "was it Omeo?" Immediately he said, "Yes, that's it." Then I said, that George was my father. He enlisted for the war early in 1900 A.D. I was born in October, 1900, and never met my father who had remained permanently in South Africa.
Baden-Powell told me that Gilwell's Camp Chief Robert Wilson always made a written report on every scouter who took the Wood Badge course there. Baden-Powell had read Wilson's report on me the previous camp for Scout Leaders and it stated there that I had evidenced [a] sound and expansive outlook on Scouting-- also that I'd never met a stranger in my life. Over 50 years later I took my wife Blanche to see Gilwell Park and the scoutmaster in charge took out my file and read that appreciative report on me to her. I was amazed when he did that, after all these passing years, and [I was] honored by Wilson's report on me.
Baden-Powell asked me what were my immediate future plans. I told him that I was enrolled at Graceland College, Lamoni, Iowa, to prepare for appointment into the ministry of full-time service [in the RLDS church]. Now, due to the 1924 U.S.A. change in its immigration laws, I had to wait some months for my visa to enter U.S.A. as a college student.
Baden-Powell asked me to look up several scouters during my stay in England, and possibly talk to some of their troops about Australia. This I gladly did for him. He told me he had hoped I would be free to accept a position as his associate in International Scouting-- a great honor, and he regretted that I had made other service commitments. I told him that in U.S.A. I planned to contact a scout troop to help them, and also gain leadership of a Wolf Cub Pack and thus achieve my two years requirement for my Wood Badge Cub yellow colored bead.
Baden-Powell stated that he was unaware of any cub program or pack organized in the U.S.A. I was amazed, but said "then I'll have to organize one there."
Our visit together was interesting and mutually warm in fellowship. Apparently his close contact with my father in South Africa, and my study at two Gilwell camps, together with my plan for continuing scouting and cubbing leadership in U.S.A. impressed him.
At the conclusion of our visit Lord Baden-Powell stood, removed his wood badge from his neck, and placed it over my head. He stated that the wood symbols there-on were from the original captured Maffeking Zulu Chieftain's necklace, and that the two on this badge were among the last of these originals available.
I embarrassingly and laughingly commented that his badge did not carry the green and yellow beads to indicate his passing the two Gilwell courses in Wood Badge study. He smiled and stated that he originated both programs, but was so busy in the administration of World Scouting organization that he never had time to take one of his required courses. That's one reason he was hoping that this "never met a stranger in his life scouter" could take responsibility for his overseas leadership and organization.
With his left hand he gave me the customary three finger shake for scouting and the two finger shake for cubbing. As he left me the tears of appreciation were coursing down my cheeks.
I have treasured these memories and the badge for 64 years. Recently, I passed it with a Gilwell neckerchief on to [another] Scout and Cubmaster leader in Independence, Missouri. He, too, will treasure and honor it, as the symbol of Lord Baden-Powell's great contribution of Scouting and Cubbing to the entire civilized world.
As a minister, I rate the Scout Oath and its twelve life centered laws with the Old Testament document of the Law of Moses, and the New Testament Beatitudes of Jesus. It is a remarkable God inspired statement of the principles of abundant life that are clearly challenging. They simply and yet profoundly state the Godly principles of living, that now are achievable by growing young boys and girls throughout the whole free world.
There are now over 6,000,000 scouts in U.S.A. More that 64 million Boy Scouts in U.S.A. since 1910. Many more millions in free countries around the world.
Previously in U.S.A. there were two other movements for helping boy's clubs begun by Daniel Carter Beard, and by Earnest Thomas Seaton. In 1910 they merged with Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts, and James E. West was chosen as the Executive Secretary for U.S.A. He served with great merit for 32 years. Walter Head was Council President of the combined movement.
The Wolf Cub movement was begun by Baden-Powell in 1914. It was formed to satisfy his eight year old son, and other English boys too young to become boy scouts. David plagued his dad until he planned and organized Wolf Cubs. It was based on Rudyard Kipling's "Jungle Book". With very little change this cubbing program also has spread around the world.
Eventually I arrived in U.S.A. nine weeks late. With just 5 cents in my pocket I enrolled in [Graceland] college taking four hours of classes, doing eight daily hours of study to make up the lost time and worked four hours a day at 25 cents per hour hauling to college coal and gravel with a horse and wagon. I enjoyed and greatly benefited by all these experiences.
Lamoni's faltering Scout Troop was without a leader, so I accepted that responsibility. British scouts and scouters all wore shorts. Then, in U.S.A. scouts wore knee britches. I spent the next four years in my shorts, with this good troop in Iowa, and trained some leaders for its future.
I also wanted to receive my Cubmasters Wood Badge so I gathered a group of 24 8-10 year old boys and in January 1925 formed the Lamoni Wolf Cub Pack. I then wrote to the U.S.A. Boy Scout National office to register this pack and these boys. Chief Scout James E. West wrote me stating that there was no Wolf Cub Movement in U.S.A. and that ours was the first registration request for a Pack here in this country. He suggested that I could register the Lamoni Pack in Toronto to get uniforms and badges from Canada. This I did and they then met all our particular Cub needs.
Mr. West stated that just recently, in 1925 a Research Psychologist-Scoutmaster had been authorized by B.S.A. to study the British Wolf Cub Movement with a view to organizing it in U.S.A. He had set up an enlarged committee to explore and experiment with British ideas and program. In view of [my] Gilwell Park Cubmasters training under Lord Baden-Powell, Mr. West requested me to report to him and this committee every six months. Specifically, I was asked to report on the reactions and results of the British Wolf Cub ideas among the boys and parents of a small rural town in U.S.A. This I did. I sent a copy of these reports to Gilwell and 2 1/2 years later received my Cub Wood Badge yellow bead.
In 1930 Cub Scouting formally was launched in U.S.A. changing the earlier title of Wolf Cubs used in Great Britain to Cub Scouts. However, it still retains some of the ideas and names of Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book, names like Mogli, Baloo- the bear, Shere Khan- tiger, etc. In U.S.A. this country's Indian lore, names, and ideas find a natural place in Cubbing. Later in U.S.A. two [other] divisions were added: Tiger Cubs for second grade boys, Webelo Dens for tenth birthday boys.
The Girl Scouts were organized here [in the United States]. Cubbing continued to be a home and neighborhood centered experience of sharing and working together with small groups of younger boys. Scouting reaches out to people people tied to home and school, opening to young growing boys the values and opportunities to explore many areas of interest and study. Through it they can find fields that could become their life work. The Merit badge program opens doors to them that are understandable and achievable. International sharing and peace are an integral part of both Cubbing and Scouting.
I have been glad to have and the privilege of initiating and organizing the first Cub Scout Pack in U.S.A. A tremendous debt of honor is due to Lord Baden-Powell, and all Wood Badgers and other leaders who have and do serve in these great worldwide movements of Scouting and Cubbing. Baden-Powell, born in 1857, died in 1941 in South Africa, was a warm hearted, modest, honest, dedicated, down-to-earth man with a quiet sense of humor. Helpful service to all people very much was a part of his nature-- with a particular interest in all growing boys. He would rank as one of the outstanding world leaders of all time. He took simple things and ways of life and made them great.
For his leadership throughout the then British Empire, he was knighted by the King with the title Lord Baden-Powell. That honor did not change his relationship to all leaders, who really share this honor with him. He regarded it more as a royal welcome and appreciation of his great worldwide movements of Scouting and Cubbing.
This tribute would not be complete if it did not pay its respects and gratitude to Lady Baden-Powell, and to all they scouters' companions whose understanding and support, day after day, year after year, make free and possible the service that we men do in this great movement. Ladies, you may not be decorated with a Wood Badge but you are greatly honored for your splendid service and loyal support to your husband in his extensive service in scouting. I salute you!