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The British Boy Scout migration plan 1922–1932
The Social Science Journal 40 (2003) 143–151
The British Boy Scout migration plan 1922–1932 Richard A. Voeltz∗ Department of History and Government, Cameron University, 2800 West Gore Boulevard, Lawton, OK 73505-6377, USA
Abstract During the years 1922–1932 the British Boy Scout Association promoted a number of schemes for empire migration. Under the terms of the Empire Settlement Act of 1922, the Association became one of many voluntary religious and philanthropic organizations for empire migration with the establishment of a formal Migration Department at Imperial Scout Headquarters. Most of the Scouts went to Australia with a smaller number going to Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, and Rhodesia. The work of the Scout Migration Department had almost ceased by 1931, when depression and high unemployment forced the dominions to look out for themselves. Also the increasing autonomy sought by these dominions worked against the Scout migrations schemes. © 2002 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.
As Dane Kennedy (1988) has written, “World War I and its aftermath restored the empire to a central place in the considerations of Whitehall” (p. 403). And no consideration was greater than that of the social imperialist tinged doctrine of migration. Culture and blood bound Britain and the empire together. Even before the war was over proponents envisioned assisted migration “. . . as a means for the state to rectify demographic imbalances in Briton and the dominions and thereby reduce domestic unemployment, overcrowding, discontent, supply labor and wives for colonial populations, and increase trade and strengthen defense within the imperial system as a whole” (Kennedy, p. 404; for other discussions of empire migration schemes see Blakeley, 1988; Fedorowich, 1995; Sherington & Jeffrey, 1998; Williams, 1985). And this new emphasis on emigration in the 1920s reinforced an already growing sense of imperial fraternity within Robert Baden-Powell’s Scouting movement where a common pattern of training for Scout masters throughout the empire—the Wood Badge—had been established (Warren, 1986). Before World War I, the Boy Scout Association had briefly run a agriculture ∗
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training school based upon Scouting principles at Buckhurst Place in Kent, with the hope of sending urban boys back to the land in Britain and also within the Empire by “instilling into them love for country life” (Warren, p. 246). And though “some of them were pretty spirited characters when they first joined us and had been failures in the scholastic line, I do not know of one out of the two hundred odd who turned to failure in the end” (Warren, p. 246), Baden-Powell later wrote when praising the establishment of scholarships for Boy Scouts at an Agricultural College in Australia. The Buckhurst experiment collapsed during the war because the boys had to leave for the army, but under the terms of the Empire Settlement Act of 1922, passed enthusiastically by Parliament, the Association became one of many voluntary religious and philanthropic managing organizations for empire migration with the establishment of a formal Migration Department at Imperial Scout Headquarters (Warren).1 In 1922 and 1923, this newly founded organization sent 209 Scouts to settle in the empire and from 1924 to 1932 some 4,744 Scouts emigrated to the Empire with most going to Australia, 3,365, while the rest went to Canada, 915, New Zealand, 247, South Africa and Rhodesia, 129, and other parts of the empire, 88 (Report, 1933, July 28). Baden-Powell himself in an article for The Scouter magazine strongly advocated the virtues of migration. Just returning from the “. . . great open spaces of under-inhabited Canada and Australia to overcrowded England one wonders why the surplus population of the one can’t occupy the surplus emptiness of the others” (Baden-Powell, 1922 or 1923). He continues to observe that: In Australia there are only 6 millions . . . . And of those six millions only two are on the land. Two-Thirds of them are living in the towns. Thousands of these are out of work. Also the birthrate is going down . . . . Just north of this vast unoccupied there is a small island—not much bigger than our United Kingdom—Japan. Japan is overcrowded with a population of over 50 millions, ready to work hard in agriculture or industry . . . . What about it? Are they not justified in coveting Australia with its vast natural resources left only partially developed and not utilized by Great Britain?
Baden-Powell advised Scoutmasters to advise any of their “more spirited boys” to make “successful careers in that land of opportunity,” but only if they abandon the life of the city: But when you tell them of the wonderful possibilities you should at the same time warn them to go out and become townspeople is merely to add themselves to the army of unemployed. If, on the contrary, they go with the determination to take up farming, prospecting or ranching,–and TO STICK TO IT-they will get on. But the secret of success is ability to take the rough with the smooth, to keep off drink and to work hard, and to keep to their job.
This all sounds simple enough, he warns, but it isn’t so simple in practice: There’s your background to be considered. Young men brought up in the civilization of a home have to change their skins to make a success of it out there. They must sacrifice home completely and have the guts and grins to face a rough life and a hard one. At any rate that’s the way it will seem to them at first.
Baden-Powell then quotes from an article in Blackwood’s Magazine by “H.W.S.” telling how the “background” of home holds men captive to its lure wherever they may wander in the world:
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The toughest ruffian I ever knew at sea was held by a memory of the Commercial Road on a winter night, with the gas flares lighting the cockle barrows and the fried fish shop at the street corner. At the end he would go back to that, as to paradise itself. That was his background; the same to him as our college spires to you or me . . . .
And it is precisely that home “background” the migrants have got to discard: So if they are going to go our stock-rearing on the plains, only to get tired and homesick, and to want cinemas and girls—they had much better stay at home . . . . What the country does want out there are husky young Britons who mean to succeed, men who can put their hearts and their backs into their work, men of adventure and open air; men with pluck, guts and cheerfulness. Those are the fellows that Australia wants, and for whom Australia holds out every kind of opportunity, as indeed do Canada, New Zealand and most of our Colonies and Dependencies . . . . Let your young migrants break away from being captives of their ‘background’ and push out from this overcrowded, over-civilized little island to go forward to the bigger adventure of a MAN’S life, helping to make our great Empire stronger and mightier yet (Baden-Powell, 1922 or 1923).
The goals of the Boy Scout Migration Office fit in perfectly with Baden-Powell’s belief that to stop the rot of urban decadence and everything that goes with it—sleazy politics, sex, crass materialism, degeneration, arid intellectualism, and the dirty business of making money—one could simply drop out and head for the hills or the woods, or now the Outback or the Veldt (Voeltz, 1997). The year 1927 was reported as being particularly satisfying for Scout migration with a number of new features, including the inauguration of a special Scout nomination scheme for Victoria, Australia. Under the plan parties of Scouts between 15 and 19 years of age were sent out each month to Victoria where they were placed on selection farms as farm learners where they received minimal wages and keep. The first party sailed on March 3, 1927 and then 64 more Scouts had been selected for the plan, sailing in monthly groups. The boys were all active members of a Troop, especially selected and recommended (Report on Scout Migration, 1927, December 31).2 The Migration Commissioner at Victoria reported favorably upon the boys chosen and extracts from the boys’ letter’s to Headquarters, letters from boys’ employers to the Commissioner in Victoria, and parents’ letters of thanks, all appeared in the 1927 Report on Scout Migration. Here are three letters from the boys to Imperial and Victoria Headquarters, doubtless the most cheerful: Dear Dr. McAdam (Victorian HQ), I have now settled down here and am very happy. The work here is very varied and I have plenty to keep me going. The people here are very nice and have made me very much at home. The younger son Jack has a motor bike and has taken me into Ballarat twice and there are so many people about the house that there is plenty of diversion. I have not been into Daylesford yet but in any case I won’t be joining the Troop there as there is a good chance of starting a troop here in the village, about a dozen boys or more being available. A neighbouring farmer about three miles away is thinking about getting a Scout up here which will be jolly fine if it comes off. I have written home three times, once a week since I came here . . . . (Signed) James Lobban. Dear Sir, Just a few lines to let you know that I am getting on nicely with my new job. It was a bit on the hard side when I started but now I am used to it I think nothing of it. I have learnt
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several new things since I have been here. I can milk and I have been taught how to pack the apples and I also help with the ploughing and have done several little jobs that I hadn’t done before, so I have not come out here on a fool’s errand. I am keeping in touch with the Scout Headquarters in Melbourne and letting them know how I am progressing. I have not been able to join a Scout troop yet as the nearest one is in Castlemaine which is six miles away and there is no means by which I can get to there. But I shall get there as soon as I can so I will let you know in my next letter . . . (sgd) L. Clilverd. Dear Dr. McAdam, I received your letter dated the 11th May on Thursday 12th . I am sorry I did not communicate with you before this but I thought to leave it for a while and then I should have had something to write about. My situation is excellent, the food is good and the work is reasonable, in fact not so hard as I anticipated. I live as one of the family so the quietness of the country after living in London is somewhat taken off. I am sorry to say I cannot help you as far as getting any Scouts out here, but I believe Mr. Woods mentioned in his letter to you a farmers name who wants a Scout. Please tell the Scouts in England that this is the life, let’em all come! (Signed) A. Paterson.
While upbeat, these letters do reveal the isolation of the Australian interior—then and now. Employers of Scouts also wrote to the Commissioner in Victoria, including that of the above Paterson chap: Dear Sir, Scout Paterson is quite alright and seems to like his job, and I am very pleased with him so far and will be disappointed if he fails to make a first rate man. He will get a good opportunity with me to learn farm work. He is out to day after cattle so has learned to ride quickly, has helped to put a line of fence, has picked 50 bags of wheat, can milk a cow, went with my boy to Tungamah for some things there and drove the waggon and two horses home by himself. I am going to teach him to drive the tractor this week so he will be able to take his turn. He is willing and anxious to learn. I do not expect him to do heavy work. My brother in law wishes to get a Scout boy so please get in touch with him if you wish to place another scout at a good place. (Signed) Jas. Woods.
And the parents of Scout Paterson duly expressed their appreciation to farmer Woods: Dear Sir, We are very thankful for the interest you have taken in our son Arthur. It was his ambition to on the land, so we feel confident that he will do his best to get on at his new work. Camping out with the Scouts gave him the idea of the outdoor life and it is natural to him, as on my wife’s side the family were farmers, although Arthur has never been on a farm himself. Again thanking you for your kindness, (Signed) J & M Paterson.
G. H. Abbiss also wrote expressing thanks for news of their son George: Dear Sir, We received your letter regarding our son George Abbiss in which you state his arrival and how he has fared since he has been under your care. Your most kind effort on his behalf the wife and I must heartily thank you for and it has put our minds at rest knowing that he has someone that he can turn to and then also he has the Scout troop you mention. I am sure that George will be very happy and contented and that he will appreciate your kindness on his behalf, and strive to make good and uphold the traditions of his new country. Thank you for handing letter to him and we will write to you if we wish to know anything in future. We received a letter from you since he landed and he seems very bright and happy, no doubt we
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shall hear further from him when he has settled down. Thanking you again for your kindness, I conclude, (Signed) G. H. Abbiss (Report on Scout Migration, 1927, December 31).
Despite the “chin-up” nature of the letter, the sense of loss, separation, and distance from their son, nonetheless, comes out for G. H. Abbiss and his wife. An interesting case of a widow and her Scout son aged 14, especially merits notice. As no nomination was available for them, Scout Headquarters in London communicated with their Headquarters in Victoria on behalf of Mrs. Bowen and her son, the result being that they both settled happily in Australia, as a letter dated December 14, 1927 indicates: Dear Captain Sutton (Head of the Scout Migration Department), We had a welcoming letter at Adelaide, and a Scout met us on Monday at 7o’c and took us to Dr. Gordon McAdam, who gave us another kindly welcome and had appointments for us. Douglas is to go on a Studd farm (we were up at 5o’c this morning and I saw him off) and he is to learn to ride to-day. He said ‘Mother, I’ll stick on that horse if I have to hang round his neck but I hope to arrive in style.’ I had to get a saddle pad for him to learn on. He is to live in a hut with two other Scouts, one twenty and one eighteen, and keep it tidy, and a woman cooks and washes. As he is so young Mr. Shears has taken him for a fortnight’s trial. He is to ride round cows, milk them, and keep sheds clean and Mr. Shears, after six months he goes somewhere else . . . . He is to ride nine miles once, if possible twice, to Scout meetings. He couldn’t sleep for excitement and means to come out top if possible. I am with Mrs. Sears (nearly the same name), one of Dr. McAdam’s patients, and she is more than kind. I found flowers in my room, and she hopes I will make her house home, and just help her and make her friends my friends. I really feel quite overcome at the marvelous kindness we have met with on all sides both at home and here in the new country. I am alone this afternoon as she and her daughter have gone to the beach for a picnic and she is so glad I am not nervous of being left in the house. It is a beautiful house with an oak dining room and I am to join their theatre parties and be taken to see Australian Places in their motor, and Douglas is to come for weekends when he can, he is 65 miles away in Gippsland . . . . Oh! I do hope we will be able to show our appreciation of it all. Thanking you again on behalf of Douglas and myself. (Signed) H. L. Bowen (Report on Scout Migration, 1927, December 31).
But despite the above inspiring letter, the Victoria arrangement did not conclude very cheerfully. Supervision and control remained lax, and Scouts frequently left their farms and headed for the city with no forwarding address. Allen Warren (1986) notes that, “Scouting volunteers were not necessarily near the settlement farms, and there was no effective machinery for solving the day-to-day problems of settling young men into a new environment” (p. 247).3 And just as today most Australians want to live in the cities near the coast, and shun the harsh, mysterious interior. The whole scheme collapsed as economic depression arrived in the early 1930s and as Australian opposition to emigration increased. With unemployment high, Australia had to look out for its own people. The Chief Scout had suggested the following Scout Badges for recognition by the Emigration authorities: Blacksmith, Camper, Carpenter, Cook, Dairyman, Electrician, Engineer, Farmer, Friend to animals, Gardener, Handyman, Healthyman, Horseman, Leatherworker, Mason, Metel Worker, Pioneer, Plumber, Poultry farmer, Miner, Prospector, Sea fisherman, Surveyor, Tailor, Telegraphist, Thriftyman, and Woodman (Letter to overseas Commissioner, 1925). In 1926, the Secretary of the 1820 Memorial Settler’s Association in South Africa wrote Scout Headquarters in London praising Scout migration for “bringing in a good class of settler
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to develop the country and to form the new South African nation.” He included a letter from a parent of two boys sent out by the Boy Scouts Association which read in part: They are as happy as ever they can be and all simply love the life out there. They have made up their minds they never want to come back to England to live. Five of the six Boy Scouts took the five first places in the School Examination . . . . Besides being so happy, the boys are feeling so fit since they have been out and it is doing them a heap of good. One who was rather too thin has put on a stone in weight which is pretty good for a growing boy to do in about five months . . . . We hope to send many other promising young fellows out during the next few months (Letter to Baden-Powell, 1926, June 30).
Based upon such results and Baden-Powell’s successful tour of South Africa, the Rhodesian government, in 1927 offered six scholarships to Scouts for 2 years training at the Matopos School and for a further 2 years at the Agricultural College, with all expenses being paid by the Rhodesian government. Over 200 Scouts from all parts of the British Isles applied. The Overseas Settlement Committee provided for the ocean passage. The party of six boys joined the Scout Troop at the school in Rhodesia. In addition, Imperial Headquarters announced that the Rhodesian Police Force had opened up career paths for “quite a number of older Scouts of 20 years of age or over, and a large number has applied” (Report on Scout Migration, 1927, December 31). As regards the other parts of the Empire, James Spence of the Canadian Official News Bureau wrote Baden-Powell in 1929 strongly urging him to personally increase his efforts at migration: As you know, the Dominions generally and Canada in particular are anxious to inaugurate a substantial flow of sound lads from the Old Country, but according to our own experience and that of our good friend Captain Sutton there is a singular reluctance on the part of boys generally to take advantage of the unique opportunities which present themselves. Many, particularly in the areas where unemployment is rife, prefer to remain out of work (Spence, 1929, February 16).
It would be most helpful he believed, if a “pronouncement were made on the subject by ‘one having authority.’ . . . May I appeal to you, Sir Robert, to lend a helping hand? Do not think me guilty of flattery when I say there is no man in the country whose word carries more weight with boys than your own” (Spence, 1929, February 16). Total Scout migration to Canada from 1922 to 1932 reached about 1,000, including 111 who settled in 1927 alone, and this was second overall only to Australia. The statistics for the year 1927 also showed 756 Scouts settled in Australia, 34 in New Zealand, 20 in South Africa, and 9 in other parts of the British Empire (Report on Scout Migration, 1927, December 31). The 1927 report on the Scout Migration Department also detailed some of the propaganda activities for that particular year. Some 10,000 special migration wall cards giving details of the Migration Department were sent out to every Scout Troop Headquarters in the British Isles. The cards were welcomed by all Counties and should be the means of stimulating interest in overseas settlement. Also during the year, lectures on Scout Migration were given in Newcastle-on-Tyne, Birmingham, Manchester, Wellingford, Bournemouth, Ipswich, St. Leonards, and Hastings in England. While in Scotland and Ireland, lectures were presented in Edinburgh (twice), Glasgow, Aberdeen, Dunsfermine, Belfast, Dublin, and Omagh. Articles also appeared in various magazines of the Scout Association in which letters from settlers had been published. And a
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special leading article would appear in the Scout Diary for 1928 giving details of Scout Migration. Other forms of propaganda included leafleting all Scout Troops in the British Isles, radio broadcasts from Glasgow Broadcasting station, and publishing photographs of Scout settlement parties in the press along with giving details of their activities to newspapers. In addition for 1927, 776 letters of introduction to Ports of call and 930 letters of introduction to Overseas headquarters had been composed, while 4,739 letters came from Scouts requesting information. For 1927, the Scout Migration Department wrote some 8,108 letters regarding migration. All this information and statistics went to the Imperial Headquarters in monthly reports and to the Overseas Settlement Committee in quarterly returns (Report on Scout Migration, 1927, December 31). In December 1928, Chief Scout Robert Baden-Powell issued the following message to Scouts leaving for overseas: Lucky beggars you fellows are to be going to the great country that awaits you overseas. I wonder if I my also say—Lucky country to get such fellows for her future men. I hope so! I shall watch your careers and I trust that you will show people there that men trained as British Scouts can be relied upon to be honest and thorough in all their dealings, keen to work hard, and clean in thought, word and deed. Above all be determined that you will stick to your job even if at times it may be difficult—and keep off drink. If you do this you are bound to get on well in your career, whatever it may be; but don’t think only of yourself. Do your best to help in making your new country great and prosperous; and if you care to write and say how you are getting on I shall be only too glad to hear from you. The best of luck and success to you all (Baden-Powell, 1928, December).
But in fact the work of the Scout Migration Department had almost ceased by 1931, when depression and high unemployment forced the dominions to tend to their own concerns. Also the increasing autonomy sought by these same dominions worked against the Scout migration scheme. As Allen Warren has written, “The whole period of Scout involvement with migration had shown how fragile were fraternal imperial links when faced with adverse economic circumstances and a growing national self-consciousness amongst the dominions themselves” (Warren, 1986, p. 247). In July 1928, Leopold Amery, founder of the Overseas Settlement Committee, explained to Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin that there was a “considerable divergence between the national situation and outlook in Great Britain and in the Dominions in connection with overseas settlement. We cannot hope to bridge that gulf except by a policy of conciliation and forbearance” (Fedorowich, p. 194).4 That forbearance was not forthcoming, because as mentioned, the depression of 1929–1933 effectively ended government assisted migration to the dominions, including that of the Scout Association, which made an earnest effort to promote Scout migration. Baden-Powell attempted to revive the program with the Dominions Office, but it went nowhere. Many factors, including crude social imperialism, social Darwinism and the fad of Empire in the 1920s and 1930s, may have motivated the various post-war schemes aimed at Empire migration, but for Baden-Powell, the ultimate failure of the Scout Migration Department had to have been a heavy disappointment—another opportunity lost to exchange the decadence of an over-civilized, over-urbanized, over-populated, and materialistic Britain for the clean, fresh, open-air of nature and the frontier, something that had always been so central to his philosophy.
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Notes 1. For the Buckhurst Farm experiment see SAA/TC/146, Scout Association Archives, Baden-Powell House, Queensgate, London . Letter to Major Fox from Baden-Powell, August 19, 1925, SAA/TC/146. For the details of the Boy Scout migration scheme see The Boy Scout Association Annual Reports 1922–1939 and File in SAA/TC/27. 2. For a general discussion of migration to Australia see Michael Roe, Australia, Britain, and Migration, 1915–1940, A Study of Desperate Hopes, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995 as well as Geoffrey Sherington, “Immigration between the Wars” and “Assisted English Settlement” in James Jupp, Editor, The Australian People, Sydney: Angus and Robertson Publishers, 1988, pp. 92–96, 417–419. For a discussion of a similar youth migration scheme to that of the Scouts see Geoffrey Sherington, “British Youth and Empire Settlement: The Dreadnought Boys in New South Wales,” Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society, 82(1), (1996 June), 1–22. 3. The strains that emerged with these youth in the isolated outback could be deadly. Between 1923 and 1925 six “Barwell Boys,” a “Dreadnought Boy,” (members of similar assisted youth migration plans), and a Queensland farm apprentice boy committed suicide. Geoffry Sherington observed that, “The rate of suicide amongst these juvenile assisted migrants was 60 times greater than for the comparable age group in England. In July of 1924 one “Barwell Boy.” Previously a model worker, assaulted his employer’s wife and then shot himself.” Sherington, “Assisted English Settlement,” p. 418. 4. Michael Roe in his study of interwar migration to Australia concluded that both government and immigrants soured on the schemes for Empire settlement: “In Australia most migrants continued a life of humdrum hardship.” Britain and Australia simple had different interests: the British thought they could solve problems by exporting people; the Australians wanted to import British capital. Roe, p. 219. References Baden-Powell, R. (n.d.). Article written for The Scouter, undated but probably 1922 or 1923 (File No. SAA/TC/27). London: Scout Association Archives, Baden-Powell House, Queensgate. Baden-Powell, R. (1928, December). Message to Scouts leaving for overseas (File No. SAA/TC/27). London: Scout Association Archives, Baden-Powell House, Queensgate. Blakeley, B. L. (1988). The society for overseas settlement of British women and the problems of Empire Settlement, 1917–1936. Albion, 20(3), 421–444. Fedorowich, K. (1995). Unfit for heroes. Reconstruction and soldier settlement in the empire between the wars. Manchester, England: Manchester University Press. Kennedy, D. (1988). Empire migration in post-war reconstruction: The role of the Overseas Settlement Committee, 1919–1922. Albion, 20(3), 403–404. Letter to overseas Commissioner. (1925). (File No. SAA/TC/27). London: Scout Association Archives, Baden-Powell House, Queensgate. Letter to Baden-Powell from the Secretary, 1820 Memorial Settler’s Association in South Africa. (1926, June 26). (File No. SAA/TC/27). London: Scout Association Archives, Baden-Powell House, Queensgate. Report on Scout Migration. (1927, December 31). (File No. SAA/TC/27). London: Scout Association Archives, Baden-Powell House, Queensgate.
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Report. (1933, July 28). (File No. SAA/TC/27). London: Scout Association Archives, Baden-Powell House, Queensgate. Sherington, G., & Jeffrey, C. (1998). Fairbridge: Empire and child migration (Woburn Education Series). London: Woburn Press. Spence, J. (1929, February 16). Letter to Baden-Powell (File No. SAA/TC/27). London: Scout Association Archives, Baden-Powell House, Queensgate. Voeltz, R. A. (1997). Boy scouts and their discontents: Reflections on Baden-Powell. Weber Studies: An Interdisciplinary Humanities Journal, 14(2), 113–119. Warren, A. (1986). Citizens of the empire: Baden-Powell, Scouts, Guides and an imperial ideal. In John M. Mackenzie (Ed.), Imperialism and Popular Culture (pp. 246–247). Manchester, England: Manchester University Press. Williams, K. (1985). The British state, social imperialism and emigration from Britain, 1900–1922: The ideology and antecedents of the Empire Settlement Act. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of London, London.
The British Boy Scout migration plan 1922–1932 Richard A. Voeltz∗ Department of History and Government, Cameron University, 2800 West Gore Boulevard, Lawton, OK 73505-6377, USA
Abstract During the years 1922–1932 the British Boy Scout Association promoted a number of schemes for empire migration. Under the terms of the Empire Settlement Act of 1922, the Association became one of many voluntary religious and philanthropic organizations for empire migration with the establishment of a formal Migration Department at Imperial Scout Headquarters. Most of the Scouts went to Australia with a smaller number going to Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, and Rhodesia. The work of the Scout Migration Department had almost ceased by 1931, when depression and high unemployment forced the dominions to look out for themselves. Also the increasing autonomy sought by these dominions worked against the Scout migrations schemes. © 2002 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.
As Dane Kennedy (1988) has written, “World War I and its aftermath restored the empire to a central place in the considerations of Whitehall” (p. 403). And no consideration was greater than that of the social imperialist tinged doctrine of migration. Culture and blood bound Britain and the empire together. Even before the war was over proponents envisioned assisted migration “. . . as a means for the state to rectify demographic imbalances in Briton and the dominions and thereby reduce domestic unemployment, overcrowding, discontent, supply labor and wives for colonial populations, and increase trade and strengthen defense within the imperial system as a whole” (Kennedy, p. 404; for other discussions of empire migration schemes see Blakeley, 1988; Fedorowich, 1995; Sherington & Jeffrey, 1998; Williams, 1985). And this new emphasis on emigration in the 1920s reinforced an already growing sense of imperial fraternity within Robert Baden-Powell’s Scouting movement where a common pattern of training for Scout masters throughout the empire—the Wood Badge—had been established (Warren, 1986). Before World War I, the Boy Scout Association had briefly run a agriculture ∗
Tel.: +1-580-581-2493; fax +1-580-581-2941. E-mail address: [email protected] (R.A. Voeltz).
0362-3319/02/$ – see front matter © 2002 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 3 6 2 - 3 3 1 9 ( 0 2 ) 0 0 2 6 5 - 3
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R.A. Voeltz / The Social Science Journal 40 (2003) 143–151
training school based upon Scouting principles at Buckhurst Place in Kent, with the hope of sending urban boys back to the land in Britain and also within the Empire by “instilling into them love for country life” (Warren, p. 246). And though “some of them were pretty spirited characters when they first joined us and had been failures in the scholastic line, I do not know of one out of the two hundred odd who turned to failure in the end” (Warren, p. 246), Baden-Powell later wrote when praising the establishment of scholarships for Boy Scouts at an Agricultural College in Australia. The Buckhurst experiment collapsed during the war because the boys had to leave for the army, but under the terms of the Empire Settlement Act of 1922, passed enthusiastically by Parliament, the Association became one of many voluntary religious and philanthropic managing organizations for empire migration with the establishment of a formal Migration Department at Imperial Scout Headquarters (Warren).1 In 1922 and 1923, this newly founded organization sent 209 Scouts to settle in the empire and from 1924 to 1932 some 4,744 Scouts emigrated to the Empire with most going to Australia, 3,365, while the rest went to Canada, 915, New Zealand, 247, South Africa and Rhodesia, 129, and other parts of the empire, 88 (Report, 1933, July 28). Baden-Powell himself in an article for The Scouter magazine strongly advocated the virtues of migration. Just returning from the “. . . great open spaces of under-inhabited Canada and Australia to overcrowded England one wonders why the surplus population of the one can’t occupy the surplus emptiness of the others” (Baden-Powell, 1922 or 1923). He continues to observe that: In Australia there are only 6 millions . . . . And of those six millions only two are on the land. Two-Thirds of them are living in the towns. Thousands of these are out of work. Also the birthrate is going down . . . . Just north of this vast unoccupied there is a small island—not much bigger than our United Kingdom—Japan. Japan is overcrowded with a population of over 50 millions, ready to work hard in agriculture or industry . . . . What about it? Are they not justified in coveting Australia with its vast natural resources left only partially developed and not utilized by Great Britain?
Baden-Powell advised Scoutmasters to advise any of their “more spirited boys” to make “successful careers in that land of opportunity,” but only if they abandon the life of the city: But when you tell them of the wonderful possibilities you should at the same time warn them to go out and become townspeople is merely to add themselves to the army of unemployed. If, on the contrary, they go with the determination to take up farming, prospecting or ranching,–and TO STICK TO IT-they will get on. But the secret of success is ability to take the rough with the smooth, to keep off drink and to work hard, and to keep to their job.
This all sounds simple enough, he warns, but it isn’t so simple in practice: There’s your background to be considered. Young men brought up in the civilization of a home have to change their skins to make a success of it out there. They must sacrifice home completely and have the guts and grins to face a rough life and a hard one. At any rate that’s the way it will seem to them at first.
Baden-Powell then quotes from an article in Blackwood’s Magazine by “H.W.S.” telling how the “background” of home holds men captive to its lure wherever they may wander in the world:
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The toughest ruffian I ever knew at sea was held by a memory of the Commercial Road on a winter night, with the gas flares lighting the cockle barrows and the fried fish shop at the street corner. At the end he would go back to that, as to paradise itself. That was his background; the same to him as our college spires to you or me . . . .
And it is precisely that home “background” the migrants have got to discard: So if they are going to go our stock-rearing on the plains, only to get tired and homesick, and to want cinemas and girls—they had much better stay at home . . . . What the country does want out there are husky young Britons who mean to succeed, men who can put their hearts and their backs into their work, men of adventure and open air; men with pluck, guts and cheerfulness. Those are the fellows that Australia wants, and for whom Australia holds out every kind of opportunity, as indeed do Canada, New Zealand and most of our Colonies and Dependencies . . . . Let your young migrants break away from being captives of their ‘background’ and push out from this overcrowded, over-civilized little island to go forward to the bigger adventure of a MAN’S life, helping to make our great Empire stronger and mightier yet (Baden-Powell, 1922 or 1923).
The goals of the Boy Scout Migration Office fit in perfectly with Baden-Powell’s belief that to stop the rot of urban decadence and everything that goes with it—sleazy politics, sex, crass materialism, degeneration, arid intellectualism, and the dirty business of making money—one could simply drop out and head for the hills or the woods, or now the Outback or the Veldt (Voeltz, 1997). The year 1927 was reported as being particularly satisfying for Scout migration with a number of new features, including the inauguration of a special Scout nomination scheme for Victoria, Australia. Under the plan parties of Scouts between 15 and 19 years of age were sent out each month to Victoria where they were placed on selection farms as farm learners where they received minimal wages and keep. The first party sailed on March 3, 1927 and then 64 more Scouts had been selected for the plan, sailing in monthly groups. The boys were all active members of a Troop, especially selected and recommended (Report on Scout Migration, 1927, December 31).2 The Migration Commissioner at Victoria reported favorably upon the boys chosen and extracts from the boys’ letter’s to Headquarters, letters from boys’ employers to the Commissioner in Victoria, and parents’ letters of thanks, all appeared in the 1927 Report on Scout Migration. Here are three letters from the boys to Imperial and Victoria Headquarters, doubtless the most cheerful: Dear Dr. McAdam (Victorian HQ), I have now settled down here and am very happy. The work here is very varied and I have plenty to keep me going. The people here are very nice and have made me very much at home. The younger son Jack has a motor bike and has taken me into Ballarat twice and there are so many people about the house that there is plenty of diversion. I have not been into Daylesford yet but in any case I won’t be joining the Troop there as there is a good chance of starting a troop here in the village, about a dozen boys or more being available. A neighbouring farmer about three miles away is thinking about getting a Scout up here which will be jolly fine if it comes off. I have written home three times, once a week since I came here . . . . (Signed) James Lobban. Dear Sir, Just a few lines to let you know that I am getting on nicely with my new job. It was a bit on the hard side when I started but now I am used to it I think nothing of it. I have learnt
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several new things since I have been here. I can milk and I have been taught how to pack the apples and I also help with the ploughing and have done several little jobs that I hadn’t done before, so I have not come out here on a fool’s errand. I am keeping in touch with the Scout Headquarters in Melbourne and letting them know how I am progressing. I have not been able to join a Scout troop yet as the nearest one is in Castlemaine which is six miles away and there is no means by which I can get to there. But I shall get there as soon as I can so I will let you know in my next letter . . . (sgd) L. Clilverd. Dear Dr. McAdam, I received your letter dated the 11th May on Thursday 12th . I am sorry I did not communicate with you before this but I thought to leave it for a while and then I should have had something to write about. My situation is excellent, the food is good and the work is reasonable, in fact not so hard as I anticipated. I live as one of the family so the quietness of the country after living in London is somewhat taken off. I am sorry to say I cannot help you as far as getting any Scouts out here, but I believe Mr. Woods mentioned in his letter to you a farmers name who wants a Scout. Please tell the Scouts in England that this is the life, let’em all come! (Signed) A. Paterson.
While upbeat, these letters do reveal the isolation of the Australian interior—then and now. Employers of Scouts also wrote to the Commissioner in Victoria, including that of the above Paterson chap: Dear Sir, Scout Paterson is quite alright and seems to like his job, and I am very pleased with him so far and will be disappointed if he fails to make a first rate man. He will get a good opportunity with me to learn farm work. He is out to day after cattle so has learned to ride quickly, has helped to put a line of fence, has picked 50 bags of wheat, can milk a cow, went with my boy to Tungamah for some things there and drove the waggon and two horses home by himself. I am going to teach him to drive the tractor this week so he will be able to take his turn. He is willing and anxious to learn. I do not expect him to do heavy work. My brother in law wishes to get a Scout boy so please get in touch with him if you wish to place another scout at a good place. (Signed) Jas. Woods.
And the parents of Scout Paterson duly expressed their appreciation to farmer Woods: Dear Sir, We are very thankful for the interest you have taken in our son Arthur. It was his ambition to on the land, so we feel confident that he will do his best to get on at his new work. Camping out with the Scouts gave him the idea of the outdoor life and it is natural to him, as on my wife’s side the family were farmers, although Arthur has never been on a farm himself. Again thanking you for your kindness, (Signed) J & M Paterson.
G. H. Abbiss also wrote expressing thanks for news of their son George: Dear Sir, We received your letter regarding our son George Abbiss in which you state his arrival and how he has fared since he has been under your care. Your most kind effort on his behalf the wife and I must heartily thank you for and it has put our minds at rest knowing that he has someone that he can turn to and then also he has the Scout troop you mention. I am sure that George will be very happy and contented and that he will appreciate your kindness on his behalf, and strive to make good and uphold the traditions of his new country. Thank you for handing letter to him and we will write to you if we wish to know anything in future. We received a letter from you since he landed and he seems very bright and happy, no doubt we
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shall hear further from him when he has settled down. Thanking you again for your kindness, I conclude, (Signed) G. H. Abbiss (Report on Scout Migration, 1927, December 31).
Despite the “chin-up” nature of the letter, the sense of loss, separation, and distance from their son, nonetheless, comes out for G. H. Abbiss and his wife. An interesting case of a widow and her Scout son aged 14, especially merits notice. As no nomination was available for them, Scout Headquarters in London communicated with their Headquarters in Victoria on behalf of Mrs. Bowen and her son, the result being that they both settled happily in Australia, as a letter dated December 14, 1927 indicates: Dear Captain Sutton (Head of the Scout Migration Department), We had a welcoming letter at Adelaide, and a Scout met us on Monday at 7o’c and took us to Dr. Gordon McAdam, who gave us another kindly welcome and had appointments for us. Douglas is to go on a Studd farm (we were up at 5o’c this morning and I saw him off) and he is to learn to ride to-day. He said ‘Mother, I’ll stick on that horse if I have to hang round his neck but I hope to arrive in style.’ I had to get a saddle pad for him to learn on. He is to live in a hut with two other Scouts, one twenty and one eighteen, and keep it tidy, and a woman cooks and washes. As he is so young Mr. Shears has taken him for a fortnight’s trial. He is to ride round cows, milk them, and keep sheds clean and Mr. Shears, after six months he goes somewhere else . . . . He is to ride nine miles once, if possible twice, to Scout meetings. He couldn’t sleep for excitement and means to come out top if possible. I am with Mrs. Sears (nearly the same name), one of Dr. McAdam’s patients, and she is more than kind. I found flowers in my room, and she hopes I will make her house home, and just help her and make her friends my friends. I really feel quite overcome at the marvelous kindness we have met with on all sides both at home and here in the new country. I am alone this afternoon as she and her daughter have gone to the beach for a picnic and she is so glad I am not nervous of being left in the house. It is a beautiful house with an oak dining room and I am to join their theatre parties and be taken to see Australian Places in their motor, and Douglas is to come for weekends when he can, he is 65 miles away in Gippsland . . . . Oh! I do hope we will be able to show our appreciation of it all. Thanking you again on behalf of Douglas and myself. (Signed) H. L. Bowen (Report on Scout Migration, 1927, December 31).
But despite the above inspiring letter, the Victoria arrangement did not conclude very cheerfully. Supervision and control remained lax, and Scouts frequently left their farms and headed for the city with no forwarding address. Allen Warren (1986) notes that, “Scouting volunteers were not necessarily near the settlement farms, and there was no effective machinery for solving the day-to-day problems of settling young men into a new environment” (p. 247).3 And just as today most Australians want to live in the cities near the coast, and shun the harsh, mysterious interior. The whole scheme collapsed as economic depression arrived in the early 1930s and as Australian opposition to emigration increased. With unemployment high, Australia had to look out for its own people. The Chief Scout had suggested the following Scout Badges for recognition by the Emigration authorities: Blacksmith, Camper, Carpenter, Cook, Dairyman, Electrician, Engineer, Farmer, Friend to animals, Gardener, Handyman, Healthyman, Horseman, Leatherworker, Mason, Metel Worker, Pioneer, Plumber, Poultry farmer, Miner, Prospector, Sea fisherman, Surveyor, Tailor, Telegraphist, Thriftyman, and Woodman (Letter to overseas Commissioner, 1925). In 1926, the Secretary of the 1820 Memorial Settler’s Association in South Africa wrote Scout Headquarters in London praising Scout migration for “bringing in a good class of settler
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to develop the country and to form the new South African nation.” He included a letter from a parent of two boys sent out by the Boy Scouts Association which read in part: They are as happy as ever they can be and all simply love the life out there. They have made up their minds they never want to come back to England to live. Five of the six Boy Scouts took the five first places in the School Examination . . . . Besides being so happy, the boys are feeling so fit since they have been out and it is doing them a heap of good. One who was rather too thin has put on a stone in weight which is pretty good for a growing boy to do in about five months . . . . We hope to send many other promising young fellows out during the next few months (Letter to Baden-Powell, 1926, June 30).
Based upon such results and Baden-Powell’s successful tour of South Africa, the Rhodesian government, in 1927 offered six scholarships to Scouts for 2 years training at the Matopos School and for a further 2 years at the Agricultural College, with all expenses being paid by the Rhodesian government. Over 200 Scouts from all parts of the British Isles applied. The Overseas Settlement Committee provided for the ocean passage. The party of six boys joined the Scout Troop at the school in Rhodesia. In addition, Imperial Headquarters announced that the Rhodesian Police Force had opened up career paths for “quite a number of older Scouts of 20 years of age or over, and a large number has applied” (Report on Scout Migration, 1927, December 31). As regards the other parts of the Empire, James Spence of the Canadian Official News Bureau wrote Baden-Powell in 1929 strongly urging him to personally increase his efforts at migration: As you know, the Dominions generally and Canada in particular are anxious to inaugurate a substantial flow of sound lads from the Old Country, but according to our own experience and that of our good friend Captain Sutton there is a singular reluctance on the part of boys generally to take advantage of the unique opportunities which present themselves. Many, particularly in the areas where unemployment is rife, prefer to remain out of work (Spence, 1929, February 16).
It would be most helpful he believed, if a “pronouncement were made on the subject by ‘one having authority.’ . . . May I appeal to you, Sir Robert, to lend a helping hand? Do not think me guilty of flattery when I say there is no man in the country whose word carries more weight with boys than your own” (Spence, 1929, February 16). Total Scout migration to Canada from 1922 to 1932 reached about 1,000, including 111 who settled in 1927 alone, and this was second overall only to Australia. The statistics for the year 1927 also showed 756 Scouts settled in Australia, 34 in New Zealand, 20 in South Africa, and 9 in other parts of the British Empire (Report on Scout Migration, 1927, December 31). The 1927 report on the Scout Migration Department also detailed some of the propaganda activities for that particular year. Some 10,000 special migration wall cards giving details of the Migration Department were sent out to every Scout Troop Headquarters in the British Isles. The cards were welcomed by all Counties and should be the means of stimulating interest in overseas settlement. Also during the year, lectures on Scout Migration were given in Newcastle-on-Tyne, Birmingham, Manchester, Wellingford, Bournemouth, Ipswich, St. Leonards, and Hastings in England. While in Scotland and Ireland, lectures were presented in Edinburgh (twice), Glasgow, Aberdeen, Dunsfermine, Belfast, Dublin, and Omagh. Articles also appeared in various magazines of the Scout Association in which letters from settlers had been published. And a
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special leading article would appear in the Scout Diary for 1928 giving details of Scout Migration. Other forms of propaganda included leafleting all Scout Troops in the British Isles, radio broadcasts from Glasgow Broadcasting station, and publishing photographs of Scout settlement parties in the press along with giving details of their activities to newspapers. In addition for 1927, 776 letters of introduction to Ports of call and 930 letters of introduction to Overseas headquarters had been composed, while 4,739 letters came from Scouts requesting information. For 1927, the Scout Migration Department wrote some 8,108 letters regarding migration. All this information and statistics went to the Imperial Headquarters in monthly reports and to the Overseas Settlement Committee in quarterly returns (Report on Scout Migration, 1927, December 31). In December 1928, Chief Scout Robert Baden-Powell issued the following message to Scouts leaving for overseas: Lucky beggars you fellows are to be going to the great country that awaits you overseas. I wonder if I my also say—Lucky country to get such fellows for her future men. I hope so! I shall watch your careers and I trust that you will show people there that men trained as British Scouts can be relied upon to be honest and thorough in all their dealings, keen to work hard, and clean in thought, word and deed. Above all be determined that you will stick to your job even if at times it may be difficult—and keep off drink. If you do this you are bound to get on well in your career, whatever it may be; but don’t think only of yourself. Do your best to help in making your new country great and prosperous; and if you care to write and say how you are getting on I shall be only too glad to hear from you. The best of luck and success to you all (Baden-Powell, 1928, December).
But in fact the work of the Scout Migration Department had almost ceased by 1931, when depression and high unemployment forced the dominions to tend to their own concerns. Also the increasing autonomy sought by these same dominions worked against the Scout migration scheme. As Allen Warren has written, “The whole period of Scout involvement with migration had shown how fragile were fraternal imperial links when faced with adverse economic circumstances and a growing national self-consciousness amongst the dominions themselves” (Warren, 1986, p. 247). In July 1928, Leopold Amery, founder of the Overseas Settlement Committee, explained to Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin that there was a “considerable divergence between the national situation and outlook in Great Britain and in the Dominions in connection with overseas settlement. We cannot hope to bridge that gulf except by a policy of conciliation and forbearance” (Fedorowich, p. 194).4 That forbearance was not forthcoming, because as mentioned, the depression of 1929–1933 effectively ended government assisted migration to the dominions, including that of the Scout Association, which made an earnest effort to promote Scout migration. Baden-Powell attempted to revive the program with the Dominions Office, but it went nowhere. Many factors, including crude social imperialism, social Darwinism and the fad of Empire in the 1920s and 1930s, may have motivated the various post-war schemes aimed at Empire migration, but for Baden-Powell, the ultimate failure of the Scout Migration Department had to have been a heavy disappointment—another opportunity lost to exchange the decadence of an over-civilized, over-urbanized, over-populated, and materialistic Britain for the clean, fresh, open-air of nature and the frontier, something that had always been so central to his philosophy.
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Notes 1. For the Buckhurst Farm experiment see SAA/TC/146, Scout Association Archives, Baden-Powell House, Queensgate, London . Letter to Major Fox from Baden-Powell, August 19, 1925, SAA/TC/146. For the details of the Boy Scout migration scheme see The Boy Scout Association Annual Reports 1922–1939 and File in SAA/TC/27. 2. For a general discussion of migration to Australia see Michael Roe, Australia, Britain, and Migration, 1915–1940, A Study of Desperate Hopes, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995 as well as Geoffrey Sherington, “Immigration between the Wars” and “Assisted English Settlement” in James Jupp, Editor, The Australian People, Sydney: Angus and Robertson Publishers, 1988, pp. 92–96, 417–419. For a discussion of a similar youth migration scheme to that of the Scouts see Geoffrey Sherington, “British Youth and Empire Settlement: The Dreadnought Boys in New South Wales,” Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society, 82(1), (1996 June), 1–22. 3. The strains that emerged with these youth in the isolated outback could be deadly. Between 1923 and 1925 six “Barwell Boys,” a “Dreadnought Boy,” (members of similar assisted youth migration plans), and a Queensland farm apprentice boy committed suicide. Geoffry Sherington observed that, “The rate of suicide amongst these juvenile assisted migrants was 60 times greater than for the comparable age group in England. In July of 1924 one “Barwell Boy.” Previously a model worker, assaulted his employer’s wife and then shot himself.” Sherington, “Assisted English Settlement,” p. 418. 4. Michael Roe in his study of interwar migration to Australia concluded that both government and immigrants soured on the schemes for Empire settlement: “In Australia most migrants continued a life of humdrum hardship.” Britain and Australia simple had different interests: the British thought they could solve problems by exporting people; the Australians wanted to import British capital. Roe, p. 219. References Baden-Powell, R. (n.d.). Article written for The Scouter, undated but probably 1922 or 1923 (File No. SAA/TC/27). London: Scout Association Archives, Baden-Powell House, Queensgate. Baden-Powell, R. (1928, December). Message to Scouts leaving for overseas (File No. SAA/TC/27). London: Scout Association Archives, Baden-Powell House, Queensgate. Blakeley, B. L. (1988). The society for overseas settlement of British women and the problems of Empire Settlement, 1917–1936. Albion, 20(3), 421–444. Fedorowich, K. (1995). Unfit for heroes. Reconstruction and soldier settlement in the empire between the wars. Manchester, England: Manchester University Press. Kennedy, D. (1988). Empire migration in post-war reconstruction: The role of the Overseas Settlement Committee, 1919–1922. Albion, 20(3), 403–404. Letter to overseas Commissioner. (1925). (File No. SAA/TC/27). London: Scout Association Archives, Baden-Powell House, Queensgate. Letter to Baden-Powell from the Secretary, 1820 Memorial Settler’s Association in South Africa. (1926, June 26). (File No. SAA/TC/27). London: Scout Association Archives, Baden-Powell House, Queensgate. Report on Scout Migration. (1927, December 31). (File No. SAA/TC/27). London: Scout Association Archives, Baden-Powell House, Queensgate.
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Report. (1933, July 28). (File No. SAA/TC/27). London: Scout Association Archives, Baden-Powell House, Queensgate. Sherington, G., & Jeffrey, C. (1998). Fairbridge: Empire and child migration (Woburn Education Series). London: Woburn Press. Spence, J. (1929, February 16). Letter to Baden-Powell (File No. SAA/TC/27). London: Scout Association Archives, Baden-Powell House, Queensgate. Voeltz, R. A. (1997). Boy scouts and their discontents: Reflections on Baden-Powell. Weber Studies: An Interdisciplinary Humanities Journal, 14(2), 113–119. Warren, A. (1986). Citizens of the empire: Baden-Powell, Scouts, Guides and an imperial ideal. In John M. Mackenzie (Ed.), Imperialism and Popular Culture (pp. 246–247). Manchester, England: Manchester University Press. Williams, K. (1985). The British state, social imperialism and emigration from Britain, 1900–1922: The ideology and antecedents of the Empire Settlement Act. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of London, London.