How the Girl Guides Won the War by Janie Hampton

Lord Baden-Powell’s sister Agnes Baden-Powell officially established the Guide Association in 1910 and was later joined by Olave, Robert’s wife, whom he married in 1912. In 1909, a Boy Scout rally was held at Crystal Palace in London and was interrupted by a group of young women, who arrived saying that they were Girl Scouts, and that they wanted something for the girls. The Boy Scouts were set up in 1907, and Scouting for Boys was published a year later, which became one of the bestselling books of the twentieth century. The Girl Guiding movement grew out of the Boy Scout movement, founded by Lord Robert Baden-Powell, a Boer War hero who was asked in the early twentieth century to set up something to give young boys a hobby and to keep them out of mischief.

It also instilled a sense of feminism and gender equality in me from a young age, teaching me that being born a girl should not hinder me, that I could aspire to do anything I wanted to and was just as capable as my male friends and relatives – an invaluable message for today of all days. I really think it influenced my interest in women’s history (which, when I think about it, comes from way before university to school when I would always find the opportunity to discuss the female role in everything we were learning about). I was a Rainbow, a Brownie, a Guide, a Young Leader and am now an Assistant Guider and cannot imagine having not being part of Girlguiding.

Present in 146 countries worldwide, reaching ten million girls and young women, it is an incredibly dynamic movement and one which is close to my heart, as I have been a member since I was five years old. Today is International Women’s Day and I thought this was a perfect chance to talk about one of the biggest women’s movements across the world – Girl Guides and Girl Scouts.

How the Girl Guides Won the War by Janie Hampton