From The Archive
35 The Oundelian 2011
The Oundle School Scout Troops 1931 - 1972 The Scouting movement, set up by Sir Robert Baden-
Powell in 1907 to encourage the physical and social
development of boys, recently celebrated its centenary, but
it took a further twenty years or more for the movement to
take a hold in Oundle School. The first troop was that
established by Laxton School in 1929 and its success
encouraged the foundation, with the enthusiastic support
of Headmaster Kenneth Fisher, of the Oundle School
troops eighty years ago in 1931.
Initially the Scout Troop was established in order to train
senior boys to become scoutmasters and to help with the
local town troop. Dudley Heesom, the Head of History,
was the first Scoutmaster and Messrs Caudwell and de
Ville his assistants. Initially there were nineteen scouts in
patrols named ‘Otters’, ‘Curlews, and ‘Swifts’ but this
quickly expanded to a further two troops plus a Senior
troop. The field Houses’ troop comprised Hawks,
Kingfishers, Peacocks and Woodpigeons and the town
Houses under Mr Caudwell Beavers, Bulldogs, Herons
and Plovers. By 1932 there was a total of sixty in the three
troops. A Berrystead troop was set up in 1934 and a Sea
Scout troop in 1943.
The troops trained and paraded in a variety of buildings
spread around the town, including the Anchor Brewery
Maltings in South Road, Cobthorne stables and the British
School behind West Street, although a wooden scout hut
with a brick chimney was erected in 1935 adjoining the
Bramston Paddock . This was much later moved to the
back of the Berrystead where it currently stands. Camps
Tea up for the 1st Troop, Camp, 1933. ‘101 things to do with string’ (F.D. Lenton, St Anthony)
Heading to camp at Wadenhoe, 1932.
From The Archive
36
were held at weekends and field weekends. The routine
tended to consist of the raising of the flagpole, fire-lighting
to cook breakfast, the ‘brailing-up’ of tents and tidying up
of the site before inspection in uniform. Marks were
awarded to each patrol for tidiness. Uniform was then
discarded in favour of shorts etc. for wide games,
competitions and sports. River skills (rafting, bridge-
building and swimming etc.) were popular and general
training in self-reliance and citizenship through such
activities as First Aid, map-reading, path-finding and knot
tying was encouraged.
Local camps were held, amongst many other places, at
Lilford and Wadenhoe and others at Aysgarth, Llan
Ffestiniog, Windermere, Wray and Youlbury. In 1933 a
dozen Oundle Scouts attended a jamboree held at Godollo
in Hungary and a number of King’s Scouts under ‘Tub’
Shaw attended a rally in Leicester in July 1937 to meet
Lord Baden-Powell who showed them the Order of Merit
he had just received. In the same year, a party of 24 scouts
was sent to the World Jamboree at Bloemendaal
Vogelenzang in Holland. In the run-up to war, many
chances arose to mix with troops of various nations, and
encounters with the Hitler Youth movement were
frequent. Indeed, in November 1936 a group of Hitler
Youth members visited Oundle and sang at a concert for
the benefit of the School. As they were entertained by their
hosts in the Tuck Shop (now the Common Room), their
uniforms gave rise to much comment.
On the outset of the Second World War in 1939, the School
Scouts participated in the national scout appeal to collect
paper for the war effort and pressure was brought to bear
on scout recruitment by the requirements of the new ‘Cert
A’ shooting qualification. However, the scout troop
maintained some momentum and training became centred
on achieving the First Class and King’s Scout badges. In
January 1941 a memorial service was held in the parish
Church on the death of the Chief Scout, Lord Baden-
Powell.
Bridge-building at Cotterstock, 1931
‘Stags’ and ‘Eagles’ set off to Hungary: Market Place, 1936.
An encounter with the Hitler Youth near Frankfurt, 1935.
Lord Rowallan with Headmasters Fisher and Stainforth and
scoutmasters, 1945.
The 3rd Oundle Troop, Easter 1949. (Scouter: D.L. Venning)
From The Archive
37 The Oundelian 2011
The end of the war saw conditions in Europe unpropitious
for further camps abroad, but morale was raised in
autumn 1945 by the visit of the new Chief Scout Lord
Rowallan to visit the annual camp and inspect the troops.
After the War, the Sea and Land Scouts were amalgamated
and the result was one Laxton School troop (the First,
under ‘Spec’ Mansfield) and four Oundle School scout
troops under, amongst others, Michael Caswell, Dudley
Heesom, George Huse, and ‘Tub’Shaw: the Third, Fourth
(Junior), Fifth and Sixth. The ‘District Commissioner’ for
both schools was D.L. Venning, one of the Mathematics
masters.
Whilst exploring the coastline during the Senior Scout
camp on Anglesey in 1952, a group of Oundle scouts came
across a bale of grey cloth which proved on closer
inspection to be 30 yards of Bradford worsted. It was so
heavy that they could not carry their booty back to camp
intact and so passed on part of it to some local inhabitants
and hauled the rest back to their tent. They were startled
to be awoken at midnight to the glare of a flashlight
brandished by the local policeman who upbraided them
for the crime of ‘smuggling’ (or at least for not reporting
their find); an article headlined ‘Schoolboy Smugglers’
appeared in the local press the next day.
By the 1950s in Laxton School, Scouts was an alternative to
C.C.F. and met principally on Wednesday afternoons,
The Reverend Parker, 1944.
when full uniform was worn. This consisted of a khaki
shirt, shorts and stockings with green garter flashes
(maroon for the senior troop) and black shoes. A green
beret for the main troop and a maroon one for the senior
troop had begun to replace the old ‘Baden Powell’ hat by
the late 1950s. A grey neckerchief with woggle was worn
by the senior troop and a chocolate brown one by the rest.
The troop patrols were identified by varying shoulder
flashes (Otters: purple and white; Owls: brown and white;
Falcons: red and yellow; Seagulls: red and blue, etc.).
Robin Rowe took over the role of Scouter with the Senior
Scouts, soon to become Venture Scouts, in 1966, but by the
early 1970s, due to competition from the well-funded and
highly-trained adventure Training Section of the C.C.F.,
there remained only three scout troops: the
‘Tickery’ (Berrystead) Troop, the Laxton School Troop and
the Oundle School Troop. These were amalgamated in
1972, finally being ‘wound up’ after their final camp at
Boars Hill, Oxford in 1980.
Tracking precisely the development of the Oundle troops
has proven a more complicated task than I anticipated, so I
would be grateful to any former Oundle School Scouts
who can offer additional information or correct me on any
inaccuracies in the above.
Many thanks are due to Mike Wasse (Laxton School, 1961)
for his notes on the Laxton Grammar School Troop and for
the loan of his scout uniform, and also to Robin Rowe and
Lindsay Rooms (ex-Staff) for their assistance in the writing
of this article.
Stephen Forge,
Oundle School Archive
Elements of the uniform