The Scouting Movement is generally regarded as having been born on 1 August 1907 when 20 boys attended a camp off the coast of Dorset, England, where they lived in tents in the outdoors under the supervision of Lord Robert Baden-Powell (pictured).

Lord Baden-Powell, the founder of Scouting, served in the British Army in India and the Boer War, becoming a national hero in the latter for his role in the defending the Siege of Mafeking in 1899.

He was an experienced outdoorsman who trained his troops to survive in the wild, and later wrote a textbook, Aids for Scouting.

As Scouting quickly grew in popularity, it spread to a sister organisation, Girl Guides, in 1910, Sea Scouts the same year, Wolf Cubs in 1916, and Rovers in 1918.

The movement arrived in Australia in 1908. Today, there are 70,000 members of Scouts Australia, making it the largest youth organisation in the nation.

Although Girl Guides continues to exist, girls have also been allowed to participate in Scouts since the late-1970s.

Scouts Australia is an accredited member of the World Organisation of the Scout Movement (WOSM), which has over 40 million members in 161 National Scout Organisations around the world.

Read more:

Scouts Australia website
World Organisation of the Scout Movement (WOSM) website
Lord Robert Baden-Powell on Wikipedia