Olave St Clair Baden-Powell, Baroness Baden-Powell (née Soames; 22 February 1889 – 25 June 1977) was the first Chief Guide for Britain and the wife of Robert Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell (the founder of Scouting and co-founder of Girl Guides).
Lady Baden-Powell became Chief Guide for Britain in 1918. Later the same year, at the Swanwick Conference for Commissioners in October, she was presented with a gold Silver Fish, one of only two ever made. She was elected World Chief Guide in 1930. As well as making a major contribution to the development of the Guide/Girl Scout movements, she visited 111 countries during her life, attending Jamborees and national Guide and Scout associations. In 1932, she was created a Dame Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire by King George V.
Born in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, England, Olave Soames was the third child and youngest daughter of a brewery owner and artist Harold Soames (1855–1918), of Gray Rigg, Lilliput, Dorset (descended from the landed gentry Soames family of Sheffield Park), and his wife Katherine Mary, daughter of George Hill. She was educated by her parents and by several governesses at home. She lived in seventeen homes in the first 23 years of her life. Olave became keen on outdoor sports, including tennis, swimming, football, skating, and canoeing, and also played the violin.
Olave was the sister of Arthur Granville Soames and therefore the aunt of his children, including Christopher Soames, a Conservative politician and diplomat who, in 1947, married Mary Churchill, the youngest child of Winston Churchill.
In January 1912, Olave met Second Boer War British general and founder of the Scouts, Robert Baden-Powell, on an ocean liner (RMSP Arcadian) on a cruise to the Caribbean. He was on his way to New York City to start a round-the-world lecture tour. She was 23, and he was 55, and they shared a birthday. They became engaged on his return to England in September of the same year, causing a media sensation. They married on 30 October 1912 in a private ceremony in St. Peter's Church, Parkstone, her parish church. Apart from the clergy, the only other people present were Robert's brother, sister, and Robert Kekewich, a close friend of his and Best Man, as well as Olave's mother, and brother, her brother-in-law, and Sie Bower, a close friend of hers, who had introduced them on that cruise.
The Scouts and Guides of England each donated a penny to buy the Baden-Powell couple a wedding gift of a car (not the Rolls-Royce called "Jam-Roll" that was presented to them in 1929). Olave's father helped financially with the purchase on Armistice Day 1918 of Pax Hill (hence the name they gave it) near Bentley, Hampshire, as a family home where she lived with her husband from 29 January 1919 until 25 October 1938.
The Baden-Powells had three children—a son and two daughters (who took the courtesy titles of Honourable in 1929). The son later succeeded his father as the 2nd Lord Baden-Powell upon his father's death in 1941):
Arthur Robert Peter Baden-Powell, later 2nd Baron Baden-Powell (1913–1962), married Carine Boardman (1913–1993), and they had two sons and a daughter. At Peter's death, the elder son, Robert, succeeded him as 3rd Baron Baden-Powell. The younger son, Michael, and the daughter lived in Australia;
Heather Baden-Powell (1915–1986) married John Hall King in Q2 1940 in Bentey Parish Church and they had two sons; and
Betty Clay (1917–2004), who, like her mother, met her future husband on board a ship — an older man (by a decade) who shared her birthday. On 24 September 1936 she married Gervas Charles Robert Clay (1907–2009), who worked for HMOCS — His Majesty's Overseas Civil Service — in Northern Rhodesia from 1930 to 1964. They had a daughter and three sons. Betty Clay was also prominent in the Guide Movement in Northern Rhodesia until they retired to England in 1964, when she became involved with the Girl Guides in England until her death.
In addition, when Olave's sister, Auriol Davidson, née Soames, died in 1919, Olave took her three nieces, Christian (1912–1975), Clare (1913–1980), and Yvonne (1918–2000), into her family and raised them as her children.
During 1915 and 1916, with World War I in progress, Olave assisted directly with the war effort in France. Robert had seen the usefulness of the YMCA's recreational huts for the soldiers and persuaded the Mercers' Company (of which he had been Master in 1912) to pay for such a hut at Val-de-Lievres, Calais. It was to be staffed by adults connected with Scouting. Olave was one of the team of five men and three women who staffed the hut at the start. She persuaded her mother to look after the children when she was away.
Olave left for France on 7 October 1915, when her second child was five months old. Her regular work in the Mercers' hut included serving cocoa and cigarettes and chatting with those who came in. She also recalled in her autobiography playing her violin and singing at the Christmas Concert. Olave also adopted several stray animals during her time in Val-de-Lievres.
During this time, Robert had organised the Scouts to sponsor another recreational hut. Olave and two others started this hut at Étaples after Christmas 1915. At the end of January, Olave was ordered home due to sickness, ending her three months in France.
Growing involvement in Scouting and Guiding
Olave and Robert moved into Ewhurst Place, outside Robertsbridge in East Sussex, in April 1913. In June of that year, the 1st Ewhurst Scout Troop was inaugurated. Olave was the warranted Scoutmaster of this troop, assisted by the family's housemaid and the gardener. Olave accompanied Robert on many of his Scouting tours and to events. She also typed letters for him. In 1915, the Baden-Powells bought a small car, and after Robert taught her to drive, Olave often drove him to engagements.
Although most famously connected with the Girl Guides, Olave's first offer to help them in 1914 was turned down. The Girl Guide movement had started after pressure from girls who wanted to become Scouts - by the time of the Crystal Palace Rally in 1909 there were already 6,000 girls registered as Scouts. The Girl Guide movement was set up by Robert Baden-Powell and his sister Agnes Baden-Powell. After the reorganisation of the Girl Guides in 1915, Olave again offered to help, this time successfully, and she started organising Guiding in Sussex. She became the County Commissioner for Sussex in March 1916. In October 1916, the first conference for County Commissioners was held, and it was here that the Commissioners unanimously requested that Olave take the role of Chief Commissioner – she was just pregnant with her third child. Shortly before this, she had organised a great number of women in other parts of Britain to take up roles in Guiding. In 1918, Olave was acclaimed Chief Guide, a title she much preferred to Chief Commissioner.
Olave Baden-Powell was presented with a personal standard by the UK Girl Guides' County Commissioners. Kay-Shuttleworth supervised the making of the standard.