The start of Scouting in Hendon
In 1908, the year after B-P’s famous camp, ‘The Scout’, a penny weekly magazine was first published. This provided an important link for the rapidly increasing number of boys, including those in Finchley, who banded together to form Patrols of Scouts.
On the British Newspaper Archive website there are several references to Scout activities in Finchley during 1908 and 1909. More about these events can be found on the history pages for Finchley District.
However, one such event that took place in February 1909 was a demonstration given by the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Finchley Scout Troops before a distinguished Hendon audience at the Drill Hall, Algernon Road. A result of this was the formation of the 1st Hendon BP Scout Troop, under the leadership of Mr A R Turnbull of Audley Road. His stay though was very short and Mr F Jennens of Victoria Road, Mill Hill, took over in August of that year, assisted by Mr Inglis and Mr G Manners Barrett.
The Boy Scouts Association was formed in 1910, in order to provide a national body in the United Kingdom which could organise and support the rapidly growing number of Scout Patrols and Troops. It also enabled Baden-Powell to gain full control of the Scout Movement, which had been under the influence of his book publisher.
Following the establishment of The Boy Scouts Association, Headquarters provided the Finchley Local Association with a Warrant to manage Scouting within the District detailed Hendon and Finchley.
We have no official information as to how this affected the Troops that had already been formed apart from the fact that Troops needed to be registered. From what we have read though it appears that some of the existing Troops retained their existing designation while others and new Troops were given a local number or a Hendon & Finchley number, or in some cases both. By way of an example we know that the 2nd Hendon (which started in 1918) was the 9th Hendon & Finchley, the 10th Finchley was the 4th Hendon & Finchley and the 2nd Golders Green was the 13th Hendon & Finchley.
At the end of 1920 the Finchley Local Association became solely responsible for Troops in the Finchley area, and the Hendon Local Association was created to manage Troops in their area. The aforementioned Mr.Barrett was appointed as the first District Commissioner under the newly formed Hendon Local Association and the existing troops discontinued using their Henon & Finchley designation.
Note 1: We have no further information about the District as a whole. However, our source, the 1957 Hendon Local Association booklet that marked 50 years of Scouting, provides some brief notes about the Hendon Groups that were subsequently formed and were in existence at the time the booklet was published.
Note 2: A copy of the District Directory, published in 1965 following the creation of Hendon and Edgware District, has also enabled us to provide details of additional Groups as well as updates to those mentioned in the 1957 booklet.
