Material culture
Uniforms, badges, handbooks, magazines and camp kit, each with a dated record and the six questions every object story should answer.
Each object page describes the item and links to the institution that holds it, with a photograph where we have permission to show one. Many records are brief, and each page says plainly what is not yet known.
1912 (May, according to secondary accounts)
The first Guide handbook, by Agnes Baden-Powell in collaboration with her brother Robert, published by Thomas Nelson in 1912. Even its exact title wording is still to be checked against a copy.
1914
The first badge made for the youngest girls in Guiding: a metal rosebud, from the single year before Rosebuds became Brownies.
Catalogued as 1914 and 1918
Two War Service badges in the Norfolk archive, catalogued as 1914 and 1918, and a puzzle about which one is the original.
1920
The first handbook written for the Brownie section, by Robert Baden-Powell. Sources give its 1920 title in different forms, and no first edition has yet been seen.
1930s
A navy-blue cotton shirt dress and leather belt worn by a Girl Guide between the wars, now in the V&A.
1939–45
A typed list of one Norfolk Guide company's war work, 1939–45: from a ton of waste paper to a summer milk round.
1940s
A folding camp bucket used in Guide International Service training during the Second World War, and afterwards on relief expeditions.
1944 (entry for 21 April)
A royal-estate Guide company's logbook, recording its greetings for Princess Elizabeth's 18th birthday, and the telegram of thanks that came back.
c. 1989–1991
A late-1980s Brownie dress, belt and necktie, worn from 1989 to 1991, through the launch of the 1990 redesign.
1990 (September, according to an enthusiast history)
A mix-and-match uniform range by the fashion designer Jeff Banks, launched in 1990 and first shown on the BBC's Clothes Show.
Date not recorded (badges suggest the 2000s–2010s)
A blanket covered in badges moved from outgrown uniforms: a member's whole Guiding life, sewn into one object.
Date not recorded
An older Brownie dress with its pockets moved up to match a newer style: evidence that someone adapted a uniform rather than buying new.
