Girl Guiding: a cultural history An independent history
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Essay

Girls who would not wait

How Guiding began, 1908–1920: girls who called themselves Scouts, the adults who gave them a scheme of their own, and the argument about what girls should do.

Reading Scouting for Boys

When Robert Baden-Powell’s Scouting for Boys appeared in fortnightly parts in early 1908, it was written for boys. Girls read it anyway. Some formed patrols, and some registered with Scout Headquarters, reportedly using only their initials so that their sex would not be noticed.[2] The geographer Sarah Mills has traced how these girl Scouts dressed, organised and wrote about themselves, and her account, like most, has thousands of girls registered by 1909.[1] Unconfirmed We have still to check the page reference in Mills, and the often-repeated figure of about 6,000 is in some doubt, because we have not yet traced it to a record of the time.

These girls were not waiting for permission. That matters for how the story is usually told.

The rally at Crystal Palace

On 4 September 1909 Scouts gathered for a rally at Crystal Palace, and girls came too, presenting themselves as Girl Scouts. WAGGGS says they “prompted the founder to include girls”.[4] Girlguiding’s own history says a “small handful” of girls “gatecrashed” the rally, demanding “something for the girls”; Mills gives “several hundred”.[5][1] How many were really there is genuinely uncertain.

Interpretation The word “gatecrash” makes a good story, but it can hide the fact that these girls were already Scouts in all but name. Crystal Palace is better seen as the moment girls’ Scouting became too visible to ignore.

A scheme of their own

What followed was a decision to give girls a separate movement. Secondary accounts describe a scheme for “Girl Guides” published in the Scouts’ Headquarters Gazette in November 1909, followed by pamphlets; in 1910 the Girl Guides were formally organised, with Agnes Baden-Powell at their head.[3][2] WAGGGS dates the formal founding to 1910, while Girlguiding’s own history gives 1909.[4][5] The exact sequence of these first steps is still in some doubt, because we have not yet seen the Gazette or the pamphlets themselves.

The name “Guide” came from the Corps of Guides, a frontier regiment in British India. Baden-Powell is quoted as praising their “handiness and resourcefulness under difficulties”, though we have that wording only through a later history.[2]

Agnes Baden-Powell became the movement’s first President.[6] With her brother she produced the first handbook, published in 1912: The Handbook for Girl Guides, or How Girls Can Help to Build Up the Empire.[7] It kept the tracking, signalling and camping of Scouting for Boys and added childcare, nursing and housewifery. Michelle J. Smith shows how it tied girls’ new freedoms to the defence of home and to life in the colonies.[8]

Two kinds of preparation

Interpretation From the start, Guiding asked girls to be ready for two things at once: emergencies and the home. Tammy Proctor argues that interwar Guiding used “gendered assumptions about citizenship”, training girls as “citizen servants”.[12] But the girls who had started it all had wanted to be Scouts. The tension between what girls wanted and what adults designed for them runs through the whole of this history.

Sections for every age

The movement soon grew downwards and upwards. A junior section, the Rosebuds, began in 1914 and was renamed Brownies in 1915.[9] The new name is said to have come from Juliana Horatia Ewing’s story “The Brownies”, suggested by Robert Baden-Powell, though we have not yet confirmed that from a source of the time.[10] Senior Guides, for girls over 16, followed in 1916 and became Rangers in 1920, the same year as the first Brownie handbook.[11][9]

Who led?

Official memory has tended to move quickly from Robert Baden-Powell to his wife, Olave, who became Chief Guide in 1918 and World Chief Guide in 1930. Agnes, who led the movement in its first years, is often forgotten. So are the local organisers and the girls themselves. Telling the story of Guiding’s beginnings means giving each of them their place.

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Sources

  1. Sarah Mills, “Scouting for girls? Gender and the Scout Movement in Britain”, Gender, Place & Culture 18, no. 4, 2011, pp. 537–556.
  2. Girl Guides of Canada–Guides du Canada, “History of Guiding (fact sheet 14.3.1.3)”, Girl Guides of Canada. Accessed 25 September 2026. Another national organisation's own history; useful for early dates, not an independent evaluation.
  3. Little Gem Museum (West Lancashire Scouts), “Story of Guiding – 1908 to 1929”, 2022-03-15. Accessed 25 September 2026. A volunteer-run heritage timeline; a useful lead, to be checked against primary sources.
  4. World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts, “Our history”, WAGGGS. Accessed 25 September 2026.
  5. Girlguiding, “Our history”. Accessed 25 September 2026. Institutional self-description. Authoritative for what Girlguiding says about itself; not an independent evaluation.
  6. Girl Guides of Canada–Guides du Canada, “Fact Sheet: The Three Baden-Powells: Robert, Agnes and Olave (14.3.1.7)”, Girl Guides of Canada. Accessed 25 September 2026.
  7. Katherine Magyarody, “Odd Woman, Odd Girls: Reconsidering How Girls Can Help to Build Up the Empire: The Handbook for Girl Guides and Early Guiding Practices, 1909–1918”, Children's Literature Association Quarterly 41, no. 3, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016, pp. 238–262.
  8. Michelle J. Smith, “Be(ing) Prepared: Girl Guides, Colonial Life, and National Strength”, Empire in British Girls' Literature and Culture: Imperial Girls, 1880–1915, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011, pp. 133–158.
  9. Girlguiding North West England, “Guiding history (blog post 1)”, 2023-09. Accessed 25 September 2026. Regional summary; use as a lead and check against rules editions.
  10. Girlguiding, “Brownies Timeline: Important events through Brownies 100 year history”, Girlguiding Brownies centenary blog, 2014. Accessed 25 September 2026. details to check Centenary blog; use as a lead and confirm against the Girl Guides' Gazette.
  11. Girlguiding Scotland, Scottish Archives Team, “The Senior Section: Uniform through the ages”, Girlguiding Scotland, 2016. Accessed 25 September 2026. Centenary poster set; dates checked by the archives team against Policy, Organisation and Rules and The Guiding Manual.
  12. Tammy M. Proctor, “On My Honour: Guides and Scouts in Interwar Britain”, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 92, pt 2, American Philosophical Society, 2002.