Empire and decolonisation

Imperial language was built into early Guiding: in its name, its handbooks, its ceremonies, its maps and its idea of service. This page explains how, and follows what happened as the empire ended.

Built into the structure

The name “GuideA member of the main Guiding section. In the UK today, Guides are aged 10–14. The name came from the Corps of Guides, a regiment on the North-West Frontier of British India, which Robert Baden-Powell praised for its "handiness and resourcefulness".” came from a frontier corps in British India. The 1912 handbook was titled How Girls Can Help to Build Up the Empire. Michelle J. Smith shows how early Guiding was “grounded in notions of the part which women, and girls specifically, could play in the imperial project”, tying girls’ new outdoor freedoms to home defence and life in the colonies.^[1]

Inclusion varied by place

Who could join was not the same everywhere. Mary Clare Martin’s research on the movement’s first decade, 1908–1920, finds that some companies in Africa excluded Black girls, that companies in what is now Malaysia were usually ethnically mixed, and that India had both segregated and mixed companies. She also shows young women taking the lead in founding new patrols and companies, and warns against treating the early movement as simply exclusive.^[2]

International but hierarchical

Evidence status: Interpretation International sisterhood was real: girls made friendships across borders. But Kristine Alexander shows leaders seeking both to encourage a global sisterhood and to monitor and control the movement’s growth, through an internationalism “still influenced by older ideas about race- and class-based hierarchies and the British ‘civilizing mission’”. She compares Guiding in England, Canada and India.^[4][3] The founding of WAGGGS in 1928 changed the structure,^[5] but did not erase the hierarchy.

Not a British export

We will not present Guiding outside Britain as something done to passive recipients. Local founders, adaptations, resistance and post-colonial change are the story too. Country pages will be written or reviewed by people from those contexts.

Looking back now

In recent years Guide organisations have begun to examine this history themselves.

• WAGGGS. Its 2025 World Thinking Day pack acknowledges that “one of the main ways our Movement spread between countries was through colonialism” and invites members “to reflect on the colonial history of our movement”.^[6] It published an anti-racism report and action plan in 2022.^[7]
• Girlguiding. In September 2020 it committed to becoming anti-racist and said it would review its “historic roots”.^[8] A 2021 update listed the steps taken so far, including race equity training and a diversity and inclusion plan.^[9]
• Girl Guides of Canada. In June 2021 it apologised to Indigenous Peoples for the use of Girl Guide programming in Indian Residential Schools.^[10]

On the timeline

1. 1910 The Girl Guides are organised
2. May 1912 How Girls Can Help to Build Up the Empire
3. 1924 The first World Camp at Foxlease
4. 1928 The World Association is founded

People, objects and practices

• 1912 (May, according to secondary accounts)

  How Girls Can Help to Build Up the Empire (1912)

  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.

• 16 December 1858 – 2 June 1945

  Agnes Baden-Powell

  Organiser, first President and main author of the first Guide handbook, and a founder whom later memory largely forgot.

• 22 February 1857 – 8 January 1941

  Robert Baden-Powell

  Army officer and founder of Scouting, who set out the girls' scheme with his sister Agnes, wrote Guiding's handbooks from 1918 and signed them as "Founder".

• Essay

  Empire and internationalism

  Guiding grew up inside the British Empire and became a world movement. How much did the move from empire to world association change, and who decided?

Sources

1. 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.
2. Mary Clare Martin, “Race, Indigeneity and the Baden-Powell Girl Guides: Age, Gender and the British World, 1908–1920”, Children, Childhood and Youth in the British World, ed. Shirleene Robinson and Simon Sleight, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, pp. 161–179.
3. Kristine Alexander, Guiding Modern Girls: Girlhood, Empire, and Internationalism in the 1920s and 1930s, UBC Press, 2017.
4. Kristine Alexander, “The Girl Guide Movement and Imperial Internationalism During the 1920s and 1930s”, Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth 2, no. 1, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009, pp. 37–63.
5. World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts, “Our history”, WAGGGS. Accessed 25 September 2026.
6. World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts, “World Thinking Day 2025 activity pack: Our Story”, WAGGGS (hosted by Girlguiding), 2024. Accessed 25 September 2026.
7. World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts, “WAGGGS Anti-Racism Report and Action Plan”, WAGGGS, 2022-03-18.
8. Girlguiding, “Our ongoing commitment to black lives matter: How we're getting to work”, 2020-09-27. Accessed 25 September 2026.
9. Amanda Amaeshi (Girlguiding advocate), “We need to keep talking about Black Lives Matter”, Girlguiding, 2021-05-25. Accessed 25 September 2026.
10. Girl Guides of Canada–Guides du Canada, “Apology to Indigenous Peoples for the use of Girl Guide programming by Indian Residential Schools”, Girl Guides of Canada, 2021-06-01.