FEB_02_BAYHARBOUR

Bay Harbour News Wednesday February 2 2022
10
NEWS
Latest Canterbury news at starnews.co.nz
Treasures from the past:
The King’s Scouts
MAJOR DAVID Cossgrove of
Kaiapoi bravely volunteered for
the Second Boer War and served
His Majesty with distinction in
the 6th and 10th Contingents
of the New Zealand Mounted
Rifles from 1900-1902.
Under the British command
of the First Baron Baden-
Powell, Major General Robert
Stephenson Smyth Baden-
Powell, Major Cossgrove was
influenced by his commander’s
ideas regarding the training of
good, healthy British boys in the
discipline of scouting and other
skills that may be of service to
King and Empire.
THus it was on Cossgrove’s
return that the first Dominion
Boy Scouts Troop was
established at Kaiapoi in April,
1908.
The Dominion Boy Scouts
movement spread quickly across
the country with troops forming
in many towns including Lyttelton.
By 1913 the now Lieutenant-Colonel
Cossgrove’s Dominion
Scouts were affiliated with
Baden-Powell’s international
Boy Scouts Association of the
United Kingdom.
It is at this juncture that
you’ll find erstwhile Lyttelton
Boy Scouts Troop assembled at
the old Drill Hall in 1913 and
proudly displaying their accomplishments.
Centre stage is what appears
to be the Sargood-Otter Shield
awarded, fittingly for a port
town, to the Troop with the
highest number of boys taught
to swim.
Also, at their stage left, they
hold aloft the highly prestigious
King’s Standard. Awarded that
year by George V, King of the
United Kingdom and the British
Dominions, and Emperor of
India, the standard was given
to the troop with the highest
percentage of King’s Scouts,
those Boy Scouts judged most
proficient in scouting skills.
Skills that would no doubt
serve the older boys well in the
war against Imperial Germany
that would break out the
following fateful year. About 75 young scouts assembled at the old drill hall in 1913.
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