David Cossgrove
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Lieutenant Colonel David Cossgrove |
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| Born | 20 January 1852 Crosshill, Ayrshire, Scotland |
| Died | 23 August 1920 (aged 68) Christchurch, New Zealand |
| Service/branch | New Zealand Army |
| Years of service | 1900–1902 |
| Rank | Lieutenant-Colonel 1910 |
| Commands held |
Captain and Quartermaster, Sixth New Zealand Contingent (19th company), South African War Captain and Paymaster, Tenth New Zealand Contingent (staff, South Island regiment), South African War |
| Awards |
Colonial Auxiliary Forces Officers' Decoration Imperial Volunteer Forces Medal (New Zealand) New Zealand Long and Efficient Service Medal |
| Other work | Founder of the Scouts and Peace Scouts in New Zealand First Dominion Chief Scout (1908) Schoolmaster |
Lieutenant Colonel David Cossgrove, (1852–1920) of the New Zealand Army served in the South African War – also known as the Second Boer War – with Robert Baden-Powell, founder of Scouts and Guides in the United Kingdom. Cossgrove (also spelled Cosgrove and Crosgrove on official documents) took Baden-Powell's ideas back to New Zealand with him and began similar programmes in Christchurch.
Cossgrove was born in Crosshill, in Ayrshire, Scotland, on 20 January 1852 to Elizabeth (née Campbell) and James Crosgrove. At the age of seven, he migrated to New Zealand with his family, arriving in Port Chalmers, Dunedin on the Alpine which sailed from Glasgow on 10 June 1859 and arrived at Otago on 12 September 1859 with his father, James, his mother and three brothers. The family name was changed to Cossgrove shortly after this.
Throughout David Cossgrove's formative years, he was educated at Tokomairiro, while his father ran a flax mill at Akatore. After completing teacher training at the East Taieri School, Cossgrove taught at Sandymount School, on the Otago Peninsula between 1874 and 1880. He was responsible for a rising roll and introducing elementary science to the curriculum. While teaching at Sandymount, he married Selina/Celina Robertson in February 1875 in the Otago Peninsular Parish, Dunedin. Reports have been made of his student teacher capacity at East Taieri School; however, no record can be found of this. It is believed that Cossgrove moved on to teaching at another Dunedin school (after leaving Sandymount) in the early part of the 1880s. He was in Westport by 1888 where he took the physical education class at Westport Girls' State School and ran the Naval Cadet Company at Westport Boys' State School.
By the time he volunteered to serve during the South African War in 1900, the Cossgroves were residing in Tuahiwi where David was headmaster of St. Stephen's School (also known as Kaiapoi Native School) and Tuahiwi School, Christchurch, where, in 1902, there were 28 boys and 201 girls. He stayed headmaster of the school from 1899 to 1914 and it was there that he founded the Scouting movement in New Zealand. He was an important community figure as, not only was he the headmaster of the local school, he also dispatched the daily post from 1900 when a Post Office was established at the school house.
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