The Right Honourable The Lady Baden-Powell GBE |
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Lady Baden-Powell, Chief Guide
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Born |
Chesterfield, Derbyshire, England, United Kingdom |
22 February 1889
Died | 25 June 1977 Bramley, Surrey, England, United Kingdom |
(aged 88)
Occupation | Guiding and Scouting |
Spouse(s) | Robert Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell (m. 1912; d. 1941) |
Children |
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Parent(s) |
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Olave St Clair Baden-Powell, Baroness Baden-Powell,GBE (22 February 1889 – 25 June 1977) was born Olave St Clair Soames in Chesterfield, England. After the death of her husband, she was known as Olave, Lady Baden-Powell, or The Dowager Lady Baden-Powell. She outlived her husband, Robert Baden-Powell (22 Feb 1857 – 8 Jan 1941), the founder of Scouting and Girl Guides, by over 35 years. He was 32 years older than her.
Olave became Chief Guide for Britain in 1918. Later the same year, at the Swanwick conference for Commissioners in October, she was presented with a gold Silver Fish, one of only two ever made. She was elected World Chief Guide in 1930. As well as making a major contribution to the development of the Guide / Girl Scout movements, she visited 111 countries during her life, attending Jamborees and national Guide and Scout associations.
Olave's father was a brewery owner and artist Harold Soames (13 Aug 1855 – 25 Dec 1918), who descended paternally from a landed gentry family, and maternally from a self-made man, Joseph Gilstrap / Gelthorpe, quondam Mayor of Newark, Nottinghamshire.
Olave's mother was Katharine (née Hill; 4 Dec 1851 – 4 Feb 1932), one of eleven children descended from a line of Russian merchants on her father's (Hill) side. Katharine's mother was Georgina Marian Wilkins (Jul 1827 – 13 Dec 1894), one of fifteen children of George Wilkins and his wife Amelia Auriol Hay-Drummond (11 Sept 1794 – 31 Jan 1871), who was the daughter of Edward Hay-Drummond, with whom (as a Curate) George Wilkins had lodged – and eloped with the daughter to Gretna Green, where they were married on 2 September 1811, ten days before her 17th birthday. The couple then returned to live in the parental home in Hadleigh. Edward Hay-Drummond was a son of Robert Hay Drummond, who was a son of the 8th Earl of Kinnoull (23 Jun 1689 – 1 Sept 1709).