‘Could you put me up INCOGNITO?’: Telegram sent by Scouts founder Lord Baden-Powell to fellow war hero ‘hints at gay love tryst’, claims auctioneer
- Colonel Robert Baden-Powell became national hero for bravery during Siege of Mafeking in Second Boer War
- Intrigue surrounded friendship with Major Kenneth McLaren, who was part of the relieving force
- He sent Maj McLaren a telegram on July 23, 1901, reading: ‘Could you put me up Friday night incognito?’
- Maj McLaren was one of the staff at Baden-Powell’s first scout camp on Brownsea Island in Poole Harbour in 1907
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A telegram has come to light that hints that Scout founder and war hero Lord Baden-Powell (above) had a homosexual relationship with a fellow army officer
A fascinating telegram that hints that Scout founder and war hero Lord Baden-Powell had a homosexual relationship with a fellow army officer has come to light.
Colonel Robert Baden-Powell became a national hero after leading a defiant seven-month rearguard during the Siege of Mafeking in the Second Boer War.
However, intrigue surrounded his friendship with Major Kenneth McLaren who was part of the relieving force – and later helped him form the Scouting movement.
Their closeness has led some historians to speculate they were romantically involved, which would have provoked a scandal in the socially conservative Edwardian age.
Now a telegram sent by Baden-Powell to Maj McLaren has emerged which seems to lend credence to the theory that there was more to their friendship than met the eye – reinforcing the notion held by some that Baden-Powell was a repressed homosexual.
The short note, penned on July 23, 1901, simply reads: ‘Could you put me up Friday night incognito?’
He signed it ‘Bloater’, which was Maj McLaren’s nickname for Baden-Powell.
According to auctioneers selling the telegram, the message suggests a ‘lover’s tryst’ between the men.
The telegram (above) sent by Baden-Powell to Major Kenneth McLaren on July 23, 1901, reads: ‘Could you put me up Friday night incognito?’ He signed it ‘Bloater’, which was Maj McLaren’s nickname for Baden-Powell
Baden-Powell became a national hero after leading a defiant seven-month rearguard during the Siege of Mafeking in the Second Boer War. However, intrigue surrounded his friendship with Maj McLaren (above), who was part of the relieving force – and later helped him form the Scouting movement
It is part of an archive of letters, telegrams and newspaper cuttings documenting Maj McLaren’s service which were collated by his first wife, Leila Evelyn Landon, in three scrapbooks.
Chris Albury, a specialist at auctioneers Dominic Winter of Cirencester, Gloucestershire, said: ‘Baden-Powell’s close relationship with McLaren is well documented and there has been much speculation as to whether it went beyond the platonic into a sexual relationship.
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‘There is a lot of evidence to suggest that Baden-Powell was a repressed homosexual, but in the telegram here, which is written as if suggesting a lover’s tryst, there is a big hint that the relationship between the two men may have been physical after all.
‘Of course, nothing is proven for certain and for me the most intriguing thing is that McLaren’s wife who compiled the scrap albums must have known what the telegram really meant when she chose to preserve it in the albums.
‘At the very least it shows she accepted the relationship of her husband and Baden-Powell.’
Siege of Mafeking: A glorious British triumph against the odds
The Siege of Mafeking was a battle for the British-occupied military outpost of Mafeking in South Africa during the Second Boer War.
The British stood firm against a much larger Boer force for 217 days, from October 1899 to May 1900, which was long enough to allow reinforcements to arrive.
Among those liberated was Lord Edward Cecil, the son of the Prime Minister, while the siege also cemented Col Baden-Powell’s status as a national hero.
He deployed cunning strategies like planting fake minefields and getting his soldiers to pretend to avoid non-existent barbed wire while moving between trenches.
On one occasion, he loaded an armoured locomotive with sharpshooters and sent it down the rails into the heart of the Boer encampment and back again in a successful attack.
The relief of Mafeking was a morale boost for the struggling British, and the rejoicing in cities back home produced the word mafficking, meaning wild celebrating.
Maj McLaren was a callow 20-year-old officer in the 13th Hussars Regiment when he first met Baden-Powell in India in 1881.
They acted together in an Army performance of a farce called ‘The Area Belle’ in which Baden-Powell played a male part and Maj McLaren a female role.
Baden-Powell affectionately nicknamed his co-star ‘The Boy’ on account of his young appearance.
Eighteen years later, Maj McLaren led a force of 200 men to liberate Mafeking, where Baden-Powell was leading the British rearguard, when en route they were confronted by a large Boer force.
Despite their best efforts, they succumbed to the greater numbers of the enemy, with 40 of Maj McLaren’s men killed or injured.
Maj McLaren was seriously injured and left lying in the same spot for 16 hours before he was taken to a Boer hospital.
During the Siege of Mafeking, which lasted from October 1899 to May 1900, Baden-Powell deployed cunning strategies like planting fake minefields and getting his soldiers to pretend to avoid non-existent barbed wire while moving between trenches.
On one occasion, he loaded an armoured locomotive with sharpshooters and sent it down the rails into the heart of the Boer encampment and back again in a successful attack.
Breaking the siege was a huge morale boost for the British, cementing Baden-Powell’s hero status back home.
Baden-Powell and Maj McLaren remained close friends after their military service ended.
Maj McLaren was one of the staff at Baden-Powell’s first scout camp on Brownsea Island in Poole Harbour in 1907.
Chris Albury, a specialist at auctioneers Dominic Winter of Cirencester, Gloucestershire, said: ‘Baden-Powell’s close relationship with McLaren is well documented and there has been much speculation as to whether it went beyond the platonic into a sexual relationship. (Above, Baden-Powell with a group of boy scouts)
The Scout movement founder convinced him to be his first manager at the C. Arthur Pearson Ltd office of The Scout magazine.
But the pair fell out when Maj McLaren married his second wife, his nurse Ethyl Mary Wilson, in 1910.
Baden-Powell considered Wilson below Maj McLaren’s station and advised against the marriage – which soured their friendship.
However, 55-year-old Baden-Powell soon followed his former friend down the aisle when he married 23-year-old Olave St Clair Soames in 1913, with the couple having three children.
Historian Tim Jeal, who wrote the biography Baden-Powell in 1989, surmised that he was a ‘repressed homosexual’, a view which has been echoed by other prominent historians.
The archive is being sold with an estimate of £1,200 on December 12.
How Baden-Powell’s books on military reconnaissance led to creation of the Scout movement
Scouting for Boys was published in 1908 and has sold about 150m copies
Robert Baden-Powell, a British Army officer, wrote military books for reconnaissance and scout training based on his experiences in Africa.
When he returned from Africa in 1903, he found his military training manual had become a bestseller and was being used by teachers and youth organisations.
He decided to re-write it for a younger audience and held a camp on Brownsea Island in Poole Harbour, Dorset, with 20 boys in August 1907 to test out his ideas.
Historic documents state that he wrote Scouting for Boys at this house, which belonged to his cousin Charles Watson Powell, and established a group of Scouts in the parish.
The book was published in 1908 and has sold about 150 million copies, making it the fourth best-selling book of the 20th century.
Baden-Powell then founded The Boy Scouts Association and Girl Guides and gave guidance to the two organisations, which are both still going strong more than a century later, until he retired in 1937.
Lord Baden-Powell (centre, right) surrounded by the members of the Boy Scout movement in Hertfordshire in the early 1900s
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