Who Are the Founding Fathers of BSA – W.D. Boyce

Who Are the Founding Fathers of BSA – W.D. Boyce

W. D. Boyce was an American newspaper man and entrepreneur. According to legend, he was lost on a foggy street in London when an unknown Scout came to his aid, guiding him back to his destination. It is said that the Scout refused Boyce’s tip, explaining that he was merely doing his duty as a Boy Scout. After his meeting with General Robert Baden-Powell, who was the head of the Boy Scout Association at that time. Boyce then returned to America, and, within a few months founded the Boy Scouts of America. Numerous BSA handbooks and magazines have attested to this version of the story. There are several variations of this legend, such as one that claims he knew about Scouting ahead of time.

Before returning to America Boyce gained the use of Scouting for Boys in the development of a US Scouting program. Upon returning to America, Boyce enlisted the help of Edward S. Stewart and Stanley D. Willis to incorporate the Boy Scouts of America on February 8, 1910 and applied for a congressional charter, but withdrew it later so as not be tied up with a charter for the Rockefeller Foundation at the same time. At about the same time another rival newspaperman William Randolph Hearst was forming a group he called the American Boy Scouts (ABS), but that group was short lived and dissolved in 1918. Due to business constraints and travel, Boyce enlisted Edgar M. Robinson, a senior administrator of the YMCA in New York City, to help organize the Boy Scouts as a national organization. Boyce even put his money behind the project by pledging $1000 a month for a year to support the program. Robinson returned to New York to begin the search for members. The program expanded in early 1910 when the Woodcraft Indians led by Ernest Thompson Seton, the Boy Scouts of the United States headed by Colonel Peter Bomus and the National Scouts of America headed by Colonel William Verbeck were absorbed into the BSA. The new BSA set up their BSA National Office in the 28th Street YMCA in New York City on June 1, 1910. The first managing secretary (what would later become the Chief Scout Executive) was John Alexander, a YMCA administrator from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. By autumn BSA had 2,500 leader applications from 44 states and 150,900 youth inquiries.

By the fall of 1910 the National Council had been formed with Colin H. Livingstone as the national president, Robinson as the managing secretary and Seton as Chief Scout. The first National Commissioners Beard, Bomus and Verbeck. The first Boy Scout Handbook, by Seton, was an adaptation of the contents of a handbook that Seton wrote titled “A Handbook of Woodcraft, Scouting, and Life-craft”.

Be Prepared,

Uncle Ralph