23 Facts About Warington Baden-Powell

Henry Warington Smyth Baden-Powell KC, known as Warington, was a British admiralty lawyer, master mariner and canoeist.

Warington Baden-Powell wrote a book on Sea Scouting and held positions in The Boy Scouts Association, formed by his brother, Robert Baden-Powell.

Warington Baden-Powell was born Henry Warington Powell in New College Lane, Oxford; the son of Reverend Professor Baden Powell, who held the Savilian Chair of Geometry at the University of Oxford from 1827 to 1860.

Warington Baden-Powell was the elder daughter of William Henry Smyth and his wife Annarella.

In 1861, aged 14, Warington Baden-Powell joined the training ship HMS Conway as a cadet.

Warington Baden-Powell completed his training there in 1864 with a creditable Double Extra Certificate, and then accompanied his uncle, Captain Henry Toynbee, on a voyage on the East Indiaman, Hotspur.

Warington Baden-Powell was called to the Bar in Trinity Term 1876, being admitted as a barrister of the Inner Temple.

Warington Baden-Powell was later admitted to the Admiralty Bar and became a member of several important organizations focused on the sea.

Warington Baden-Powell was appointed a King's Counsel on 24 December 1897.

On 13 September 1913, Warington Baden-Powell married New Zealand-born Cicely Hilda Farmer at All Saints, Knightsbridge.

Warington Baden-Powell had been secretly engaged to Hilda for nearly twenty years.

Warington Baden-Powell was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.

Warington Baden-Powell held membership in The Shipwrights' Company, the Yacht Racing Association and the Athenaeum Club.

Warington Baden-Powell was elected an Associate of the Royal Institution of Naval Architects in 1889.

Warington Baden-Powell died from tuberculosis, in Chelsea on 4 April 1921 but is buried in the Eastern Cemetery at St Andrews in Fife on the upper terrace, in his wife's family plot.

From his childhood, Warington Baden-Powell had been an enthusiastic sailor of small boats and later became a pioneer of sailing canoes, which he designed himself based on the "Rob-Roy" type of hybrid canoe-kayaks which had been built by John "Rob Roy" MacGregor.

In July 1869, accompanied by a companion known only as "H", possibly his brother Baden Henry, Warington Baden-Powell undertook a canoeing expedition in the Baltic Sea, and published an account of his adventures in 1871.

Warington Baden-Powell was an early member and promoter of the Royal Canoe Club which he had joined in 1874.

In 1872, Warington Baden-Powell took his brothers, including the 15 year-old Robert, on an expedition by canoe up the Thames to its source and then on to the River Severn and the River Wye.

In 1886, the American Canoe Association challenged the Royal Canoe Club to a sailing race and accordingly, Warington Baden-Powell travelled to the United States with Walter Stewart and their canoes for the ACA annual meet at the Thousand Islands in the Saint Lawrence River.

Warington Baden-Powell devised a training scheme with The Boy Scouts Association's Chief Sea Scout, Lord Charles Beresford and, in June 1912, his book, Sea Scouting and Seamanship for Boys was published.

Warington Baden-Powell admitted, in his book's preface, that the book could provide only an overview of boating skills required.

In 2012, a bronze bust of Warington was unveiled by Edward Baden-Powell, the great-grandson of Sir George Baden-Powell, at The Scout Association's national headquarters at Gilwell Park in Essex.