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The multi-talented Lord Robert Baden-Powell will forever be associated with one major legacy - he was the founder in 1907 of the Scouting Movement. Here Peter Seddon recounts how a holiday Baden-Powell spent in Dovedale in that year proved a significant platform to the formation of the worldwide Scouting phenomenon.

A portrait of Lord Robert Baden-Powell

Part two of the original serial issue of 'Scouting For Boys' from January 1908

Robert Baden-Powell and his Derbyshire-born wife Olave, the 'World Chief Guide'

Lord Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell (1857-1941) was a Boer War hero, prolific writer, and founder in 1907 of the World Scouting Movement.

Although the idea of such a movement had taken shape gradually in his mind over a number of years, the foundation date itself is generally considered to be August 1907 - the month in which Baden-Powell ran what proved to be a pivotal 'experiment', his 'summer camp' for 21 boys at Brownsea Island, Poole Harbour, Dorset.

An extremely important adjunct to the movement being successfully launched - indeed a pre-requisite - was Baden-Powell's now world-famous book Scouting for Boys. The manuscript was first published in six fortnightly installments commencing in January 1908 - and after it was well received it was published in book form on 1 May 1908. At that point Baden-Powell embarked on a countrywide British tour to promote the book - but of course he also used the tour to promote the whole idea of his new movement. It was in such a fashion that a book promotion tour effectively enabled the successful foundation and subsequent rapid growth of the World Scouting Movement.

In double-quick time Scouting for Boys became a phenomenal and enduring success. Publishing analysts believe it to be the world's fourth best-selling title of the 20th century. It has been translated into 87 different languages and is thought to have sold almost 150 million copies.

And it is with Scouting For Boys that Derbyshire has a curious and significant link.

The book had diverse points of genesis - several sections were cannibalised from earlier books already written by Baden-Powell, in particular Reconnaisance and Scouting (1884) and Aids to Scouting (1899). Other parts drew on material from books by other authors altogether.

But Baden-Powell had to bring all the material together, marshall his thoughts, and present a readable manuscript to his publisher Arthur Pearson, founder of the Daily Express.

He had perhaps written parts of the work as early as November 1906, but to really make serious inroads he decided he needed a quiet retreat where he could concentrate in natural surroundings. To that precise end Baden-Powell travelled on 15 June 1907 to Derbyshire, where he booked a room at the Izaak Walton Hotel in Ilam close to Dovedale. This we know from a surviving copy of B-P's original diary for that time.

With him he brought a tin dispatch box full of disorganised notes. And in his bedroom at the Izaak Walton during the following week he made a serious start. And amid the solitude of the Derbyshire Dales he weighed up the qualms he was having about his publisher Arthur Pearson - 'B-P' felt he was a little brash and disliked his politics. But by the end of his short Derbyshire sojourn he had resolved to stick with Pearson and pursue the book in earnest - 'Scouting For Boys' was on its way.

Surviving portions of the hand-written manuscript are held in the Scouting Association archives - some of the pages are written on Izaak Walton Hotel letterheads. Certainly by the time Baden-Powell had completed his Dovedale break, he had resolved absolutely that the book later to become 'world-famous' would be categorically completed.

In the August of 1907 after his June stay in Derbyshire he ran the Brownsea Island Camp - the rest is history.

From time to time the Dovedale link has surfaced anew.

This was particularly so in 1953 - after Baden-Powell's death - when his son visited Derbyshire and paid a visit to the Izaak Walton. The Derby Evening Telegraph reported that 'he had tea with the proprietor Mr. R. Evans, whose mother had been proprietor in 1907 at the time of Lord Baden-Powell's 'significant' visit'.

The Telegraph also reflected on the occasion three years earlier in 1950 when the then Chief Scout Lord Rowallan had visited Derbyshire to attend the County Rally at Osmaston. To mark that occasion a torch was lit at the Izaak Walton Hotel in Baden-Powell's 'old room' and the flame was carried by relays of boys 'Olympic-style' all the way to Osmaston Manor - where the rally was being held - and it was used to light a great bonfire.

More recently in the summer of 2008 the Derbyshire Scouting movement presented a plaque to the Izaak Walton Hotel to mark its link with Scouting For Boys - a fitting tribute in the book's centenary year.

Lord Baden-Powell has a further significant connection with Derbyshire. His wife lady Olave Baden-Powell (1889-1977) - who became the 'World Chief Guide' - was a Derbyshire girl. She was born Olave St. Clair Soames at Stubbing Court, Wingerworth, near Chesterfield.

There is a permanent reminder of that particular link in Chesterfield, where a road is named Baden-Powell Avenue.

Despite having experienced many changes, scouting is still a popular pastime the world over. And the peace and solitude afforded by the Izaak Walton Hotel in June 1907 cannot be denied a winning part in that phenomenal success story.

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