Francis Vane

Sir Francis Patrick Fletcher Vane (born 1861, Dublin, Ireland, died 1934, London) was an early aide of Lord Baden-Powell's and a Scout Commissioner of London before Baden-Powell ousted him from the Scout Association. He later founded the Order of World Scouts, the earliest multinational Scouting movement, and is counted one of the founders of Scouting in Italy.

Early life

Vane was born at 10 Great George’s street, Dublin 1861 to an Irish mother and English father. He was raised in Sidmouth, Devon, England. In 1876, Vane enrolled in Oxford Military College.

Military career

After military college, Vane was assigned to the Worcester Militia, Scots Guards and a stint in the Submarine Mining Regiment over the period of 1883-1888. In 1886 he began residing at Toynbee Hall in East London. That same year he started a 'Working Boys Cadet Corps'. He became a captain in the 26th Middlesex Cyclists in 1888. While serving in the Second Boer War (1899-1902), he was appointed a magistrate in 1902. He was remove from that position for supposedly being too "pro-Boer". He wrote "The War and One Year After" pamphlet in 1903 critizing the British method of war. With his follow up pamphlet, Vane was "retired" from the military.

With the start of World War I, Vane returned to the Army as a recruiting officer with the rank of Major and was sent to Ireland. During the Easter Uprising, he was directed to take command of the Portobello Barracks, Dublin, then garrison for Royal Irish Rifles and the Ulster Militia Battalion. Hostages were taken and killed under the order of Captain Bowen-Colthurst, who made raids against supposedly pro-Irish people. With his superiors covering up and remove him from command, Vane went directly to Field Marshal Lord Kitchener and Bonham Carter, private secretary to the Prime Minister. When a private military court martial found Bowen-Colthurst guilty but insane, Vane was dismissed.

Between military stints

Daily News, Manchester Guardian, Westminster and Truth employed Vance from 1902 to 1904 as a reporter for South Africa. He was a Liberal general election candidate for Burton on Trent constituency. Following that he became active in antiwar and suffragette campaigns from 1907-1912. He published two more items: Walks and Peoples in Tuscany (1908) and On Certain Fundamentals (1909).

Scouting

By 1909, Vane was the Boy Scouting Association's (BSA) London Commissioner. He felt that Scouting was nonmilitary and reconciled through mediation the British Boy Scouts(BBS) with the Association by having BBS as an affiliated organisation of the BSA. The BBS split from the BSA over perceive militarization and nondemocratic nature of the national headquarters. With Vane pushing for more democratic BSA, his position was eliminated by Baden-Powell's BSA headquarter staff. In protest meeting, the London area Scoutmaster voted overwhelming in support of Sir Vance, however Baden-Powell even though he promised never reinstated him. Members of the National Service League, a pro-military group, were appointed to BSA headquarters. In December 3rd 1909, he accepted the presidency of the British Boy Scouts taking most London area Troops with him. The Quakers' Birmingham and Midland Troops also followed as Vance was key in have Quakers sponsor Scouting Troops.

Vane got the Boy's Life Brigade(BLB) to join the British Boy Scouts in a loose federation called The National Peace Scouts in February 1910. At the merger the BBS had 45,000 Scouts and BLB had 40,000 members. With Vane having an Italian summer home, he was able to launch the Scouting Movement in Italy with the Scouting in Italy (Ragazzi Esploratori Italiani) in 1910. In 1911, Vance assisted Augustin Dufresne, a shipowner, to organise a French scouting organisation.

With spread of the alternative British Boy Scouts program through out the world, Vane informally alligned the various groups as the Legion of World Scouts, the first international organisation, in 1911 then more formally as the Order of World Scouts on November 11, 1911. Vane became the Grand Scout Master of the Order of World Scouts.

Vane put his wealth behind the organisations: providing a London headquarter and financed the organisation, even the manufacture of BBS uniforms. This over burdened his finances to the point of having to declare bankruptcy. Thus the British Boy Scouts lost their headquarters, source of equipment and uniforms and their leader, Sir Francis Vane. Vane continue his involvement with the remnant BBS, as he inspected the Troop of the London Commissioner Mr Percy Herbert Pooley in 1915.

Vane return to Italy after World War I to find that the Italian Boy Scouts he founded had been mainly absorbed by the National Scouts Corps (Corpo Nazionale Giovani Esploratori Italiana - GNGEI). Some joined in with the creation of the Catholic Association of Scouts (Associazione Scautistica Cattolica Italiana - ASCI) in 1916. He began working with the latter group. He tried to get Baden-Powell to accept the ASCI as a member of the World Organization of the Scout Movement. He also try to get the BBS back together with the Boy Scout Association. Both of these efforts were without success. In 1927, he left for the United Kingdom as the Fascists quashed the Italian Scouting Movement, in favour of the Opera Nazionale Balilla (ONB), an Italian Fascist youth organisation. Despite a private letter to Sir Francis Vane 24th April 1933, sympathising with Vane’s worries, the Balilla was an organisation that was publicly highly praised by Baden-Powell , as the application of scouting as part of national education.

Vane's first wife, Anna Oliphant da Costa Ricci died in 1922. Vane married his second wife, Kathleen Crosbie in 1927. Sir Francis died in 1934 aged 72, after spending his last year of life in ill health at St Thomas' Hospital in Lambeth.

External links

• ODNB article by Roger T. Stearn, ‘Vane, Sir Francis Patrick Fletcher, fifth baronet (1861–1934)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, May 2006 [1], accessed 7 April 2008.