Key To Photograph: Leckhampton Church Lads’ Brigade and Scouts 1904 – 1910
| Back Row left to right | Alfred Bendall, Bob Anderson, Frank Harley, Frank Richings, Dick Stanbridge, (Sergeant) Arthur Jenkins1,Captain Louis Sharpe1, Mr Leonard W Barnard1, Lewis Anderson, Harold Summers2, Sam Jenkins. |
| Second row from back | Frank Greening, Harry Harrison, Chris Smith, Charlie Richings, Fred James, Will Summers, Wilfred Hunt, Harold Bendall, Gilbert Enoch, Will Birt. |
| Third row from back | Arthur Holmes, Will Townsend, Gilbert Hunt2, Harry Stanton, Tom Starbridge, Tom Boreham, Sydney Merriman, Ted Fordham, Eric Cole, Arthur Fordham, Will Williams, Harry Cox. |
| Front Row | Reggie Bull, Charlie Baylis, Wilfred White, Fred Clarke, William Phillips, Harold G – |
2 Lost their lives in the First World War
This photograph of the Leckhampton Church Lads Brigade and Scouts was taken in 1910. All the boys and their leaders are named. The teen-age Alf Bendall is there, and several boys and young men who later fought in the First World War, in which Harold Summers and Gilbert Hunt lost their lives. Among the leaders is Leonard Barnard; he later designed the Parish War Memorial, on which their names are engraved. Captain Louis Sharpe was a great uncle of Mary Paterson. Mary points out that beneath one of the yew trees to the south of the church is a bench, on the back of which the initials ‘LS ES’ have been engraved – Louis Sharpe and his wife’s.
The following extract from the book ‘Leckhampton Yesteryear’ describes what was printed about these organisations in Parish Magazines at the time:
The Church Lads’ Brigade and Scouting
In 1901 a company of the Church Lads’ Brigade was started under the captaincy of Mr Robert Marshall with assistance from Mr Louis Sharpe, and by 1903 it had 36 members. The company met in the Parish Hall; it was separate from the St Philip and St James’s company, which met in the old school at the bottom of Leckhampton Road. ….
….In September 1909 (the year after Scouting for Boys had been first published) it was announced that the Church Lads’ Brigade would incorporate ‘scouting’, so as not to fall behind in this new development. The local patrol of the ‘ICSP’ (Incorporated Church Scout Patrols, later known simply as the Church Scouts) was seen as forming a sort of cadet corps to the Church Lads’ Brigade. By 1910 some twenty boys aged 11 – 14 had joined, at first under Sergeant Jenkins, while ten Brigade members passed on to the Territorial Army.
On Easter Monday 1910 the Scouts, assisted by seven members of the Church Lads’ Brigade, had a despatch-running competition. Two boys reached the Rectory without being caught, one having started from the Badgeworth turning on the Shurdington Road, and the other from Lansdown Castle. On Whit Monday there was a Grand Review of all the companies of CLB and ICSP in the diocese, held by invitation of Mr Vassar-Smith in Charlton Park, at which the Bishop, the Mayor of Cheltenham and possibly Lord St Aldwyn were expected to be present. On Boxing Day there was a Grand Field Day at Painswick, with bands drawn from Painswick, Gloucester and Nailsworth. The day began with a church service to admit new members, followed by some skirmishing, then tea.
The magazines made no further mention of the Scouts or the Church Lads’ Brigade, except in 1934, when it was evident that the Scouts at least were still flourishing.