Baden Baden-Powell

Baden Fletcher Smyth Baden-Powell, (22 May 1860 – 3 October 1937) was a military aviation pioneer, and President of the Royal Aeronautical Society from 1900 to 1907. Family Baden was the youngest child of Baden Powell, and the brother of Robert Baden-Powell, Warington Baden-Powell, George Baden-Powell, Agnes Baden-Powell and Frank Baden-Powell. His mother, Henrietta Grace Smyth, was the third wife of Rev. Baden Powell (the previous two having died), and was a gifted musician and artist. Baden did not marry - his mother was quite brutal in trying to keep her sons (and her share of their incomes) to herself. He was god-father to, among others, his brother's daughter Betty Clay nee Baden-Powell. Military, inventions and aviation Baden-Powell was commissioned a lieutenant in the Scots Guards on 29 July 1882, and served with the Guards Camel Regiment in the Nile Expedition (1884–85) in Egypt and Sudan. Promotion to captain followed on 5 February 1896, and to major on 24 June 1899. He served with the 1st battalion of his regiment in South Africa during the Second Boer War, and was present at the battles of Belmont (23 November 1899), Modder River (28 November 1899), and Magersfontein (11 Dec 1899). He was in the Relief Column that in May 1900 relieved the siege of Mafeking, where his elder brother was in command. A month after the end of the war in late May 1902, Baden-Powell returned home with his regiment in the SS Tagus. Baden-Powell was a military aviation pioneer and a Fellow and later President of the Royal Aeronautical Society and a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (elected in 1891). He was one of the first to see the use of aviation in a military context. He also wrote, "Ballooning as a Sport", published in 1907 by William Blackwood and Sons.