Baden Powell

Arthur Redvers Baden Powell (13 March 1900 – 25 November 1955) was an Australian politician and a member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly for 3 months in 1950. He was a member of the Labor Party. Early life Powell was born in Mountain Ash, Rhondda Cynon Taf, Wales and was the son of a coalminer. He was educated to elementary level in Wales and worked as a miner there until he emigrated to Australia with his parents in 1927. In Australia, he became active in the Labor Party and worked as an ironworker at the Wollongong Steelworks until 1932. He then became the secretary for Billy Davies, a Labor member of the Legislative Assembly for a number of seats in the Illawarra region between 1917 and 1949. Following his retirement from parliament, Powell became a boiler attendant. Name The surname Powell is generally regarded as a Welsh name. The name Baden had been a given name in a Powell family (from Mildenhall, Suffolk) since 1731, when Susannah Powell née Thistlethwayte (1696-1762) gave to her child (1731-1792) the maiden name of her mother, Susannah Baden (1663-1692). The name Baden, particularly when associated with the surname Powell, became famous in 1900–1901, the year Arthur William Baden Powell was born, because of the Siege of Mafeking, the most famous British action in the Second Boer War, which turned the British Commander of the besieged, Robert Baden-Powell, into a national hero. Throughout the British Empire, babies were named after him. No family connection has yet been established between Arthur Redvers Baden Powell and Robert Baden-Powell.