History of The Boy Scouts of America - W. D. Boyce and The Unknown Scout

W. D. Boyce and The Unknown Scout

For more details on this topic, see Unknown Scout.

W. D. Boyce was an American newspaper man and entrepreneur. According to legend, he was lost on a foggy street in London when an unknown Scout came to his aid, guiding him back to his destination. The boy then refused Boyce's tip, explaining that he was merely doing his duty as a Boy Scout. Immediately afterwards, Boyce met with General Robert Baden-Powell, who was the head of the Boy Scout Association at that time. Boyce returned to America, and, four months later, founded the Boy Scouts of America. This version of the legend has been printed in numerous BSA handbooks and magazines. There are several variations of this legend, such as one that claims he knew about Scouting ahead of time.

In actuality, Boyce stopped in London en route to a safari in British East Africa. It is true that an unknown Scout helped him and refused a tip. But this Scout only helped him cross a street to a hotel, did not take him to the Scout headquarters, and Boyce never met Baden-Powell. Upon Boyce's request, the unknown Scout did give him the address of the Scout headquarters, where Boyce went on his own and picked up information about the group. Weather reports show that London had no fog that day. Boyce returned to London after his safari and visited the Scout headquarters again and gained the use of Scouting for Boys in the development of a US Scouting program. This and other elements of the legend were promoted by James E. West in 1915 to help build up Boyce as the true founder of the BSA in order to defuse an escalating conflict between Daniel Carter Beard and Ernest Thompson Seton over who should be considered the founder of the BSA. Elements of this story, including the fog, may have been borrowed from a story concerning the Rhode Island Boy Scouts.