Late Adolescence and Adulthood
In October 1869, a few days before he became fifteen, William Smith entered his uncle’s business. Alex. Fraser & Co. were wholesale dealers in “soft goods”, shawls being one of their chief market.
He later joined the 1st Lanarkshire Rifle Volunteers, part of the local Volunteer Force, and at the age of 19, he was promoted to the rank of Lance-Corporal. He also joined the Church of Scotland in that same year.
Smith was commissioned into the Rifle Volunteers in 1877 and promoted to Lieutenant later the same year. He also became a Sunday School teacher. It was a combination of these two activities that led him to start the Boys' Brigade on 4 October 1883 at Free Church Mission Hall, North Woodside Road, Glasgow. In 1909 he was knighted by King Edward VII for his services to children. He also eventually reached the rank of Major in the Lanarkshire Rifle Volunteers.
He died on 10 May 1914 and was buried in Glasgow. There is a memorial stone in honour of him in St. Paul's Cathedral, London, and in St. Giles' Cathedral, Edinburgh.
Read more about this topic: William Alexander Smith (Boys' Brigade)
Famous quotes containing the words late, adolescence and/or adulthood:
“How many wives have been forced by the death of well-intentioned but too protective husbands to face reality late in life, bewildered and frightened because they were strangers to it!”
—Hortense Odlum (1892–?)
“Many children grow through adolescence with no ripples whatever and land smoothly and predictably in the adult world with both feet on the ground. Some who have stumbled and bumbled through childhood suddenly burst into bloom. Most shake, steady themselves, zigzag, fight, retreat, pick up, take new bearings, and finally find their own true balance.”
—Stella Chess (20th century)
“We have not passed that subtle line between childhood and adulthood until we move from the passive voice to the active voice—that is, until we have stopped saying “It got lost,” and say, “I lost it.””
—Sydney J. Harris (b. 1917)