B-P's Father: Reverend Professor Baden Powell.

B-P's Father

Reverend Professor Baden Powell,
Savilian Professor of Geometry at Oxford

B-P's father, the Reverend Professor Baden Powell. Some details of his career are found in Robin Baden Clay's work on the Powell family history.

Reverend Professor Baden POWELL.
Born 22 Aug 1796 in Stamford Hill, Middlesex,
Educated at Oriel College, Oxford; BA 1817, 1st class Honours in Mathematics, MA 1820
He was ordained a Clerk in Holy Orders in 1820 and served as Curate, Midhurst and Vicar of Plumstead, Kent from 1821-27.

In 1824, aged 27, he became a Fellow of the Royal Society, and later its Vice President;
In 1827, aged 31, he was made Savilian Professor of Geometry at Oxford University.
He was a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society; President of the Royal Geographical Society, and a Member of the Royal University Commission 1850.

He played the organ; painted and sketched. Drew caricatures of his Oxford colleagues.

Professor Baden Powell wrote on mathematics, physics, theology and philosophy and fought for the principle acknowledging scientific advances were compatible with Christian religion. Following Darwin's "Origin of Species" in 1859, he contributed one of seven essays in "Essays and Reviews," 1860. This was violently attacked, and the authors denounced as being inspired by "the Evil One himself." "There was some expectation of him becoming a Bishop, before Essays and Reviews were published" (letter from his widow to her nephew 20.8.1909).

He was elected to the Mercer's Company 1822, by patrimony;
He died on 11 Jun 1860 at 6 Stanhope St in Paddington at age 63 and was buried on 16 June 1860 at Kensal Green.

Professor Baden Powell's first wife was Eliza RIVAZ. They were married on 17 Jul 1821 in St John's Hackney. She died on 13 Mar 1836 after 14 years of marriage and was buried St Peter's in the East, Oxford. There were no children.

Professor Baden Powell's second wife was Charlotte POPE. They were married 27 Sep 1837 in Speldhurst. Kent. She died on 14 Oct 1844 after 7 years of marriage and was buried at Speldhurst. They had 4 children.

Children of Baden Powell and Charlotte Pope:
1. POWELL, Charlotte Elizabeth, Born 14 Sep 1838. Died 20 Oct 1917. "Elizabeth."
2. POWELL, Baden Henry, Born 23 Aug 1841. Died 2 Jan 1901. "Henry."
3. POWELL, Louisa Anne, Born 18 Mar 1843. Died 1 Aug 1896.
4. POWELL, Laetitia Mary, Born 4 Jun 1844, Died 2 Sep 1865.

Professor Baden Powell's third wife was Henrietta Grace SMYTH, the daughter of Admiral W. H. Smyth. She was born 3 Sep 1824 in 18 Buckingham Gate, London SW1 and married Professor Baden Powell on 10 Mar 1846 in St. Luke's, Chelsea. They were married for 14 years until the death of Professor Powell in 1860. She survived him by 54 years. Through her initiative all her children assumed the additional surname Baden 30 April 1902. She lived at 81 St George's Place, Hyde Park Corner, London, and died on 13 Oct 1914 at B-P's home at 32 Prince's Gate, London at the age of 90. She was buried at Kensal Green.

Professor Powell and Henrietta Grace Smyth had ten children, three of whom (Henrietta, John and Jessie) died in infancy and one of whom (Gus) died at 13 years. Henrietta, John and Jessie died before B-P was born. Gus passed on when B-P was about 6 years old. So for most of B-P's childhood the family consisted of his mother, and his brothers, Warington, George, Frank and Baden, and his sister Agnes.

Children of Baden Powell and Henrietta Grace Smyth:
5. BADEN-POWELL, Henry Warington Smyth. Born 3 Feb 1847, Died 24 Apr 1921. "Warington."
6. BADEN-POWELL, Sir George Smyth. Born 24 Dec 1847, Died 20 Nov 1898.
7. BADEN-POWELL, Augustus Smyth. Born May 1849, Died Mar 1863. "Gus."
8. BADEN-POWELL, Francis Smyth. Born 29 Jul 1850, Died 1931. "Frank."
9. BADEN-POWELL, Henrietta Smyth. Born 28 Oct 1851, Died 9 Mar 1854.
10. BADEN-POWELL, John Penrose Smyth. Born 21 Dec 1852, Died 14 Dec 1855.
11. BADEN-POWELL, Jessie Smyth. Born 25 Nov 1855, Died 24 Jul 1856.
12. BADEN-POWELL, Robert Stephenson Smyth, Born 22 Feb 1857, Died 8 Jan 1941. "Stephe."
13. BADEN-POWELL, Agnes Smyth. Born 16 Dec 1858?; "Azzie."
14. BADEN-POWELL, Baden Fletcher Smyth, Born 22 May 1860, Died 3 Oct 1937. "Baden."

Science and Religion: Baden Powell and the Anglican Debate, 1800-1860 by Pietro Corsi was published by the Cambridge University Press in 1988. The publishers describe the context of this debate and the content of Corsi's research in the Cambridge University Press online catalogue:

Science and Religion assesses the impact of social, political and intellectual change upon Anglican circles, with reference to Oxford University in the decades which followed the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars. More particularly, the career of Baden Powell, father of the more famous founder of the Boy Scout movement, offers material for an important case-study in intellectual and political reorientation: his early militancy in right-wing Anglican movements slowly turned to a more tolerant attitude towards radical theological, philosophical and scientific trends. During the 1840s and 1850s, Baden Powell became a fearless proponent of new dialogues in transcendentalism in theology, positivism in philosophy, and pre-Darwinian evolutionary theories in biology. He was for instance the first prominent Anglican to express full support for Darwin’s Origin of Species. Analysis of his many publications, and of his interaction with such contemporaries as Richard Whately, John Henry and Francis Newman, Robert Chambers, William Benjamin Carpenter, George Henry Lewes and George Eliot, reveals hitherto unnoticed dimensions of mid-nineteenth-century British intellectual and social life.

An interesting insight into Professor Baden Powell's career at Oxford presented in a lecture by Robin Wilson, late Director of Studies at the Royal Naval College in Greenwich, delivered at Gresham College, Holborn. The lecture recalls the advancement of mathematical learning in England from the time of Isaac Newton. Referring to the contributions of Professor Baden Powell, Wilson states:

One of Oxford’s reformers at this time was the Savilian professor of geometry from 1827 to 1860, the Reverend Baden Powell, who wrote texts in geometry and calculus, made significant discoveries in optics, and was a populariser of mathematics and science. Powell gave a public lecture on "The present state and future prospects of Mathematics" at the University of Oxford, and was an enthusiastic supporter of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, founded in 1831.

In 1847 Powell gave a two-hour popular lecture on "Falling Stars" at the Oxford British Association meeting, where the main speaker was John Couch Adams, who had recently discovered the planet Neptune. Adams’s lecture was attended by the independent discoverer Le Verrier; the French press gave all the credit to Le Verrier rather than the British co-discoverer who is shown looking in the wrong direction.

An interesting educational issue started to feature around this time, encouraged by Baden Powell — the attempts to reform the teaching of geometry in schools. Such teaching often consisted of rote learning of the material with little understanding, and one examiner complained that a student had reproduced a proof from Euclid perfectly, except that in his diagrams he drew all the triangles as circles.

© Robin Wilson

Free public lectures have been given at Gresham College for over 400 years. The College website contains the full text of Robin Wilson's lecture as well as considerable information about the College. Henry Powell (1809-1867), brother of Baden Powell, was appointed a Professor of Rhetoric at Gresham College by the Mercers' Company i July 1865 and served until his passing in 1867.

Special thanks to Ursula S Carlyle, Archivist & Curator of the Mercers' Company Archives & Art Collection for the correct dates for Henry Powell's service at Gresham College.

In The Order of Nature Considered in Reference to The Claims of Revelation, Professor Baden Powell wrote of the "early progress of scientific ideas" in a manner describing an enlightened approach to modern scientific inquiry:

THE first origin and early progress of all science is involved in obscurity; yet, on general grounds, it may be considered evident that the necessary arts of life must, from the nature of the case, precede all scientific speculation or inquiry; and, again, when such speculation does begin, it seems an equally natural result that, in the infancy of intellectual progress, imagination should largely predominate, and that science should not at first take the strictest or simplest form of inquiry into facts, but rather begin with widely extended yet visionary contemplation, out of which more sober and exact conclusions are only by degrees evolved. Men must live and act before they speculate; and when they speculate they feel and fancy before they investigate and measure--they wonder and imagine before they reason and analyze.

An Evening with Professor and Mrs. Baden Powell.
Maria Mitchell was Professor of Astronomy at Vassar College in New York. In 1857, she traveled to England where she spent time with several notes astronomers including B-P's father-in-law, Admiral William Henry Smyth. Through this contact she had an opportunity to be introduced to Professor Baden Powell and his wife, Henrietta Grace. In the following excerpt from her Journal she recallls her evening at their home:

"November 26. A few days ago I received a card, 'Mrs. Baden Powell, at home November 25.' Of course I did not know if it was a tea party or a wedding reception. So I appealed to Mrs. Airy. She said, 'It is a London rout. I never went to one, but you'll find a crowd and a good many interesting people.'

"I took a cab, and went at nine o'clock. The servant who opened the door passed me to another who showed me the cloak-room. The girl who took my shawl numbered it and gave me a ticket, as they would at a public exhibition. Then she pointed to the other end of the room, and there I saw a table with tea and coffee. I took a cup of coffee, and then the servant asked my name, yelled it up the stairs to another, and he announced it at the drawing-room door just as I entered.

"Mrs. Powell and the professor were of course standing near, and Mrs. Admiral Smyth just behind. To my delight, I met four English persons whom I knew, and also Prof. Henry B. Rogers, who is a great society man.

"People kept coming until the room was quite full. I was very glad to be introduced to Professor Stokes, who is called the best mathematician in England, and is a friend of Adams. He is very handsome—almost all Englishmen are handsome, because they look healthy; but Professor Stokes has fine black eyes and dark hair and good features. He looks very young and innocent. Stokes is connected with Cambridge, but lives in London, just as Professor Powell is connected with Oxford, but also lives in London. Several gentlemen spoke to me without a special introduction—one told me his name was Dr. Townby [Qy., Toynbie], and he was a great admirer of Emerson—the first case of the sort I have met.

"Dr. Townby is a young man not over thirty, full of enthusiasm and progress, like an American. He really seemed to me all alive, and is either a genius or crazy—the shade between is so delicate that I can't always tell to which a person belongs! I asked him if Babbage was in the room, and he said, 'Not yet,' so I hoped he would come.

"He told me that a fine-looking, white-headed, good-featured old man was Roget, of the 'Thesaurus;' and another old man in the corner was Dr. Arnott, of the 'Elements of Physics.' I had supposed he was dead long ago. Afterwards I was introduced to him. He is an old man, but not much over sixty; his hair is white, but he is full of vigor, short and stout, like almost all Englishmen and Englishwomen. I have met only two women taller than myself, and most of them are very much shorter. Dr. Arnott told me he was only now finishing the 'Elements,' which he first published in 1827. He intends now to publish the more mathematical portions with the other volumes. He was very sociable, and I told him he had twenty years ago a great many readers in America. He said he supposed he had more there than in England, and that he believed he had made young men study science in many instances.

"I asked him if Babbage was in the room, and he too said, 'Not yet.' Dr. Arnott asked me if I wore as many stockings when I was observing as the Herschels—he said Sir William put on twelve pairs and Caroline fourteen!

"I stayed until eleven o'clock, then I said 'Good-by,' and just as I stepped upon the threshold of the drawing-room to go out, a broad old man stepped upon it, and the servant announced 'Mr. Babbage,' and of course that glimpse was all I shall ever have!"

From MARIA MITCHELL LIFE, LETTERS, AND JOURNALS, Compiled By Phebe Mitchell Kendall, 1896

		Excerpts from The Order of Nature Considered in Reference to The Claims of Revelation by The Rev. Baden Powell, M.A., London, 1859
		A sample chapter from the Cambridge University Press edition of Science and Religion: Baden Powell and the Anglican Debate, 1800-1860 includes a "Biographical Introduction" providing significant background and detail on the life and times of B-P's father, Professor Baden Powell.
		The Savilian Chair of Geometry was founded in 1619 at the University of Oxford by Sir Henry Savile. Additional biographical information about Sir Henry Savile is found at the website of the School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St Andrews, Scotland.
		Oxford University has been a center for the study of mathematics, the physical and natural sciences for over 800 years. Professor Baden Powell's contributions are highlighted in Oxford Figures, edited by John Fauvel, Raymond Flood and Robin Wilson and published by the Oxford University Press in 1999.
		Maria Mitchell Life, Letters and Journals Compiled By Phebe Mitchell Kendall, 1896 contains her recollections of many interesting moments in the life of a pioneering astronomer and women. The first Professor of Astronomy at Vassar College, she was a founder of the American Association of University Women and the first women admitted to the American Academy for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
		Baden-Powell Family History. A series of links starting with the research of Robin Baden Clay, a grandson of Baden-Powell. These links are focused on the genealogy of the Powell family. The author is extremely grateful to Mr. Clay for sharing the results of his labors with the Scouting community. Links are provided to pages for three of B-P's brothers: Baden, Warington and Sir George Baden-Powell, to members of his extended family, and to the genealogy of the Smyth and Warington families.
		Baden-Powell Home Page

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