Every good B.B. Officer and Boy knows that The Boys' Brigade belongs to Glasgow. It was William Smith himself who saw further. He called London 'the centre of our national life', and as early as 1885 a Company Captain who was also an Anglican vicar was appointed Assistant Brigade Secretary to look after the Movement's interests in the capital. The Founder knew that he could not greatly interest the Established Church of England in the B.B. from distant and Presbyterian Scotland.By the time of the glorious Diamond Jubilee of 1897, William Smith had diligently encouraged Archbishops and bishops, field-marshals and generals, university professors and Lord Mayors to lend their names and influence to the Brigade.A dutiful address was presented to Her Majesty as 'a tribute of Esteem, Loyalty and Affection', and His Royal Highness the Duke of Cornwall and York became the first Royal Patron of The Boys' Brigade. Public meetings and Demonstrations were held regularly in London and were soon to culminate in the Albert Hall Display as the crowning event of the B.B. Year. All that remained was to have a permanent home in 'the Metropolis of Empire'.
On the Horseguards Parade in London.
Facts and figures supported the move. By the turn of the century considerably more than half the membership of the B. B. was in England, Wales and the Channel Islands. So, in 1902, the London Office of the Brigade was opened in Paternoster House, 34 Paternoster Row, under the shadow of St. Paul's Cathedral, with a cobbled entrance and posts to stop anything but horses, and Mr Roger S. Peacock was appointed full-time London Secretary. Church and civic dignitaries approved.So also did the London street urchins with their chant:
Here comes The Boys' Brigade All smovered in marmalade; A tuppenny ha'penny pill box And half a yard of braid!
Within another session there were a hundred Companies in London alone.
It was about this time that the B.B. Gazette discussed two matters concerning the Boys. One was the curious fact that in spite of constant admonitions about smartness of turnout, freshly-laundered haversacks, gleaming belts and polished boots, nothing was ever said at Camp about B.B.Boys cleaning their teeth. Apparently the practice was almost unknown. So said Arnold Wilson, the Brigade Treasurer. Before long, however, the Captain of the lst Hartlepool wrote to say that his Company provided every Boy with a toothbrush, bought wholesale for one penny each, 'and twice a day, after the morning service of biscuits, and after prayers, before the Boys retire for the night, each Boy takes a mug filled with water by the Fatigue Squad and on the bugle sounding "Commence Firing", sets to work vigorously with his brush'.
The other worthy piece of advice offered by the Gazette was entitled 'Hints to Working Lads':
- No young man has any right to ask a girl to marry him until he is in a position to offer her a comfortable home. Under present social conditions, this will not, as a rule, be until he is 25 years of age at least.
- During his apprenticeship, a self respecting lad will hand all his earnings to his mother, getting back so much for pocket money.
- The remaining five shillings would be lodged as a sacred trust, each week, say, in the Post Office Savings Bank.
- In choosing the girl who is to be your wife, remember you are not simply choosing one who will do you credit when 'walking out' or as a partner in a dance, but one who is to be a help-meet all through life. You want one, then, whose qualities will last, who will make a thrifty housewife, and a good mother to your children, healthy, therefore, and from a good home, of similar tastes to yourself, and of the same religion, not to be found often on the street, but modest; not cheapening herself, but keeping you at your proper distance; one whom to woo and win is- worth your while.
The union with The Boys' Life Brigade clinched 'the London matter' by almost doubling the size of the Movement. The B.L.B. with their Junior League, The Life Boys, had an Aim and Object very similar to the senior organization, with their emphasis on training 'for an active, disciplined and useful manhood'. They used the same worthy Victorian terms such as 'habits of self respect, obedience,_ courtesy, helpfulness to others and all that makes for a manly Christian character'. They, too, had drill, but they absolutely abhorred the use of the rifle. Their motto was: 'To save life', and their exercises were aimed at rescue from fire, from drowning and from accident. When the B.B. at last agreed to get rid of their dummy rifles, nothing stood in the way of union, and it was a happy one from the beginning.
The London Office was now too small, so a move was made to Abbey House, Westminster, just across the road from the Abbey and the Mother of Parliaments. One could hardly get nearer the heart of Empire than that! It was formally agreed by Brigade Council that 'the Brigade Secretary should make his headquarters in London', so, when G. Stanley Smith moved south from Glasgow in 1930, Abbey House became the national and international headquarters of the Brigade. Glasgow opened new and spacious offices at 168 Bath Street and appointed the notable Andrew Macpherson to be Battalion and Scottish Secretary.
The 1930s proved to be 'the golden age of the B.B.' The Jubilee of 1933 was, of course, the highlight, when the Camp at Dechmont, the Review in Queen's Park, Glasgow, and the Conventicle at Hampden brought together the largest gathering of Officers and Boys ever seen in the United Kingdom. But there were other notable advances during that decade. In 1933, for example, William H. McVicker came to London from Belfast as Life Boys and Overseas Secretary of The Boys' Brigade. He was to be the best-known and best-loved B.B. man in the world for more than thirty years as the Brigade went from strength to strength in every continent.
Another advance of the '30s was the beginning of Training Schools for Officers. New ways for leaders were very much needed. The old-style B.B. had relied on Officers who had trained in the Volunteers or who had served in the Forces. Now the contentious rifle was at last abandoned, the Boys were no longer 'marching as to war' and the whole Movement was inclined to seek more diverse and open-air activities than could be found in the drill hall. A Training Centre was opened at 'Bolobo' in Edgeware, Middlesex, a house that took its colourful name from a Baptist Mission Station in the Belgian Congo. Scotland had its training, camping and recreation centre at Balrossie, in Renfrewshire. In 1936 no fewer than six Brigade training schools were held, and about the same time B.B. Organizers and full-time Training Officers were being appointed up and down the country.
World War II saw the original office at Paternoster House destroyed by an enemy bomb, and Abbey House stood at the very heart of German air raids over London. The B.B. Ambulance Handbook sold over 200,000 copies because the Home Office recommended it as the best handbook on First Aid available. Night after night the headquarters staff were on fire watch on the flat roof looking over the River Thames, alert under the continuous gunfire,The drone of planes and the crash of bombs dropping along the the crowded riverside. The office boy, aged 16, was Kenneth Wiggins known as 'Wiggs', a member of a London Company of the B.B.Kenneth was on duty with the A.R.P. Service many nights during the heavy bombing. On a bright September morning, a day of victory for the R.A.F., he set out on his bike for work as usual, the air raid sirens ared but Wiggs rode on. The sounding as he started. The guns roared, bombs fell on that stricken London street, and Wiggs was a wartime casualty, with no memorial to mark his passing. He was one of the unsung heroes of those days, on duty to the end.
Black-out, evacuation, air raids and other hazards brought a dramatic wartime fall in B.B. membership. Officers, Warrant Officers and Staff Sergeants volunteered or were called up to the Forces. Senior Boys gave their services at First Aid Posts, in the Auxiliary Fire Service, and in air raid precautions and rescue work. The first Distinguished Flying Cross of the war was presented personally by King George VI to Flying Officer Drew Macpherson son of the Glasgow Battalion Secretary. Drew was a B.B officer in the 32nd Glasgow Company. Not long after, he was reported missing, believed killed.
The 4th Jersey Company in the Channel Islands carried on in defiance of the occupying Nazi authority. They had their Company parades in secret every Thursday and Band practice every Tuesday in spite of threats by the German forces. On 9th May 1945, there came the end of the occupation and the unconditional surrender of German troops in Jersey and throughout the Channel Islands. At 11.30 that morning there came a message from the Bailiff of Jersey to warn the Old Boys' Band to appear in the Royal Square early next morning. They were on parade to a man.
Across the channel, a solitary B.B. Company, the lst Amsterdam, kept going in great difficulty. The blitzkreig which fell on Holland brought devastation to the cities, and there was harsh repression and persecution. Towards the end of the war sheer starvation was common. 'We have eaten potato peelings and tulip bulbs. No milk, no cheese, no fat or butter, no meat or vegetables - all gone to Germany. No gas, electricity or radio, no trams. Our bicycles were stolen and our cars, lorries, railway engines and coaches. Holland is empty and poor.' Some of the sturdiest of the B.B. Boys were taken to force labour in Germany. But, camouflaged as the 'Jongens Gilde' the B.B. struggled to carry on.
In brighter post-war days the B.B. set itself to new tasks for a new generation. Felden Lodge, the Brigade Training Centre in Hertfordshire, opened on 22nd October 1949, bought with funds given to the B.B. by the South Africa Aid to Britain Fund in recognition of the British people's courage during the years of war. Carronvale in Larbert, at the heart of Scotland, was opened as the Scottish Training Centre, and later Rathmore House in Ireland.
Post-war B.B. activities showed new life in the Brigade at home and abroad. These were the days of celebration of the centenary of the Founder's birth, the first B.B. International Camp at Eton, the Duke of Edinburgh's Award, a royal review at Balmoral Castle, the formation of Junior, Company and Senior Sections, and the appointment of Lord Bruce, now the Earl of Elgin, as President of The Boys' Brigade. The B.B. was the first organization ever to organize a sponsored walk - from London to Brighton at a penny a mile - and to raise a handsome sum for Oxfam by doing so.
There were many changes in the new age of the Welfare State. The B.B., like the general population, was moving from the streets of the inner cities to the community centres of the new towns and outlying council estates. 'Membership fluctuated during an era of Teddy Boys, affluence and television, in a permissive society which was becoming more and more materialistic, no longer taking either authority or religion for granted.' It was not easy to be 'Sure and Stedfast' to the high ideal of 'a true Christian manliness'.
In these restless days it was time also to find a new home for the Movement. All sorts of sites were explored up and down London - derelict churches, warehouses, office blocks, vacant bombed sites. The present Brigade House at Parsons Green was the happy final choice for the joint use of The Boys' Brigade and its sister organization, The Girls' Brigade. From Brigade House the headquarters staff oversee the administration, finances, supplies and training of the whole Movement throughout the United Kingdom. Parsons Green looks out on a grassy common which gives the district its name. It goes back through the centuries to 'P'songrene' of the late l4th century, when the rector of the parish had a bowling green for the diversion of himself and his staff.
Brigade House at Parsons Green was officially opened on 9th December 1966 by Princess Alexandra, deputizing for Her Majesty the Queen. At its opening Her Majesty wrote:
I believe that in a swinging age it is still important to have a basis of faith and discipline in order to keep one's feet on the ground. To both Brigades I wish continued dedication and success in their task which serves both Church and Nation.
Mr George Thomas speaker of the House of Commons, himself an old boy of the B.B. and our Hon Vice President.
The Earl of Elgin and Kincardin, President of the Boys' Brigade with Seniors from Tyneside.
The official opening of Brigade House, Parsons Green.