The preamble to the Constitutions of the four Associations within the Boy Scouts of South Africa makes clear the movement's policy in [racial matters]. It reads:

Here then is the true conception of the Inter-relation of colour. Complete uniformity in ideals; absolute equality in the paths of knowledge and culture, equal opportunity for those who strive; equal admiration for those who achieve; in matters social and racial a separate path, each pursuing his own race purity and race pride; equality in things spiritual, agreed divergence in things physical and material.

. . .

Each of the race groups has its own Association, with its own Chief Scout's Commissioner and Headquarters Council. These Councils are empowered to make their own plans and formulate their own programmes, subject only to the overriding control of the Chief Scout, on matters of policy.

. . .

The European, Coloured and Indian sections have, despite their option to differentiate, adhered to a common form of training for boys. The African section on the other hand has exercised its option to devise a programme better suited to the background of the African boy.

Two photos of members of a South African scout troop specifically for blind adolescents and young men c.1950. The bottom photograph is of non-commissioned officers from the King's African Rifles in the mid-1950s. Note that both groups wear similar clothing consisting of khaki shirt and shorts, knee-length socks, clasp belts, and wide brimmed hats.

During the past year the Chief Guide and I have visited Egypt and the Sudan, Kenya, Uganda, Tanganyika, the Union, Northern and Southern Rhodesia, St. Helena, Ascension, and the Canaries on a tour of inspection of Boy Scouts and Girl Guides.

You who know South Africa can realise in a way impossible for anyone who has not lived there the intense feeling which prevails on the colour question. For various reasons it has been far more acute here than in other countries.

Therefore our policy of Scouting being open to all "regardless of class, creed, or colour" was found to be impossible in practice. White parents would never allow their boys to consort with black. Any attempt on the part of the Scout movement to bring this about would have meant its boycott by the whites. Locally the question was asked: "Are the blacks to be catered for in preference to the whites?"

An amendment had been suggested to the Constitution of the Scout organisation in South Africa to emphasise the fact that the movement was open only to European boys.

One could not feel that this was in accordance with our professed open door to all sorts of boys, or that it visualised future developments of relationships between the races.

With the introduction of European rule the tribal system was largely broken down, and a transition from savagery to civilisation was brought about.

In many cases, however, the change has been almost too sudden; if you take former hunters and warriors away from their kraals and traditional discipline and place them as workers in mines and cities, with freedom from moral restraints, you thrust upon them the temptations and vices of the underworld of civilisation without having given them any education in character for facing these.

While education is as yet only in its early stages, the natives generally are quickly responsive to it. Those who were formerly segregated from one another by language and distance have now the facilities of a common tongue and improved communications and are thus coming into closer mutual touch.

Through gaining a wider outlook on life they are becoming race conscious and sensitive to justice or injustice. Indeed, influences are already at work among them persuading them that they have not been treated with fairness by their white rulers.

The colour prejudice is further complicated also by the fact that in addition to the natives there is a considerable half-caste element in the population, locally known as the "coloured" people. In addition to these there is a large section of Indians, descendants of earlier immigrants from India but now naturalised South Africans. Also a goodly proportion of Malays similarly circumstanced.

Already these different sections were beginning to feel themselves neglected if not repelled by not being accepted in the Boy Scout movement. The native youth had begun to organise themselves on Scout and Guide lines under able and sympathetic white leaders, calling themselves "Pathfinders" and "Wayfarers " since the name Scouts and Guides was denied them. The Indians had also started a Scout movement of their own.

At the Conference of the Union Scout Council which I attended in February the whole question came up for consideration. The various pros and cons-and there were many of them were discussed in excellent temper and in the true Scout spirit of fairness and wide outlook.

After two and a half days of earnest deliberation the conclusion was unanimously arrived at that, instead of making the Scout movement a closed Association for Europeans only, a Federation should be formed of the respective sections of Pathfinder Scouts, Coloured Boy Scouts, and Indian Boy Scouts; each section to be a separate self-governing unit, but all to be registered under the controlling authority of the Union Boy Scout Council.

This arrangement has met with the enthusiastic approval of all the bodies concerned.

This Federation, as now constituted, supplies at any rate a sound framework on which future developments can be made to meet the needs of future times.

The step is a big one and full of promise and possibilities. Its successful initiation has been largely due to the broad-minded outlook of missionary and education officers working in co-operation with white Scout leaders and in the face of much prejudice on the part of some of the public.

It is too soon yet to speak of any results, but one cannot help looking forward and hoping that this comradeship of the Scout and Guide movement will contribute to an improved mutual relationship between the different elements in the population and so tend to bring about the unity necessary for making an united South African people in the future.

The Boy Scouts Association
Imperial Headquarters
25 Buckingham Palace Road
London, S.W. 1

5 May 1923

Dear Sir,

This College is the training College for English Church boys (native and coloured) for the whole of the Transvaal and so far back as 1915, the present Bishop of St. Alban's, who was then Bishop of Pretoria, encouraged the idea of the formation of Native Scouts in connection with this College, which would spread eventually to other educational centers in the Diocese. For some time the proposal hung fire, mainly because we were handicapped during the war in the matter of staff; but after the war we were fortunate enough to get on our staff two keen experienced Scoutmasters, the Rev. S. P. Woodfield and Mr. W. E. Wilkinson, who took the matter up with enthusiasm. When, however, we applied to the Transvaal Scout Association in Johannesburg, a meeting was summoned in which we were told courteously, but quite plainly, that not for any reason whatsoever would we be allowed to call ourselves scouts, be affiliated to the Association as scouts, or wear the scout badge— and this, simply because our boys were BLACK— that was all. . . . We were allowed to affiliate ourselves as Pathfinders on condition that we did not wear the same uniform or badge, or call ourselves Scouts. I am not a member of the Association, and so appalled was I at the flagrant breach of what I considered the fundamental principle of Brotherhood that I was for leaving the whole things alone and starting an independent [scout] association, but the two scoutmasters, on the principle that at all costs it was vital to come under the control of the [British] Imperial [Scout] Headquarters, accepted what to me was a compromise of the Johannesburg [scout] executive steeped in racialism and colour prejudice.

Now, to our amazement, we find that our Association "cannot come under the jurisdiction of the Imperial Headquarters:" the only advantage we have apparently is affiliation with the Transvaal authorities of Boy Scouts, the body which has made no secret of its determination not to admit into the brotherhood of Scouts, the black and half-caste boy. To me, the ineptitude and shortsightedness of the whole thing is amazing. Our Native students went overseas; our Coloured Corps did most wonderful work during the [First World] War, but simply and solely because of the Colour prejudice their children are excluded from an Association whose first principles are of Brotherhood. Chinese and Japanese boys may be Scouts, but not boys living as an integral part of the British Empire. . . . The result is that all over South Africa, associations of Native Scouts are being formed – having no connection with any central organisation whatsoever. The native boy today sees the illustrated papers and knows that all over the world, irrespective of colour, boys are being enrolled as Scouts. His racial self-consciousness is one of the most marked features of South African life today. Is he likely to be satisfied with an Association having no connection with the great body of world Scouts, and admittedly based on colour prejudice of the most pronounced type, or to be deprived of the right to wear officially a uniform which he knows other black boys in Africa are wearing with credit, and full relationship with the Headquarters at home?

I fully appreciate the difficulties of the Scout Headquarters in Johannesburg; South Africa is full of racial prejudice, but I should have thought that the object of the Scout Association was to create an atmosphere in which racial prejudice cannot thrive, and not help to perpetuate it.

I have the honour to be, Sir,
Your obedient servant,


Reverend Canon William A. Palmer
Principal of the Pretoria Diocesan College
Director of Native Missions in the Diocese of Pretoria