The Boys Brigade 4 October

On this day, 4 October, in 1883, the first ever Company of the Boys Brigade was formed by Sir William Alexander Smith at the Free Church Mission Hall, North Woodside Road, Glasgow. The Boys Brigade was the earliest of all youth organisations and was set up as a non-denominational Christian youth organization. Initially, the Brigade was based on military traditions and a simple rosette was worn as an identifying uniform. This was later replaced by the simple use of a belt, haversack and pillbox cap (a popular military cap of the day) worn over the boys' everyday clothing. The pillbox cap was used into the 1960s, long after it had fallen out of use in the British Army, when it was replaced with a field cap.

The Brigade was one of the earliest organisations that promoted camping for leisure - an activity that was previously rarely used outside the military. An early admirer of the Brigade was Lord Baden-Powell who as Vice President of the Boy's Brigade used it alongside initiatives in schools, particularly Eton, to promote the idea of scouting and outdoor pursuits and early examples of scouting were seen in Boys' Brigade scouting awards and Baden Powell latter and even specialized Boys' Brigade Scout sections who wore a blue uniform with shorts and the distinctive 'Smokey Bear' hat traditionally identified with the Scouts that Baden-Powell later went on to form.

The Boys' Brigade motto is "Sure and Steadfast" and the old logo is an anchor placed over a Greek Cross. Although now fairly rare, there are still to be found a few older images of the motto in which the motto is spelled "Sure and Stedfast". The anchor comes from a phrase in The Bible, from the Epistle to the Hebrews, Chapter 6, Verse 19: 'Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast'. The Greek cross, sometimes referred to as the Geneva cross in the style of that used by the Red Cross, was added when the Brigade merged with the Boys' Life Brigade in the 1920s. The modern version of the Boys' Brigade logo is a very sad looking 'BB' in a box - a masterpiece of dullness for what was once a hugely dynamic organisation.