Cub Scouts, often shortened to Cubs, are a section of Scouting operated by The Scout Association with a core age of eight to ten and a half years of age. This section follows on from the Beaver Scouts (6–8 year olds) and precedes the Scout section (10½–14 year olds).
Originally beginning in 1916 as Wolf Cubs, the section gained its current name in 1966 as a result of the Advance Party Report. Because of this early name, the section has themed links to wolves and the novel The Jungle Book with the section being called a Cub Pack and the volunteer leaders taking their names from this story.
Cub Scouts has been open to both boys and girls since 1991 as well as those of different faiths and none. Cub Scouts wear a green sweatshirt for their uniform and earn badges for skills learned and challenges overcome.
History Wolf Cubs: 1916-1966
The Cub Scout section was first launched in 1916 as Wolf Cubs. Early in the development of the Scouting movement, there was a need for provision for those too young to join the Boy Scouts at the age of 11. In a number of cases, those too young were not turned away and unofficial junior troops existed in the UK as early as 1909, only a year after the official formation of troops. These boys were often taught simple Scout skills such as tracking, First Aid, simple knots or semaphore and wore a simple uniform of a green cap and dark green or blue jersey.
These early programmes, being a watered down version of full Scouting, was seen as unacceptable to Chief Scout, Robert Baden-Powell, and a draft scheme for younger boys was drawn up in 1913 and published in the Headquarters Gazette in January 1914 in an article called 'Wolf Cubs or Young Scouts - How to train them.' The outbreak of World War I in August 1914 led to older Scouts and Scoutmasters joining the army which brought new people into these roles including women leaders and more demand for a younger section and helped demonstrate the benefit of a younger section. The section became more widespread with the first Cub Conference on 24 June 1916 and the publication of the first Wolf Cubs Handbook on 29 November 1916, authored by Baden-Powell and influenced by Vera Barclay an influential figure at the beginning of the section being one of the first Cubmasters and writer or many publications and articles to help lead the section. The Wolf Cubs were officially launched at Caxton Hall in central London on 16 December 1916 and this is today considered the section's birthday.
The structure for the section revolved around Wolves and the Rudyard Kipling novel The Jungle Book. The name Wolf Cubs was chosen by Baden-Powell as 'wolf' was a Native American name for a good scout and a pack of wolves was the family of the boy Mowgli from the stories in The Jungle Book. Baden-Powell saw the story as a useful way to introduce the boys to Scouting in a fun and entertaining way, hoping that the boys would be inspired by the adventure and the teamwork of the pack, whereas Kipling (who was a neighbour of Baden-Powell for a time) focused his stories on Mowgli as a unique individual who would lead the pack. Leaders were known by the names of the main characters that taught lessons to Mowgli and the other animals of the jungle and each meeting was to start and finish with the "Grand Howl", a ceremony in which the Cubs greeted Akela, the Pack's leader. Some of the phrases used in this ceremony, Do Your Best and Do Our Best, would go on to be shortened to 'dyb' and 'dob' and used three times in the pack. Different to the Scout sign and salute which used three fingers, the Wolf Cub salute used two fingers to symbolise the ears of a wolf.
The uniform for the section settled very early on to a green cap with yellow piping and a green jersey. Similar to the older Scout section, Wolf Cubs also earned badges for achievement of a skill and at launch there were originally 12: artist, athlete, collector, first aider, guide, house orderly, observer, signaller, swimmer, team player, weaver and woodworker. Higher achievement was marked through the achievement of a One Star test and a Two Star test which required the boys to complete a variety of different skills and were recognised by the appropriate number of starts in their cap. The achievement of the pack was marked by attaching ribbons with the Cubs name and badge on it to a large wolf's head on a pole which was used for ceremonies and displayed during the meetings.
Early notable events that Wolf Cubs were involved in included a Posse of Welcome on 7 October 1922 welcoming the Prince of Wales returning from a tour of the Empire and a Wolf Cubs Day at the Imperial Jamboree on 6 August 1924 which was attended by Rudyard Kipling and The Duke of York. In addition to Vera Barclay, who had helped shape the section at the very start of its existence, two other individuals became well known at this time for developing the section. Dorothy Hughes became well known in the East of London running various Cub packs, buying a Scout Hall for her group and contributing funds for an indoor accommodation centre for Wolf Cubs at Gilwell Park which would go on to be named the Dorothy Hughes Pack Holiday Centre in her honour. Betty Melville Smith grew up in Hong Kong running Cub packs there in 1925 before being involved with Cub packs in Birmingham when she returned to Britain including a group for evacuees in the Second World War before being appointed as HQ Wolf Cubs Secretary after the war. She delivered Cub Leader training at Gilwell Park until 1969 and one of the kit stores was named 'Rikki's Store' after her nickname.
Cub Scouts and Arrows: 1966-1990 1966 was an eventful year for the section, being the 50th anniversary of the Wolf Cubs and included large Pack Meetings and a musical pageant at the Royal Albert Hall in June. Local activities including collecting silver paper for the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association, sending birthday cards to overseas cub packs and making scrap books of their life.
That same year, as part of a scheme to modernize the whole movement in the United Kingdom, The Chief Scout's Advance Party Report recommended that the Cub section adopt a number of changes to align it to the rest of the movement. The section would now use the same salute as the rest of the association and a similar Promise. The name was to change from "Wolf Cubs" to Cub Scouts and while The Jungle Book theme would be retained, less emphasis would be placed upon it especially for older Cubs. The uniform would remain of green jersey and cap with grey shorts and long socks. A new progressive training scheme of Bronze, Silver and Gold Arrow awards was devised (one for each year in the pack) and badges and designs were updated with a common theme of red proficiency badges for the section. The proposals referring to the Cub Scouts were accepted and implemented in full the following year.
Around a decade after the report in 1978 a major review of the Arrow Scheme was carried out. It was deemed that the choice of activities was too narrow for the Cub Scouts so the scheme was expanded dramatically. One hundred different activities were put into four different areas (Discovering, Growing Up, Sharing and Thinking) with Cubs having to pick three different activities from each of the four areas for each arrow award meaning that Cubs completed 36 activities during their full time in the section. The developed arrow activities were meant to be chosen by the Cub themselves, so they would have some personal choice in what they did, and had the benefit of not holding a Cub back if they missed a week when a compulsory activity was run - instead they would have been able to pick up another activity in the same area a few weeks later. It was also meant to benefit packs with a poor Cub/Leader ratio as one activity could be run for all ages of the pack and would be able to tick off activities for any level of award as the three awards shared a common activity list.
However a number of flaws emerged through the use of the updated Arrow scheme. When run properly, with the Cub Scouts choosing their activities, it was described even by the Scout Association later as an "organisational nightmare". It was easy for a Cub to lag behind in one section and extra time was often needed for Cubs to work on their particular activities. It was also possible for a Cub to choose an easy route through each award, missing out the more challenging activities and classic Scouting skills that made it very difficult for the leaders in the Scout troop to run their programme when Cubs moving up were not well versed in these skills. It was much less structured and the assessment for each award became subjective for the leader as the level of mastery required between bronze, silver and gold awards were very different. Subsequently, Cub leaders, and occasionally entire districts, tried to make sense of the awards by imposing their own structure and variations and choosing the activities on behalf of the Cubs.
These changes also saw the introduction of the round collective badges for activities such as camping, exploring and entertainment that same year. In 1986 Cub Scouts ceased to be the youngest section with the formal addition of Beaver Scouts on 1 April for young people aged 6–8 years of age.
Challenge and Adventure scheme: 1990-2002
Another wider scale refresh of the programme came in the early 1990s. In February 1990, it was decided in principle that the Association would become fully co-educational, leading to individual Scout Groups being able to decide to accept girls into Cubs and the other sections. This was formally allowed from July 1991 when the Scout Association's Royal Charter was amended. As of January 2020, the number of Cub Scouts in the UK was 157,172 of which 122,714 were recorded as male and 34,085 were recorded as female meaning at present 21.7% of the section are female.
That same year the Cub programme faced a number of changes to replace the much disliked Arrow awards. The changes, announced in September 1990 and officially launched from February 1991, saw new Cub Scout Award, Adventure Award and Adventure Crest Award replace the three arrow awards. The new awards were more structured and had less choice with the requirements split into ten sections with different numbers of activities from each section and more activities being made compulsory. Additionally a Cub Scout challenge was introduced for older Cubs that allowed them to try out the more adventurous activities in the Scout section and thus encouraging more Cubs to move up to the troop. The proficiency badges were renamed to activity badges and more were introduced bringing the total to 40 with some having different stages.
In the Scout-wide refresh that took place in 1995 some small changes were made to the badges of Cubs with the number of badges needed to be achieved for each challenge award reduced and one more activity badge being introduced - Road Safety, which proved popular as an easily achieved badge and was given a Prince Michael International Road Safety Award for contributions to road safety in 1995.
Relaunch: 2002-2015 The first years of the 21st century saw a number of changes for the Cub Scout section in line with the other sections of the association. In May 2000 The Programme Review final report was produced after consultation that had been undergoing since 1995 with members of the Scouts and focus groups and led to a revamp of the programme in February 2002. One year before, in London Fashion Week 2001, new uniforms were unveiled for the section which saw a new design dark green activity jumper, navy blue activity trousers and a wider range of optional accessories such as a branded baseball cap and polo shirts. A logo was introduced along with all publications for the section being relaunched to reflect the new programme and wider Scout Association brand and visual identity.