David Cossgrove

Lieutenant Colonel David Cossgrove (1852–1920) of the New Zealand Army served in the South African War – also known as the Second Boer War – with Robert Baden-Powell, founder of Scouts and Guides in the United Kingdom. Cossgrove (also spelled Cosgrove and Crosgrove

Life and death Cossgrove was born in Crosshill, in Ayrshire, Scotland, on 20 January 1852 to Elizabeth (née Campbell) and James Crosgrove. The family name was changed to Cossgrove shortly after this. While teaching at Sandymount, he married Selina Robertson in February 1875 in the Otago Peninsular Parish, Dunedin. Reports have been made of his student teacher capacity at East Taieri School; It is believed that Cossgrove moved on to teaching at another Dunedin school (after leaving Sandymount) in the early part of the 1880s. He was in Westport by 1888 where he took the physical education class at Westport Girls' State School and ran the Naval Cadet Company at Westport Boys' State School.

By the time he volunteered to serve during the South African War in 1900, the Cossgroves were residing in Tuahiwi Christchurch, where, in 1902, there were 28 boys and 201 girls. He stayed headmaster of the school from 1899 to 1914 and it was there that he founded the Scouting movement in New Zealand. He was an important community figure as, not only was he the headmaster of the local school, he also dispatched the daily post from 1900 when a Post Office was established at the school house. Another source lists three older daughters named Catherine (who married school teacher George William Aldridge), Selina (who also married a school teacher) and Elfrida (who married Alfred Norman Rickman).

"Uncle David" A series of articles were printed in the Otago Witness under the name of Uncle David. These took the format of a Natural History Column entitled: "Notes for the Young" followed by various plants and birds described in a fashion suitable for children. These articles continued throughout the early 1880s and have been attributed to David Cossgrove. The contingent were sailed to East London for training on 13 January 1901 on the Cornwall under the command of Lieutenant Colonel J.H. Banks. They were dispatched to South Africa soon after arrival in London, despite the lack of basic supplies such as rifles, revolvers, ammunition, picks, shovels, axes, water buckets and bandoleers. Cossgrove took the men round East London before they travelled to try to do something about the situation. Making the best of the resources around them they bought up the empty wine bottles from various hotels to use for water.