Ernest Stafford Carlos

Ernest Stafford Carlos (4 June 1883 – 14 June 1917) was a British painter and war artist. He is best known for his works depicting the early days of the Scout Movement. He joined the British Army and was killed during the First World War.

Early life and education Born on 4 June 1883, in North Brixton, Ernest was the son of John Gregory Carlos and Anne Chessell (née Buckler). He was educated at St John the Divine School in Kennington and the Lambeth School of Art, gaining a scholarship to study at the Royal Academy Schools in 1901. He had a painting displayed at the Royal Academy summer exhibition when he was seventeen years of age from where he built up a business painting and copying portraits, often of senior clergymen. During his time in Brixton, he became interested in efforts to improve the conditions of the urban poor. His painting of an unemployed man, Rejected and Dejected (1908), was exhibited at the Royal Academy and reproduced by the Independent Labour Party in some of their election material. Titles included A Ripping Yarn (1910), If I Were a Boy Again (1911) and Good Service Work in a London Slum (1913). Perhaps the best known is The Pathfinder (1913) which shows a young Scout with the hand of Jesus Christ on his shoulder. It was widely circulated as a print, and a copy has featured on the set of the television soap opera, Coronation Street since 1961. One of two original versions of The Pathfinder, together with a number of Carlos's other Scouting works, are held at Gilwell Park in Essex, the headquarters of The Scout Association. His family's memorial to him is a window depicting The Pathfinder in stained glass at Holy Cross Church, Hornchurch.