Kenneth McLaren

Kenneth McLaren DSO (sometimes given as "MacLaren"), (1860–1924) was a Major in the 13th Hussars regiment of the British Army. After his military service, he was briefly involved with his friend Robert Baden-Powell in the early promotion of the Scout Movement.

Military service

Son of H. McLaren, of The Chalet, Tighnabruaich, Argyllshire, Scotland (the family home was later Dunmar at Tighnabruaich) McLaren was educated at Harrow before being assigned to the 13th Hussars in 1880. He was posted to India, where he served as regimental adjutant and later aide de camp to General Baker Russell. In South Africa, he was gravely wounded during the Siege of Mafeking in March 1900 and taken prisoner by the Boers. McLaren played polo throughout his military service and was umpire of one of the two matches in the 1908 London Olympics.

McLaren first met Baden-Powell (also a 13th Hussars officer) in 1881. Although McLaren was 20 at the time, Baden-Powell nicknamed him "the Boy", on account of his appearance.

McLaren volunteered his services and was recalled to military service in World War I, serving in France with the Casualty Records Department but retired again in 1915 due to the onset of the first symptoms of "softening of the brain" (according to Baden-Powell his friend suffered also from "melancholia").

Boy Scouts

McLaren was one of the staff at Baden-Powell's Brownsea Island Scout camp in 1907. Baden-Powell convinced McLaren to be his first manager at the C. Arthur Pearson Limited office of The Scout magazine but McLaren resigned that position in March 1908.

Personal life McLaren was born on 18 October 1860 in Salford, Lancashire.

In 1898 in Marylebone, McLaren married Leila Evelyn Landon. Their daughter, Eileen Leila M., was born in 1899 in Brixworth, Northants; He had been unable to return from India to serve as best man at McLaren's wedding. Leila McLaren died in Kensington in 1904 Her son Christopher found "nothing at all connected with his grandfather" in her possession.