Sir Francis Fletcher-Vane, 5th Baronet

Sir Francis Fletcher-Vane Bt
Born	(1861-10-16)16 October 1861 Dublin,Ireland
Died	10 June 1934(1934-06-10)(aged 72) London,England
Allegiance	United Kingdom
Service/branch	British Army
Years of service	1883-1904, 1914-1916
Rank	Major
Unit	Worcester Militia Scots Guards Submarine Mining, RE
Commands	Captain in26th Middlesex Cyclists
Battles/wars	Second Boer War Defence atPortobello BarracksinDublin,Easter Rising
Relations	Ancestor: SirHenry Vanethe Elder
Other work	Writer; politician; Grand Scoutmaster, British Boy Scouts; founded Italian Scout Movement and Order of World Scouts

Sir Francis Patrick Fletcher-Vane, 5th BaronetFRGS(16 October 1861 – 10 June 1934) was an Irish-bornBritish Armyofficer andbaronet.Francis became the 5th Baronet ofHuttonon the death in 1908 of his first cousin,Sir Henry Ralph Fletcher-Vane, 4th Baronet.

Fletcher-Vane was an early aide ofRobert Baden-Powelland was theScout Commissioner of Londonbefore Baden-Powell ousted him from hisBaden-Powell Boy Scoutsorganisation. Fletcher-Vane later founded theOrder of World Scouts,the earliest multinationalscoutingorganisation, and is counted one of the founders ofscouting in Italy.

As an army officer, he helped exposethe murder of several innocent civiliansby an officer under his command during the 1916Easter Risingin Dublin.

Early life

Vane was born at 10 Great George's Street,Dublin,in 1861. His parents were Lieutenant Frederick Henry Fletcher-Vane (1807–1894), of the12th Lancers,son ofSir Frederick Fletcher-Vane, 2nd Baronet,and Rosalind, daughter of John Moore, of Prospect House,County Galway,Ireland.

Vane was raised inSidmouth,Devon,England, and educated atCharterhouse School.Robert Baden-Powellalso attended Charterhouse. In 1876, Vane enrolled at theOxford Military College.

Military career

After military college, Vane was assigned to theWorcestershire Militia,Scots Guardsand theSubmarine Miningsectionof theRoyal Engineersover the period of 1883-1888. In 1886, he began residing atToynbee Hallin East London. That year he started a 'Working Boys Cadet Corps'. He became a captain in the 26th MiddlesexRifle Volunteersin 1888. While serving in theSecond Boer War(1899–1902), he was appointed amagistratein 1902. He was removed from that position for supposedly being too "pro-Boer".He wrote "The War and One Year After" pamphlet in 1903 criticising the British method of war. With his follow up pamphlet, Vane was "retired" from the military.

Ireland

At the start ofWorld War I,Vane returned to the Army as a recruiting officer with the rank of Major and was sent to Ireland, attached to theRoyal Munster Fusiliers.

During theEaster Rising,Vane distinguished himself for his courageous conduct in handling of abuses by an officer under his command, Captain John Bowen-Colthurst, who had ordered three unarmed civilians shot to death, and had himself killed an unarmed teenager. Vane had been directed to take command of the defence ofPortobello Barracks,Dublin, then garrison for the largely Belfast-recruitedRoyal Irish Riflesand the Ulster Militia Battalion. On the third day of the rising, Vane had taken up an observation position in the tower of theRathmines Town Hall.On returning to barracks he learned that civilian hostages had been taken and later killed there by order of Captain Bowen-Colthurst. They included the well-known pacifistFrancis Sheehy-Skeffingtonand two pro-Union journalists who were misidentified as Nationalists. Bowen-Colthurst had also led a raid against a house allegedly sympathetic to the insurgents, and during this raid he had summarily executed a youth, James Coade, in the street.

Vane ordered these incidents to be reported to the garrison high command and to British high command. But his superiors covered up the crimes, and removed him from command. Thereupon Vane went directly to London and met with Secretary of WarLord Kitchenerand withMaurice Bonham Carter,Principal Private Secretary to the Prime Minister,to expose the murders.As a result, Bowen-Colthurst was arrested a week after the rising, and was charged with murder at acourt-martialheld a month after the rising. The court-martial found Bowen-Colthurst guilty, but insane; he was sent toBroadmoor Hospitalfor the criminally insane.

Nevertheless, Vane's superiorSir John Maxwellfiled an adverse report about Vane, resulting in Vane's dismissal from the army sometime prior to August 1916.

Between periods of military service

Daily News,Manchester Guardian,WestminsterandTruthemployed Vane from 1902 to 1904 as a reporter for South Africa. He was the unsuccessfulLiberal Partycandidate forBurtonin the1906 United Kingdom general election.He became active in antiwar and suffragette campaigns from 1907-1912.He published two more items:Walks and Peoples in Tuscany(1908) andOn Certain Fundamentals(1909).

Scouting

By 1909, Vane was theBoy Scouts'LondonCommissioner.He felt thatScoutingshould be nonmilitary and, throughmediation,has reconciled theBritish Boy Scouts(BBS) with Baden-Powell's organisation (the BBS had formed as theBatterseaBoy Scouts and had originally registered with Baden-Powell's organisation but left over perceived militarisation and the nondemocratic nature of the national headquarters). Vane pushed for the Boy Scouts to be more democratic, but his position was eliminated by Baden-Powell's headquarters staff. In a protest meeting, the London area Scoutmasters voted overwhelming in support of Sir Francis, howeverBaden-Powelldid not reinstate him. Members of theNational Service League,a pro-military group, were appointed to Baden-Powell's headquarters. On 3 December 1909, Vane accepted the presidency of the British Boy Scouts, taking several London-area Troops with him. The Quakers' Birmingham and Midland Troops also followed, as Vane was key in having Quaker meeting houses sponsor Scouting Troops.

Vane got theBoys' Life Brigade(BLB) to join the British Boy Scouts in a loose federation called The National Peace Scouts in February 1910.At the merger the BBS had 45,000 Scouts and BLB had 40,000 members. With Vane having an Italian summer home, he launched the Scouting Movement in Italy with theRagazzi Esploratori Italianiin 1910.In 1911, Vane assisted Augustin Dufresne, a shipowner, to organise a French Scouting organisation.

With the spread of the alternative British Boy Scouts programme throughout the world, Vane informally aligned the various groups as the Legion of World Scouts, the first international organisation, in 1911 then more formally as theOrder of World Scoutson 11 November 1911.Vane became the Grand Scout Master of the Order of World Scouts.

Vane put his wealth behind the organisations: providing a London headquarters and financed the organisation, even the manufacture of BBS uniforms. This overburdened his finances to the point of having to declare bankruptcy in 1912.Thus the British Boy Scouts lost their headquarters, source of equipment and uniforms and their leader. Vane continued his involvement with the remnant BBS, as he inspected the Troop of the London Commissioner Percy Herbert Pooley in 1915.

Vane returned to Italy after World War I to find that the Italian Boy Scouts he founded had been mainly absorbed by the National Scouts Corps (Corpo Nazionale Giovani Esploratori Italiani -CNGEI). Some joined in with the creation of the Catholic Association of Scouts (Associazione Scautistica Cattolica Italiana - ASCI) in 1916, later namedAGESCI.He began working with the latter group. He tried to get Baden-Powell to accept the ASCI as a member of theWorld Organization of the Scout Movement.He also try to get the BBS back together with the Boy Scouts Association. Both of these efforts were without success.In 1927, he left for the United Kingdom as the Fascists quashed the Italian Scouting Movement,in favour of theOpera Nazionale Balilla(ONB), an Italian Fascist youth organisation. Despite a private letter to Sir Francis Vane 24 April 1933, sympathising with Vane's worries, the Balilla was an organisation that was publicly highly praised by Baden-Powell,as the application of scouting as part of national education.

Personal life

He succeeded his cousinSir Henry Fletcher-Vaneasbaronetin 1908.

His first wife, Anna Oliphant da Costa Ricci, daughter of the Baron Anselmo da Costa Ricci of Portugal, whom he married in 1888, died in 1922. Vane became a Knight Commander of theOrder of Christ (Portugal)in 1889. He married his second wife, Kathleen Crosbie in 1927. Sir Francis died in 1934 aged 72, after spending his last year of life in ill health atSt Thomas' Hospitalin Lambeth.

Legacy

In 2016, Fletcher-Vane was commemorated on apostage stamp in Irelandto mark the centenary of the Easter Rising.

Further reading

• Francis Fletcher Vane,Agin the governments: memories and adventures of Sir Francis Fletcher Vane(London, Sampson Low, Marston & Co., Ltd., 1929)

External links

• ODNBarticle by Roger T. Stearn, ‘Vane, Sir Francis Patrick Fletcher, fifth baronet (1861–1934)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, September 2004; online edn, May 2006[1],accessed 7 April 2008.
• Biography at irishidentity