I came upon this framed photograph of John Chambers and Ken North dated December 13th 1976. This is exactly 50 years since the first opening of the Equipment Store, as it was known.
District Badge Secretaries had predated the shop as the source for Scout badges; the earliest reference possibly being 1913 and certainly 1916 when a Miss Laidlaw began her 13 years in this role. Her role overlapped the early days of the shop and in about 1929 S.W. (Waggles) Edwards, first manager of the Equipment Store, took on the role. This later passed to W T Thurbon in 1933 for nine or ten years and then passed to Ken North on his discharge from the Army on grounds of ill health in 1943.
The photograph has been added to the Equipment Store page.
JWR
Cambridge District Scout Archive 