Cambridge District Scout Archive
Writing in his 1935 book, A Yachtsman’s Log, Frank Carr detailed his first steps as the owner of a boat shortly after the Great War. He is mentioned as he was a Cambridge Scout and he quotes Baden Powell as his first guide in learning boatmanship. Sailing from Cambridge he details his careful accumulation of skills; stripping, re-building and outfitting his first boat as he works towards becoming ‘efficient’ as a sailor.
The advice quoted is a long way from being an instruction manual but the entry reads as a recognition that the approach learned in Scouting was fundamental to his very successful mastering of boating skills. Twenty years later he became director of the National Maritime Institute.
Born in 1903 he was educated at the Perse School and was a member of the 5th Cambridge (Perse) Scouts . He is recorded as being at camps between December 1914 and July 1918, the last two years as a P/L. Around this time it was compulsory to leave Scouts at this age and join the OTC. The 5th are not recorded as Sea Scouts at this date.
After studying law at Trinity Hall his first job was on a barge in across the North Sea. Sailing Barges was published in 1931 and his book A Yachtsman’s log tells of voyages made to the Baltic, Spain and the British coastline in his Bristol Channel Pilot Cutter Cariad.
He was appointed director of the National Maritime Museum in 1946 and was central to the preservation of the Cutty Sark and Gypsy Moth IV.
By Brenda Bury National Maritime Museum, Greenwich. Caird Fund
JWR Archivist August 2019
Cambridge District Scout Archive 