Girton

Cambridge District Scout Archive

Girton’s first listed Scout Troop was in 1920 and was given as 5th Cambridge District or 6th Cambridge District in the same year. It did not last long.

The next group was in 1938 during the Mid Cambridge District between 1935 and reabsorption into Cambridge District in 1944.

Numbers were given to the Mid Cambs Troops and Girton was registered as the 51st Cambridge on 7th November 1948. This may have been a re -registration not a new group; by 1949 they had a Rover Scout Leader and for a year listed Rovers in the Annual census which suggests an established group.

It was meeting on the Village College Ground at Histon for some of this period. The 56th Impington amalgamated with the 51st in 1949 or 1950. On 8th March 1953 51st (Girton) became Histon

At some point between 1953 and 1956 possibly became the 10th Cambridge, and was listed as closed in 1956, but certainly open again as the 10th in 1958. It is mentioned as opening as the 10th in 1957.

In 1978 it was listed as the 10th Cambridge. In 1984 the Group became members of the FSE (now ESF) and appear to prospered for a number of years eventually stopping around the start of the Covid lockdown. As required by Charity Commission the assets of the Group went to District.

The District has few records concerning the group in any of its incarnations. The first was short lived, the second started whilst part of another district and the records for 1950’s are poor.

1939 – 1944

From Girton’s War by D R de Lacey we have the Group raising money for the BEF Comfort Fund and in 1940 cooperated with the Littleton House School Group in collecting waste paper. The names of Roy Naylor, Stan Dixon and Carlos Griffith alongside leaders Freddie Barrett and Mr. J Rule are mentioned.

Joseph ‘Ken’ Hichisson was a ‘keen Scout from aged 8’ and said to have co-founded a group in Girton. This was presumably in 1938 or 1958 if the registration was for a new group. Born 1918 (see Cambridge News 16/4/2013) later treasurer Cambridge North.

JWR Archivist May 2022