Wolf Cubs: Pack Letter

Cambridge District Scout Archive

The earliest Wolf Cub packs were given a letter not a number. The Packs within the Town boundary were given letters A to L, those outside M – Z. This echoed the existing practice of naming Troops; inside the town as X^th Cambridge, outside as X^th Cambridge District.

Packs associated with pre existing Troops took that troop number, whether as planned or by default is not yet clear.

The Packs with letters were

A Miss Young’s 1919 – 1925
B Newnham 1919
C Windermere 1919 – 1928
D De Freville School 1918

Chesterton Prep 1919 – 1923 (possibly the same school)

E Hope Class

M Papworth Everard 1924 – 1925
N Linton 1924 – 1926
O Harslton 1924 – 1925
P Grantchester 1923 – 1928 (registered locally from 1916)
O Landbeach 1924 – 1925

The dates are only where they are listed in reports and not definitive. Miss Young did 11 years as a leader. A, C, D and E were schools. Hope class was probably a class for children with some unspecified level of difficulties and only one reference has been found for its existence. It is not known why Newnham did not take the local Troop number. They may have been formed separately in the school or chose to stick by the letter labelling system.

This system disappeared completely when the Group system came in 1928 when any remaining packs were either amalgamated with an existing troop or given their own District number as a separate Group.

During these years (1916 – 1928) the following Troops had packs associated with them.

Cambridge Troops: 2^nd, 4^th, 5^th, 8^th, 12^th, 13^th, 14^th, 15^th, 16^th, 17^th, 18^th, 22^nd, 23^rd, 25^th
Cambridge District Troops: 2^nd, 3^rd, 5^th, 6^th, 10, 11^th, 12^th, 13^th, 17^th.

One entry links Miss Young’s A Pack with the 16^th. This is unclear.

JWR Archivist Dec 2020

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