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The Boys’ Brigade
movement was founded by William Smith (later, Sir
William) in October 1883 in the west end of Glasgow,
near Kelvinbridge. He was a Sabbath School teacher who
saw that the older boys were bored and restless. They
did not respond to teachers who told them to behave, and
Smith compared this to his afternoons spent with the
army volunteers where he had no difficulty in making a
hundred men obey his every word.
It was then he had his idea: 'Drill and
Discipline'. Why not turn the Sabbath School boys into a
volunteer band or brigade, with the same military order,
obedience, discipline and self-respect as the
volunteers? A programme combining games as well as
discipline, gymnastics and sport as well as hymns and
prayers would appeal to the boys. Smith planned the
programme for this new idea with two friends, and the
three leaders invited the boys of North Woodside Mission
Sabbath School to join The Boys' Brigade.
The new organisation's badge was an
anchor, and the motto 'Sure and Stedfast'. This was
taken from the Authorised Version of the Bible, from
Hebrews, chapter 6, verse 19: 'Hope we have as an anchor
of the soul, both sure and stedfast'.
There was nothing else like it and its
popularity soon spread. Companies began to be formed in
churches all around Glasgow and further afield.
In 1904, the elders
of the recently opened Broomhill United Free Church
decided that a company should be started here so the
then Minister of the Congregation, the Rev. James
Henderson, secured the services of Mr D W Thomson, who
was an officer in the nearby 97th Glasgow to
command this new Company, and he, with Messrs Young,
Macdonald and Smith as his Lieutenants, started “the
work.”
Page I/VII
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