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Baden Henry BADEN-POWELL (1841–1901)
St Giles section: Row 7, Grave B30

Baden Henry Baden-Powell was born in Oxford on 23 August 1841 with just the surname Powell (i.e. he was registered as Baden Henry Powell: the family did not use a double-barrelled surname until 1869). He was the son of Baden Powell (born 1796) and his second wife Charlotte Pope.

His father had been a clergyman until 1827, when he was appointed Savilian Professor of Geometry at the University of Oxford: for more about him, see his entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, or in here in Wikipedia. He married his first wife, Eliza Rivaz, on 21 July 1821; they had no children, and she died at their home in New College Lane at the age of 38 on 13 March 1836 and was buried at St Peter-in-the-East churchyard on 19 March.

On 27 September 1837 in the Tonbridge district, Baden Powell married his second wife Charlotte Pope, and had the following children:

• Charlotte Elizabeth Powell (born in Oxford on 14 September 1838)
• Baden Henry Powell (born at New College Lane, Oxford on 23 August 1841 and baptised at St Thomas's Church as Henry Baden Powell on 29 November)
• Louisa Anne Powell (born at New College Lane, Oxford on 18 March 1843, with birth announced in Jackson’s Oxford Journal, and baptised at St Martin’s Church, Carfax on 16 May)
• Letitia Mary Powell (born at New College Lane, Oxford on 4 June 1844 and baptised at St Peter-in-the-East Church on 10 July).

Baden Henry Powell was just three years old when his mother Charlotte Powell died on 14 October 1844. On 10 March 1846 at Chelsea, his father Baden Powell (50) married his third wife Henrietta Grace Smyth (22), the daughter of the astronomer Charles Piazzi Smyth. They had ten children (one of whom, Robert, became the famous General Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scout movement):

• Henry Warington Smyth Powell (born at New College Lane, Oxford on 3 February 1847 and baptised at St Martin’s Church, Carfax on 13 March)
• George Smyth Powell (born at New College Lane, Oxford on 24 December 1848 and baptised at St Martin’s Church, Carfax on 17 February)
• Augustus Smyth Powell (born at New College Lane, Oxford in 1849 and baptised at St Martin’s Church, Carfax on 15 June; died 1863)
• Francis (Frank) Smyth Powell (born at New College Lane, Oxford on 29 July 1850 and baptised at St Martin’s Church, Carfax on 3 September)
• Henrietta Smyth Powell (born in Warwick on 28 October 1851, died 1854)
• John Penrose Smyth Powell (born in Oxford on 21 December 1852 and baptised at St Peter-in-the-East Church on 24 February 1853; died at 6 Stanhope Street, Hyde Park Gardens, London on 14 December 1855; both birth and death announced in Jackson’s Oxford Journal)
• Jessie Smyth Powell (born in Paddington on 25 November 1855, died 1856)
• Robert Stephenson Smyth Powell (born in Paddington on 22 February 1857 and baptised at St James's Church there on 8 July): later Lord Baden-Powell of Gilwell
• Agnes Smyth Powell (born in Paddington on 16 December 1858 and baptised at St James's Church there on 16 February 1859)
• Baden Fletcher Smyth Powell (born in Paddington on 22 May 1860 and baptised at St James's Church there on 8 July).

Baden Henry Powell grew up in New College Lane, Oxford, but at the time of the 1851 census, when he was aged nine, he was in London, at 14 Upper Seymour Street, Marylebone, with his father Baden Powell, his stepmother Henrietta, and his first three half-brothers Henry, George, Augustus, and Francis Powell. They were evidently in Warwick later in 1851 and back in Oxford in 1852 when his next two siblings were born. From 1855 the family appear to have spent most of their time in their London home, and the last five children were all born there; nonetheless his father remained Savilian Professor of Geometry until his death.

Baden junior was admitted to St Paul’s School in 1856 at the age of 14. His father Baden Powell died on 11 June 1860 at his London home (6 Stanhope Street, Hyde Park Gardens, London) just three weeks after the birth of his youngest son (who was curiously also given the name Baden), and buried at Kensal Green, London. 

Baden Henry Powell served in the Indian Civil Service from 1861, when he was only 19, and rose to be the Chief Court Judge in Lahore. In 1869 his stepmother Henrietta changed her family’s surname from Powell to Baden-Powell: the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography says that she partly did this to set her own children apart from their half-siblings and cousins, but it is obvious from the inscription on this grave that Henry, one of the said half-siblings, adopted it as well.

When he retired from India in 1889, Baden Henry Baden-Powell returned to Oxford, and at the time of the 1891 census was living alone at Forlys Lodge, Banbury Road (then numbered 29) with a housekeeper and housemaid. The University granted him an honorary M.A. in 1894, and he became a member of Worcester College.

He died at his Banbury Road home at the start of 1901:

† Baden Henry Baden-Powell died at Banbury Road, Oxford at the age of 59 on 2 January 1901 and was buried at St Sepulchre’s Cemetery on 5 January (burial recorded in the parish register of St Giles’s Church).

His obituary in The Times on 3 January 1901 read as follows:

We regret to announce the death, after a short illness, of Mr. BADEN HENRY BADEN-POWELL, C.L.E., which took place yesterday morning at his residence, Forlys-lodge, Oxford. Mr. Baden-Powell was born in 1841, and was the eldest son of the late Oxford Professor Baden-Powell, and the half-brother of General Baden-Powell. He was educated at St. Paul’s School, and at the early age of 20 entered the Bengal Civil Service, of which he continued a member from 1861 to 1889. He was a Judge of the Chief Court of the Punjab for the latter years of that period. He gave much attention to Indian forestry, and acquired a reputation in connexion with that subject, but the principal subject on which he became an authority was Indian land tenures. His “Land Systems of British India,” “The Indian Village Community,” &c., are among his most important works on this subject. In conjunction with the late Dr. Leitner, he was largely concerned in the establishment of the Oriental University at Lahore. Since his retirement from the Civil Service he has resided in Oxford; in 1894 the University conferred upon him an honorary M.A. degree, and he became at the same time a member of Worcester College. His benevolence found expression in many ways, and more particularly, with the Dean of Christ Church and others, he was active in establishing and maintaining the Oxford Eye Hospital of which he continued the valued hon. secretary to the day of his death. Mr. Baden-Powell was a strong Churchman, and was a frequent lecturer on behalf of Church defence.

His effects came to £5,679 15s. 2d.