Sir Francis Fletcher-Vane, 5th Baronet

Sir Francis Patrick Fletcher-Vane, 5th Baronet^[1] (16 October 1861 – 10 June 1934) was an Irish-born British Army officer and baronet.^[2][3] Francis became the 5th Baronet of Hutton on the death in 1908 of his first cousin, Sir Henry Ralph Fletcher-Vane, 4th Baronet.^[3][4]

Fletcher-Vane was an early aide of Robert Baden-Powell and was the Scout Commissioner of London before Baden-Powell ousted him from his Baden-Powell Boy Scouts organisation. Fletcher-Vane later founded the Order of World Scouts, the earliest multinational scouting organisation, and is counted one of the founders of scouting in Italy.

As an army officer, he helped expose the murder of several innocent civilians by an officer under his command during the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin.^[5]

Vane was born at 10 Great George's Street,^[4]Dublin, in 1861. His parents were Lieutenant Frederick Henry Fletcher-Vane (1807–1894), of the 12th Lancers, son of Sir Frederick Fletcher-Vane, 2nd Baronet, and Rosalind, daughter of John Moore, of Prospect House, County Galway, Ireland.^[5][6]

Vane was raised in Sidmouth, Devon, England, and educated at Charterhouse School.^[7]Robert Baden-Powell also attended Charterhouse. In 1876, Vane enrolled at the Oxford Military College.^[5]

Tras su paso por la academia militar, Vane fue destinado a la Milicia de Worcestershire , a la Guardia Escocesa ^{[ 8 ]} y a la sección de Minado Submarino ^{[ 9 ]} de los Ingenieros Reales entre 1883 y 1888. En 1886, comenzó a residir en Toynbee Hall, en el este de Londres. Ese mismo año fundó un «Cuerpo de Cadetes de Jóvenes Trabajadores». En 1888, ascendió a capitán en el 26.º Regimiento de Voluntarios de Fusileros de Middlesex. Durante su servicio en la Segunda Guerra Bóer (1899-1902), fue nombrado magistrado en 1902. Fue destituido de ese cargo por ser supuestamente demasiado «probóer». ^{[ 5 ]} En 1903, escribió el panfleto «La guerra y un año después», en el que criticaba el método bélico británico. Tras la publicación de este panfleto, Vane fue «retirado» del ejército. ^{[ 4 ]}

Daily News , Manchester Guardian , Westminster y Truth emplearon a Vane de 1902 a 1904 como reportero para Sudáfrica. Fue el candidato del Partido Liberal por Burton en las elecciones generales del Reino Unido de 1906 , pero no resultó elegido . Se involucró en campañas antibélicas y sufragistas de 1907 a 1912. ^{[ 5 ] [ 4 ]} Publicó dos artículos más: Paseos y gentes en la Toscana (1908) y Sobre ciertos fundamentos (1909).

By 1909, Vane was the Boy Scouts' London Commissioner. He felt that Scouting should be nonmilitary and, through mediation, has reconciled the British Boy Scouts (BBS) with Baden-Powell's organisation (the BBS had formed as the Battersea Boy Scouts and had originally registered with Baden-Powell's organisation but left over perceived militarisation and the nondemocratic nature of the national headquarters). Vane pushed for the Boy Scouts to be more democratic, but his position was eliminated by Baden-Powell's headquarters staff. In a protest meeting, the London area Scoutmasters voted overwhelmingly in support of Sir Francis, however Baden-Powell did not reinstate him. Members of the National Service League, a pro-military group, were appointed to Baden-Powell's headquarters. On 3 December 1909, Vane accepted the presidency of the British Boy Scouts, taking several London-area Troops with him. The Quakers' Birmingham and Midland Troops also followed, as Vane was key in having Quaker meeting houses sponsor Scouting Troops.^[13]

Vane got the Boys' Life Brigade (BLB) to join the British Boy Scouts in a loose federation called The National Peace Scouts in February 1910.^[13][14] At the merger the BBS had 45,000 Scouts and BLB had 40,000 members. With Vane having an Italian summer home, he launched the Scouting Movement in Italy with the Ragazzi Esploratori Italiani in 1910.^[5][13] In 1911, Vane assisted Augustin Dufresne, a shipowner, to organise a French Scouting organisation.^[15]

With the spread of the alternative British Boy Scouts programme throughout the world, Vane informally aligned the various groups as the Legion of World Scouts, the first international organisation, in 1911, then more formally as the Order of World Scouts on 11 November 1911.^[14][15] Vane became the Grand Scout Master of the Order of World Scouts.^[14]

Vane put his wealth behind the organisations: providing a London headquarters and financed the organisation, even the manufacture of BBS uniforms. This overburdened his finances to the point of having to declare bankruptcy in 1912.^[16] Thus the British Boy Scouts lost their headquarters, source of equipment and uniforms and their leader. Vane continued his involvement with the remnant BBS, as he inspected the Troop of the London Commissioner Percy Herbert Pooley in 1915.^[13][15]

Vane returned to Italy after World War I to find that the Italian Boy Scouts he founded had been mainly absorbed by the National Scouts Corps (Corpo Nazionale Giovani Esploratori Italiani - CNGEI). Some joined in with the creation of the Catholic Association of Scouts (Associazione Scautistica Cattolica Italiana - ASCI) in 1916, later named AGESCI. He began working with the latter group. He tried to get Baden-Powell to accept the ASCI as a member of the World Organization of the Scout Movement. He also tried to get the BBS back together with the Boy Scouts Association. Both of these efforts were without success.^[13] In 1927, he left for the United Kingdom as the Fascists quashed the Italian Scouting Movement,^[5] in favour of the Opera Nazionale Balilla (ONB), an Italian Fascist youth organisation. Despite a private letter to Sir Francis Vane 24 April 1933, sympathising with Vane's worries, the Balilla was an organisation that was publicly highly praised by Baden-Powell,^[17] as the application of scouting as part of national education.

He succeeded his cousin Sir Henry Fletcher-Vane as baronet in 1908.

His first wife, Anna Oliphant da Costa Ricci, daughter of the Baron Anselmo da Costa Ricci of Portugal, whom he married in 1888, died in 1922. Vane became a Knight Commander of the Order of Christ (Portugal) in 1889. He married his second wife, Kathleen Crosbie in 1927. Sir Francis died in 1934 aged 72, after spending his last year of life in ill health at St Thomas' Hospital in Lambeth.^[18]

In 2016, Fletcher-Vane was commemorated on a postage stamp in Ireland to mark the centenary of the Easter Rising.^[19][20]

• Francis Fletcher Vane, Agin the governments: memories and adventures of Sir Francis Fletcher Vane (London, Sampson Low, Marston & Co., Ltd., 1929)

• Artículo de Roger T. Stearn en el ODNB , «Vane, Sir Francis Patrick Fletcher, quinto baronet (1861–1934)», Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, septiembre de 2004; edición en línea, mayo de 2006., consultado el 7 de abril de 2008.
• Biografía en irishidentity.com