Juniors 100 - The History of the Junior Section
Up until 1917 The Boys' Brigade had only catered for Boys aged 12 and over. However, in September 1917, Brigade Council (the governing body of The Boys' Brigade) setup the Boy Reserves to cater for Boys aged 9 to 12 years of age.
For several years prior to this a number of Companies had started to take in recruits under twelve, the Boy Scouts had done so too from 1916 as Wolf Cubs, and for this reason there were calls to lower the age limit to accommodate these Boys within the Brigade.
The uniform adopted by the
Boy Reserves was nautical consisting of a sailor's cap, navy blue jersey and shorts. The NCO's working with them too had nautical ranks as petty officers. In the early days of the Boy Reserves there was a noticeable increase in attendance at Sunday School in those churches which had adopted the section and the number of Companies operating a Boy Reserves quickly started to grow. By 1918 there were more than 1,500 members of the Boy Reserves across the UK, the section continued to grow through the 1920's.
In 1926 The Boys' Brigade Boy Reserves merged with The Boys' Life Brigade Lifeboys and became known as the
Life Boys. With this amalgamation membership increased to more than 30,000 Boys in the early 1930's and then to more than 70,000 in the 1950's.
In 1966 the Life Boys became a full part of the Brigade as the
Junior Section, a name which was intended to be temporary, until such time as a better one could be thought of and still holds today; although now many often refer to the Boys and Girls of the age group simply as Juniors.
i had a job to google this,kept coming up with soap lol