4th Poplar Scout Group

General information

A brief history of 4th Poplar Scout Group.

From 1907 there were many thousands of young people involved in Scouting across East London with numbers soaring after the First World War. Young people attending St Mary and St Joseph Church in Upper North Street decided they wanted to join and persuaded church elder Mr RJ Crawford to open a Scout Troop.

This new troop was called the 4th Poplar Scout Group (St Mary's and St Joseph's) and officially opened on the 30th August 1929 meeting in St Mary's and St Joseph's school hall in Wades Place.

They started with 2 adults and 15 Scouts and the Group was part of the South Poplar Scout District (covering all parts of Poplar south of the Limehouse cut). Copy of official registration attached.

The Group went from strength to strength opening a wolf cub scout pack to enable younger members to take part in the fun of Scouting.

Unfortunately due to the impact of the Second World War, adults were either away on active service or the young people disembarked to safer areas around the country.

During the war the area and the docks were heavily bombed and it took until the early 50's for the area to start to recover with a programme of rebuilding. During this time the 4th Poplar became dormant and were not restarted until 1953.

In 1953 local priest Father John Wright, who had overseen the rebuilding of the church and school, also wanted to restart the 4th Poplar Scout Group. He asked Patrick O'Neil to be the lead volunteer (Group Scout Leader) and the Group officially reopened on the 21st November 1953. Official registration document attached.

The Group was headquartered in Cardinal Griffin Secondary School in Canton Street where they were based for the next 40 years before moving to Pope John House youth hall next to Poplar Park (for 8 years), back to Holy Family School (was called St Mary and St Joseph) in Wades Place (for 8 years) and are now meeting in Trusslar Community Centre next to Crisp Street Market.

The 4th Poplar became the largest Group in central London with over 120 members aged between the ages of 6 to 21 with a variety of activities and challenges from trips to the local park to international Scouting gathering in the far east.

Group Scout Leaders since 1953

Patrick O'Neal
John Shalloo
Alan Hands
Mike Leggett
Peter Cable
Derrick Gallagher
Samantha Fenton