Heritage Enquiries Service
The Scouts Heritage Service runs an Enquiries Service to support users with research into the history of Scouting.
The Enquiries Service is led by our Heritage Research Coordinator. Typical enquiries include research into group or district histories, information about Scouts events and identifying objects.
We aim to make an initial response to your enquiry within five to ten working days. If you’d like to contact us about an aspect of Scout heritage, please provide us with as much information as possible to aid our research. When making an enquiry about group histories please provide the group name, district, and county/area/region.
There isn’t a charge for this service, however if you’re able to make a donation to support the ongoing care and development of the Heritage Collection, we do welcome your support. You can make a donation, and please select Heritage Support from the drop-down menu.
The Heritage Service has limited capacity. Therefore, if we believe the enquiry will take a large amount of staff time, we may invite you to visit Gilwell Park to conduct your own research visit.
You can email us at [email protected]
Data Protection
Please note that we can only release information about individuals in line with GDPR regulations. This means that we can’t release information about individuals who are still living without their prior consent.
As we don’t necessarily know whether an individual is deceased, we have a blanket policy that we don’t release data for people under 100 years old.
As of 2026, this means that we cannot release information about:
- Volunteers after 1946
- Scouts after 1936
- Cubs after 1934
Where we have group records, such as registration documents, we can release these once we’ve removed all personal data.
Valuations
Please note that the Scout Heritage Service is unable to provide monetary valuations of historic material or memorabilia. This is in accordance with the Museums Association’s Code of Ethics.