Description: The vicar (centre?) is Reverend Gilchrist and to his right is Ted Steadman.
This group was originally identified as being members of the Boys' Brigade but Picture the Past website contributor, Peter Billing (Boys' Brigade Plymouth Battalion Secretary) suggests they in fact belong to the Church Lads' Brigade. He comments:
'I have been doing some Boys' Brigade research for an upcoming reunion at our Baptist Church to mark the 70th Anniversary of the 8th Plymouth Company, of which I am Captain, and the 3rd Plymouth Girls' Brigade - the two Companies have always worked separately but together.
I have been a Boy and Officer in the Brigade, starting in 1950 here in Plymouth, then around London, the south and south-west of England whilst moving around in my work, then returning to Plymouth on retirement.
Some Companies were affiliated to a Cadet Scheme run by the Government during World War 1 but they wore the usual Boys' Brigade uniform of belt and haversack over ordinary clothing and merely replaced their pillbox caps with a military style peaked cap. This arrangement ceased at the end of the War.
From the style of uniform here and the presence of two clergymen with no "civilian" staff present in plain navy blue suits and Glengarry cap, the traditional Boys' Brigade officers' uniform, I suspect that the unit shown is not a Boys' Brigade Company and is more than likely a group of the Church Lads' Brigade.
From its inception in 1883 the Boys' Brigade has had to be sponsored by a Church or other Christian organisation (such as the YMCA or Salvation Army) and is wholly interdenominational. However, in those days some denominations preferred not to be ecumenical. Hence, several much smaller groups sprang up dedicated to one particular denomination; the Church Lads' Brigade was one such and was only found in Anglican (usually high) churches. The Catholic Church had a similar organisation called the "Catholic Boys' Brigade" as they did not really recognise other denominations in those days and didn't want their boys to mix. This appears to have fizzled out to the best of my knowledge but there are still some Church Lads' Brigade units in existence, mostly joint with girls and re-styled the "Church Lads and Girls Brigade".
The Boys' Brigade also allows girls through a Girls' Association under the same leadership where the parent church has no similar organisation for girls, though normally a Boys' Brigade Company will have a Girls' Brigade Company at their Church, making this unnecessary.
At any time in the history of the two organisations, there were always many more Boys' Brigade Companies throughout the country in Anglican churches than there were units of the wholly Anglican Church Lads' Brigade. In my own home Battalion of Plymouth we have had numerous Companies in the local Anglican churches, including one in St Andrew's Minster, the "senior" Anglican church in the City, but I have never known of a Church Lads' Brigade unit in the city since the first Boys' Brigade Company was founded here in 1887.'