Lawrie Dring
British scouting leader (1931-2012)

Lawrence 'Lawrie' Dring (4 July 1931 – 6 September 2012) was a British Scouter who was one of the founding members of the Baden-Powell Scouts' Association (BPSA) and of the World Federation of Independent Scouts (WFIS). He was President of the BPSA at the time of his death.
Dring was born on Dundee railway station, one of twin boys. At the time of his birth his mother was attempting to return to Leeds to ensure that the boys were born Yorkshiremen. Although born in Scotland, with a Scottish father and proud to call himself a Scot, his birth was registered in Leeds. His brother was killed as an adult in a car accident.
After leaving school, Dring worked for Fisons Chemicals, until joining Allied Colloids in 1973. He also ran his own company, Dring Associates, which dealt with the disposal of hazardous waste.
In 1947, Dring was a soldier in the British Army stationed in Wuppertal, Germany when a colleague asked him to become a Cub Scout leader. After returning from his national service he joined the Leeds District of The Boy Scout Association, serving on the executive until the adoption of The Chief Scouts' Advance Party Report.
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This entry incorporates text from “Lawrie Dring” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.