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The Weald of Kent, Surrey and Sussex
Joseph Rudyard Kipling, son of Professor John Lockwood Kipling, Architectural Sculptor and Alice Kipling [Macdonald]
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© National Portrait Gallery

Batemans in 1911

Rudyard Kipling was born in Bombay on 30th December 1865 the son of Professor John Lockwood Kipling and Alice Macdonald who had married earlier that year prior to John taking his postion in Bombay as architectural sculptor at the School of Art and Industry. Rudyard was christened as Joseph Rudyard Kipling but always known by his second name which was often shortened to Rud or Ruddy. When Rudyard was five he and his sister Alice were sent home to England to live with a foster family in Southsea. He was educated there and then at the United Services College at Westward Ho! near Bideford in Devon.

In 1882 Rudyard went back to India and returned to England in 1889 when he gained literary success with "Barrack-Room Ballads." He married Caroline Starr Balestier in 1892 and settled in Brattleboro, Vermont, USA where he wrote "Captains Courageous" and "The Jungle Books." In 1896 the Kipling family came to Rottingdean, Sussex where he wrote "Kim", "Stalky &Co.," and "Just So Stories." In 1902 the family settled at Batemans, Burwash where he spent the rest of his life and wrote "Puck of Pook's Hill" and "Rewards and Fairies.". He gained the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1907 and the Gold Medal of the Royal Society of Literature in 1926.

Rudyard Kipling died on 18th January 1936 and his ashes are buried at Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey. His autobiography "Something of Myself" written the year before was published posthumously.


See also Rudyard Kipling's Village by W.A. Ramsey published in 1934,
Rudyard Kipling and Sussex by Arthur Beckett published in 1936,
The Sussex Tales of Rudyard Kipling by Gilbert Pass published in 1936,
Kipling's Sussex Poems by W. G. B. Maitland published in 1938

Date
Type
Information
Source
 
30th December 1865
Born
At Bombay in the Country of India
ODNB web site
 
1881
Published
Schoolboy Lyrics
 
1886
Published
Departmental Ditties
 
1888
Published
Plain Tales from the Hills
 
1888
Published
The Indian Railway Library
 
1890
Published
The Light that Failed
 
1891
Published
Life's Handicap
 
1892
Published
The Naulahka with Wolcott Balestier
 
1892
Published
Barrack-Room Ballads
 

Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth!

 
18th January 1892
Married
Caroline Starr Balestier at All Souls, Langham Place, in London
ODNB web site
 
29th December 1892
Birth of a daughter
Josephine at Bliss Cottage, Brattleboro, Vermont in the State of New York, USA
 
 
1893
Published
Many Inventions
 
1894
Published
The Jungle Book
 
1895
Published
The Second Jungle Book
 
1896
Published
Soldier Tales
 
1896
Published
The Seven Seas
 
2nd February 1896
Birth of a daughter
Elsie at The Naulahka, Brattleboro, Vermont in the State of New York, USA
 
 
1897
Published
Captain Courageous
 
17th August 1897
Birth of a son
John at The Elms in the Parish of Rottingdean, Sussex
 
 
1898
Published
The Day's Work
 
1899
Published
From Sea to Sea
 
1899
Published
Stalky & Co.
 
1901
Published
Kim
 
1902
Published
Just So Stories
 
28th July 1902
Purchased
 

In 1838 Richard Smith Appleyard sold Bateman's and its remaining land for £1,400 to the Rev. Joseph Gould, who was rector of Burwash from 1840 until his death in 1866. His executors sold the estate for £5,300 to Thomas Miller Whitehead of Duke Street, London who, in 1886, sold to Albert Jarvis who, in 1892, sold to John Alexander Macmeikan, of Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire who, in 1897, sold to Alexander Carron Scrimgeour, of Maida Vale. Rudyard Kipling bought Bateman's and its land, Park House watermill and part of Dudwell Farm from Alexander Carron Scrimgeour for £9,300 on 28 July 1902.

ref: East Sussex Record Office - AMS5982/1

 
1903
Published
The Five Nations
 
1904
Published
Traffics and Discoveries
 
1906
Published
Puck of Pook's Hill
 
1907
Honoured
First English writer to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, and the youngest recipient of that honor at the age of 42
 
1909
Published
Actions and Reactions
 
1910
Published
Rewards and Fairies
 

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

 
1911
Published
A School History of England with C.R.L. Fletcher
 
1912
Published
Songs from Books
 
1915
Published
My boy Jack in memory of his son John - killed in action on the front during the Battle of Loos
 

"Have you news of my boy Jack?"
Not this tide.
"When d'you think that he'll come back?"
Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.

"Has any one else had word of him?"
Not this tide.
For what is sunk will hardly swim,
Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.

"Oh, dear, what comfort can I find?"
None this tide,
Nor any tide,
Except he did not shame his kind---
Not even with that wind blowing, and that tide.

Then hold your head up all the more,
This tide,
And every tide;
Because he was the son you bore,
And gave to that wind blowing and that tide.

 
1917
Published
A Diversity of Creatures
 
1919
Published
The Years Between
 
1920
Published
Letters of Travel 1892-1913
 
1923
Published
The Irish Guards in the Great War
 
1926
Published
Debits and Credits
 
1930
Published
Thy Servant a Dog
 
1932
Published
Limits and Renewals
 
18th January 1936
Died
At Middlesex Hospital, Mortimer Street, in London
ODNB web site
 
After 18th January 1936
Buried
At Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey in the Parish of Westminster, London
ODNB web site
 
6th April 1936
Probate
London; Effects: £121,470 4s to his widow Caroline Kipling
Probate Registry of England and Wales
 
1937
Published
Something of Myself autobiography, published posthumously

Ancestor's report
Descendent's report
Kipling individual records
The ancestral pedigree of Joseph Rudyard Kipling
  
 John Kiplingm: 24th Nov 1801 Lythe, YorkshireAnn Hansell 
 b: c 1780  b: c 1780 
  
     
 Joseph John Robert Ann Jane
 b: 17th Mar 1805 Yorkshire
ch: 17th Mar 1805 Lythe
 b: 27th May 1807 Yorkshire
ch: 5th Jul 1807 Lythe
 b: 2nd Aug 1809 Yorkshire
ch: 2nd Aug 1809 Lythe
d: 4th Aug 1809
 b: 11th Apr 1811 Yorkshire
ch: 11th Apr 1811 Lythe
 b: 1814 Yorkshire
ch: 3rd Jan 1814 Lythe
       
Great-
Grandfather
record
   
   
   
 Joseph Kipling
Wesleyan Minister
m: 6th Sep 1836 Skelton-in-Cleveland, YorkshireFrances Lockwood 
 b: 17th Mar 1805 Yorkshire
ch: 17th Mar 1805 Lythe
  b: 1810 Skelton G…, Yorkshire 
  
      
 Professor John Lockwood Jane Frances Joseph Ann Elizabeth Hannah Ruth Mary
 b: Jul to Sep 1837 Pickering, Yorkshire
d: 26th Jan 1911
 b: Jan to Mar 1839 Horncastle, Lincolnshire b: Jan to Mar 1840 Horncastle, Lincolnshire b: Apr to Jun 1841 Horncastle, Lincolnshire b: Jan to Mar 1842 Yorkshire b: Jul to Sep 1846 Yorkshire
        
Grandfather
record
   
   
    
 Professor John Lockwood Kipling
Architectural Sculptor
m: 18th Mar 1865 St. Mary Abbotts, LondonAlice Macdonald 
 b: Jul to Sep 1837 Pickering, Yorkshire
d: 26th Jan 1911
  b: 4th Apr 1837 Sheffield, Yorkshire
d: 23rd Nov 1910 Tisbury, Wiltshire
 
  
   
 Joseph Rudyard Alice Beatrice (Trix) John
 b: 30th Dec 1865 Bombay, India
d: 18th Jan 1936 Middlesex Hospital, Mortimer Street, London
bur: After 18th Jan 1936 Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey, Westminster, London
 b: 11th Jun 1868 London
ch: 23rd Sep 1868 Manchester Cathedral, Manchester
d: 1948
 b: 1870 London
     
Parental
record
   
   
    
 Joseph Rudyard Kiplingm: 18th Jan 1892 All Souls, Langham Place, LondonCaroline Balestier 
 b: 30th Dec 1865 Bombay, India
d: 18th Jan 1936 Middlesex Hospital, Mortimer Street, London
bur: After 18th Jan 1936 Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey, Westminster, London
  b: 31st Dec 1862 New York, USA
d: 19th Dec 1939 Sussex
 
  
   
 Josephine Elsie John
 b: 29th Dec 1892 Bliss Cottage, Brattleboro, Vermont, New York, USA
d: 6th Mar 1899 New York, USA
bur: After 6th Mar 1899 Fresh Pond, Long Island, New York, USA
 b: 2nd Feb 1896 The Naulahka, Brattleboro, Vermont, New York, USA
d: 1976
 b: 17th Aug 1897 The Elms, Rottingdean, Sussex
d: Sep 1915
     
Family
record

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