MR KIPLING PASSES.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 43, 20 January 1936, Page 7

MR KIPLING PASSES.

, A PEACEFUL END. ROYAL SYMPATHY. LONDON, Jan. 17.. Mr Rudyard Kipling, the famous author, is dead. Mr Kipling died 10 minutes after 1 the midnight bulletin announcing “no eTTange.” His wife and daughter were at the bedside, but Mr Kipling did not speak, though he appeared to recognise them. The end was very peaceful. Lieut.-Colonel Sir Archibald Weigall, chairman of the Royal Empire Society, declared : Mr Kipling expressed the feelings of believers in Empire unity in a way. unexampled in our time. The Empire Society mourns the loss of a champion and friend. The French Press pays a tribute to Mr Kipling as the best type of Englishman. At Rome, the Popolo di Roma recalls that Mr Kipling’s disapproval of sanctions and his exultation in discipline were popular with Italians. The Queen sent the following message to Mrs Kipling: “The King and I are grieved to hear of the death of Mr Rudyard Kipling. We shall mourn him not only as a great national poet, but a personal friend of many years. Please accept our heartfelt sympathy.” Numerous messages include the condolences of the Prince of Wales and tlie War Graves Commission, which eulogises Mr Kipling’s constant readiness to use his great gifts in its service.

The British Museum announces that Mr Kipling presented to it an autographed manuscript of “Kim” and- another of some of his poems. ,Ple desired that the gift be not announced before his death. The manuscripts have now been placed on exhibition at the Museum.

Mr Rudyard Kipling, who recently celebrated his seventieth birthday, was one of Britain’s most popular authors, his verse particularly carrying a direct appeal to readers throughout the Empire. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1907 and the gold medal of the Royal Society of Literature in 1926. He was born at Bombay on December 30, 1565. Strange to say, Mr Rudyard Kipling’s first baptismal name is not in “Who’s Who,” or on the title page of the early editions of the tales. Even the volumes published at a rupee in the Indian Railway Library - are described as by “Rudyard Kipling.” Nevertheless, there is a “JP belore the Rudyard, and it stands for Joseph. The grandfather of the novelist, was a "Wesleyan minister, Rev. Joseph Kipling, a Cumberland man, hailing from UUswater. He it was who gave Kipling his first name. The origin of the “Rudyard is interesting. When John Lockwood Kipling, the novelist’s father, was a young man, ,he sat under Rev - , i . W. Macdonald, another Wesleyan minister with a church at Burslem, in the- potteries, where young Lockwood Kipling worked as a designer of pottery. His association with Mr Macdonald resulted in a meeting with the Minister’s sister, Alice, which was followed by courtship and marriage. Hard by Burslem there is a picnic resort, Rudyard Lake, and during a I visit to the lake Lockwood Kipling and Alice Macdonald became engaged. It was therefore not strange that their first child should be christened “Joseph Rudyard” by his god-parents, Frederick and Louisa Macdonald. Miss Louisa Macdonald later married Alfred Baldwin, and her son was Stanley. Baldwin, the ' Prime Minister. Mr Kipling lived during latter years in the peace and quietude of Burwash, his home in the Sussex Downs. . , , , His later works included Many Inventions,” “The Jungle Book and “The Second Jungle Book,” which, with their tales of beasts, have been the delight of boys of all ages ever since. Some consider these books his finest work. “Captains Courageous,” a story of cleep-sea fishing, came next, and “The Seven Seas,” one of his most successful volumes of verse, was shortly lollowed by “Stalky and Co,” not to have read which was, two decades ago, a mark of an insufficient education. Up to 1911 he continued very productive, bringing out the charming books of history rewritten in the form of stories for children, “Rewards and Fairies,” and “Puck of Pook’s Hill”; the famous “Kim,” beloved of Anglo-Indians, the “Just-So Stories,” also for children, “The Five Nations,” which included a statement of his later political views and of his reaction from them in what .is* possibly his bestknown poem, “Recessional,” which lie brought out in the Times during the celebration of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee, “Actions and Reactions” (more stories), and a “Fleet in Being,” an account of a cruise in a man-o’-war.