FAMILY CRITICISM

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 53, Issue 3822, 16 October 1936, Page 3

FAMILY CRITICISM

BALDWIN AND KIPLING. Mr Oliver Baldwin, who has received wide publicity for his statement that Kipling’s anti-German “The Story of Mary Postgate” is “the wickedest story ever written,” was the famous author’s second cousin, writes the London Diarist of the “Evening Standard.” The relationship arose in this way. Kipling’s father was a designer of pottery in the “Five Towns” district. His best friend there was Rev. F. W. Macdonald, a Wesleyan Methodist minister. Mr Macdonald had five beautiful daughters. Agnes married Sir Edward Poynter, Georgiana Sir Edward Burne-Jones, and Louisa a young engineer called Alfred Baldwin, who afterwards became a millionaire and the father of Mr Stanley Baldwin. Alice married Kipling’s father. They plighted their troth by Rudyard Lake, in the “Five Towns” district. Their son was christened Rudyard. Kipling’s literary talent was perhaps inherited from his aunt, Mr Stanley Baldwin’s mother, who wrote several novels, a book of fairy tales called “Pedlar’s Dreams,” and a series of ghost stories.