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Alice Caroline Kipling (4 April 1837 – 22 November 1910) was one of the MacDonald sisters, Englishwomen of the
Victorian era In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the reign of Queen Victoria, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. Slightly different definitions are sometimes used. The era followed the ...
, four of whom were notable for their contribution to the arts and their marriages to well-known men. A writer and poet, she was the mother of the author
Rudyard Kipling Joseph Rudyard Kipling ( ; 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)''The Times'', (London) 18 January 1936, p. 12. was an English journalist, novelist, poet, and short-story writer. He was born in British Raj, British India, which inspired much ...
, aunt of British Prime Minister
Stanley Baldwin Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley (3 August 186714 December 1947), was a British statesman and Conservative politician who was prominent in the political leadership of the United Kingdom between the world wars. He was prime ministe ...
, and sister-in-law of
Edward Poynter Sir Edward John Poynter, 1st Baronet (20 March 183626 July 1919) was an English painter, designer, and Drawing, draughtsman, who served as President of the Royal Academy. Life Poynter was the son of architect Ambrose Poynter. He was born in P ...
and
Edward Burne-Jones Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, 1st Baronet, (; 28 August 183317 June 1898) was an English painter and designer associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood's style and subject matter. Burne-Jones worked with William Morris as a founding part ...
.


Early years

Alice Kipling was born as Alice Caroline MacDonald in
Sheffield Sheffield is a city in South Yorkshire, England, situated south of Leeds and east of Manchester. The city is the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire and some of its so ...
, England in 1837, the eldest of the five surviving daughters of Reverend George Browne MacDonald (1805–1868), a Wesleyan Methodist minister, and Hannah Jones (1809–1875). In her youth Alice MacDonald wrote
sonnet A sonnet is a fixed poetic form with a structure traditionally consisting of fourteen lines adhering to a set Rhyme scheme, rhyming scheme. The term derives from the Italian word ''sonetto'' (, from the Latin word ''sonus'', ). Originating in ...
s. She was described as:
"...slender, pale complexion, dark brown hair and grey eyes, with black lashes and delicately pencilled eyebrows. In those eyes lay the chief fascination of her face. So expressive were they that they seemed to deepen or pale in colour according to passing emotion .. it was impossible to predict how she would act at any given point. There was a certain fascination in this, and fascinating she certainly was..."


Marriage and India

John Lockwood Kipling John Lockwood Kipling (6 July 1837 – 26 January 1911) was an English art teacher, illustrator and museum curator who spent most of his career in India. He was the father of the author Rudyard Kipling. Life and career Lockwood Kipling was b ...
and Alice MacDonald met in 1863 and courted at
Rudyard Lake Rudyard Lake is a reservoir in Rudyard, Staffordshire, located north-west of the town of Leek, Staffordshire. It was constructed in the late 18th century to feed the Caldon Canal. During the 19th century, it was a popular destination for day ...
in
Rudyard, Staffordshire Rudyard is a lakeside village in the county of Staffordshire, England, west of Leek and on the shore of Rudyard Lake. Population details as taken at the 2011 census can be found under Horton. The Rudyard railway station was opened by the N ...
, England. They married in
St Mary Abbots St Mary Abbots is a Church (building), church located on Kensington High Street and the corner of Kensington Church Street in London W8. The present church structure was built in 1872 to the designs of Sir George Gilbert Scott, who combined ne ...
Church, Kensington on 18 March 1865 and moved to India later the same year. They had been so moved by the beauty of the Rudyard Lake area that when their first child was born they named him after it. Two of Alice's sisters married artists: Georgiana was married to the painter
Edward Burne-Jones Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, 1st Baronet, (; 28 August 183317 June 1898) was an English painter and designer associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood's style and subject matter. Burne-Jones worked with William Morris as a founding part ...
, and her sister Agnes to
Edward Poynter Sir Edward John Poynter, 1st Baronet (20 March 183626 July 1919) was an English painter, designer, and Drawing, draughtsman, who served as President of the Royal Academy. Life Poynter was the son of architect Ambrose Poynter. He was born in P ...
. Kipling's most famous relative was his first cousin,
Stanley Baldwin Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley (3 August 186714 December 1947), was a British statesman and Conservative politician who was prominent in the political leadership of the United Kingdom between the world wars. He was prime ministe ...
, who was
Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy and ideology that seeks to promote and preserve traditional institutions, customs, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civiliza ...
Prime Minister A prime minister or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. A prime minister is not the head of state, but r ...
three times in the 1920s and '30s. He was the son of Alice's sister Louisa and her husband Alfred Baldwin. Harry Ricketts in his biography of Rudyard Kipling wrote of Alice that she:
"...was lively, witty and talented; in a Jane Austen novel she would have been called accomplished. She wrote and published poems, arranged songs, sang and sewed and knew how to run a household. Her racy, gossipy letters captured acquaintances and social situations in phrases that flickered between mischief and malice. Frederic, her younger brother, thought her 'keen, quick and versatile' beyond anyone he had ever known. She 'saw things at a glance', he recalled, 'and dispatched them in a word'. Her poems showed another side, revealing a deep strain of melancholy..."
In January 1865, John Lockwood Kipling was made Architectural Sculptor and Professor of Modelling at the School of Art and Industry in Bombay. Alice became the mother of
Rudyard Kipling Joseph Rudyard Kipling ( ; 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)''The Times'', (London) 18 January 1936, p. 12. was an English journalist, novelist, poet, and short-story writer. He was born in British Raj, British India, which inspired much ...
on 30 December 1865. In
Simla Shimla, also known as Simla (List of renamed Indian cities and states#Himachal Pradesh, the official name until 1972), is the capital and the largest city of the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. In 1864, Shimla was declared the summe ...
, Lord Dufferin once said, "Dullness and Mrs Kipling cannot exist in the same room."


Later life

Alice Kipling and John Lockwood Kipling remained in India for many years, including during the period when their children were being educated in England. Alice Kipling published much less of her writing than did her sisters, but some of her poems were published in collections including ''Quartette'' (1885) and in ''Hand in Hand: Verses by a Mother and a Daughter'' (1901), the latter a collaboration with her daughter Alice Fleming (1868–1948). She died at age 73 in November 1910, three days after suffering a heart attack and is buried beside her husband in the churchyard of St John the Baptist in Tisbury in
Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated to Wilts) is a ceremonial county in South West England. It borders Gloucestershire to the north, Oxfordshire to the north-east, Berkshire to the east, Hampshire to the south-east, Dorset to the south, and Somerset to ...
, England. Alice Kipling features in the 2002 biography ''A Circle of Sisters: Alice Kipling, Georgiana Burne-Jones, Agnes Poynter and Louisa Baldwin'' by Judith Flanders.


Gallery

File:1 Kipling graves Tisbury.jpg, Graves of John Lockwood Kipling and Alice Kipling, St John the Baptist Church, Tisbury, Wiltshire, England. File:2 Kipling graves Tisbury.jpg, Graves of John Lockwood Kipling and Alice Kipling, St John the Baptist Church, Tisbury, Wiltshire, England. File:3 Kipling graves Tisbury.jpg, Grave of John Lockwood Kipling, St John the Baptist Church, Tisbury, Wiltshire, England. File:4 Kipling graves Tisbury.jpg, Grave of John Lockwood Kipling, St John the Baptist Church, Tisbury, Wiltshire, England. File:5 Kipling graves Tisbury.jpg, Grave of Alice Kipling, St John the Baptist Church, Tisbury, Wiltshire, England. File:6 Kipling graves Tisbury.jpg, Grave of Alice Kipling, St John the Baptist Church, Tisbury, Wiltshire, England.


References


External links

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Portraits of Alice Kipling
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kipling, Alice 1910 deaths Burials at Tisbury parish church, St John's People from Sheffield 19th-century English women writers 19th-century Scottish poets 20th-century Scottish poets Family of Rudyard Kipling 1837 births