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Alice Caroline Kipling (4 April 1837 – 22 November 1910) was one of the MacDonald sisters, Englishwomen of the Victorian era, 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, aunt of British Prime Minister
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, England.
Alice Kipling features in the 2002 biography ''A Circle of Sisters: Alice Kipling, Georgiana Burne-Jones, Agnes Poynter and Louisa Baldwin'' by
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.
Portraits of Alice Kipling
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kipling, Alice 1910 deaths Burials at Tisbury parish church, St John's People from Sheffield 19th-century British women writers 19th-century Scottish poets 20th-century Scottish poets Family of Rudyard Kipling 1837 births
Alice Caroline Kipling (4 April 1837 – 22 November 1910) was one of the MacDonald sisters, Englishwomen of the Victorian era, 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, aunt of British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin
Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley, (3 August 186714 December 1947) was a British Conservative Party politician who dominated the government of the United Kingdom between the world wars, serving as prime minister on three occasions, ...
, and sister-in-law of Edward Poynter and Edward Burne-Jones.
Early years
Alice Kipling was born as Alice Caroline MacDonald in Sheffield, 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 wrotesonnet
A sonnet is a poetic form that originated in the poetry composed at the Court of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II in the Sicilian city of Palermo. The 13th-century poet and notary Giacomo da Lentini is credited with the sonnet's invention, ...
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 and Alice MacDonald met in 1863 and courted at Rudyard Lake in Rudyard, Staffordshire, England. They married in St Mary Abbots 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
Georgiana is a Catalan, English, Greek and Romanian name. It is the feminine form of the male name George and a variation of the female names Georgina and Georgia. It comes from the Greek word Γεώργιος, meaning farmer. A variant spellin ...
was married to the painter Edward Burne-Jones, and her sister Agnes to Edward Poynter. 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 Conservative Party politician who dominated the government of the United Kingdom between the world wars, serving as prime minister on three occasions, ...
, who was Conservative Prime Minister three times in the 1920s and '30s. He was the son of Alice's sister Louisa and her husband Alfred Baldwin Alfred Baldwin may refer to:
* Alfred Baldwin (politician) (1841–1908), English businessman and Conservative MP, father of Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin
* Alfred C. Baldwin III (1936–2020), "shadow man" in the 1972 Watergate break-in
*Alfr ...
.
Harry Ricketts
Harry Ricketts (born 1950) is a poet, biographer, editor, anthologist, critic, academic, literary scholar and cricket writer. He has written biographies of Rudyard Kipling and of a dozen British First World War poets.
Life
Ricketts was bor ...
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 on 30 December 1865. In Simla, 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, 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
Judith Flanders (born 1959) is a historian, journalist and author, who has settled in London, England. Her writings centre on the Victorian period.
Early life
Flanders was born to Jewish parents in London, England. She spent her childhood in Mon ...
.
Gallery
References
External links
* *Portraits of Alice Kipling
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kipling, Alice 1910 deaths Burials at Tisbury parish church, St John's People from Sheffield 19th-century British women writers 19th-century Scottish poets 20th-century Scottish poets Family of Rudyard Kipling 1837 births