Nouveau as all get out
Check this out. It’s Mr and Mrs Kipling’s invitation to George V’s coronation in 1911. It’s a cracking thing. From the May monthly newsletter of The Keep, which is the East Sussex record archive.
I wanted to link to a bigger version for you, but I haven’t yet found it in their Kipling papers. I haven’t looked very hard.
The Keep is in a place called Falmer (if you play Skyrim you’ll know why that tickles me) near Brighton.
it’s kind of miserable to visit in person. You have to get a reader’s ticket in advance and you have to know exactly what you want to see – no browsing the collection. Staff can be rude.
But it’s fun to browse online. At least, it is if you live in Sussex. They have quite a lot of their papers digitized and searchable. Periodically, I do a search of the name of our house + the name of our parish to see what turns up. There was a man of that name in this (very small) parish in the 1820s, so that’s probably our guy.
Nothing new has turned up for a while, though. I have a feeling the gub’ment scanning money has dried up.
Posted: May 10th, 2023 under britain.
Comments: 6
Comments
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: December 10, 2022, 8:07 pm
Never did work out how to access the actual collection of Kipling papers, but I did find a larger version at a stock house (of course) addressed to the Earl of Stamford.
And you can actually *buy* Charlotte Knollys’ one on Ebay. ‘Buy it Now’ still open for £595 of your English pounds.
Comment from ExpressoBold Pureblood
Time: May 10, 2023, 8:14 pm
Is that Britannia in the center of the invite?
… and, akshully, opening up that Keeping Up link and then opening the image in a new tab shows the image in 1024×874 pixel format. Quite large for most purposes…
Comment from Carl
Time: May 10, 2023, 9:02 pm
I visited the Keep about 10 years ago hoping to find photographs of Mrs Carl at school. They must have photographs from the school (which no longer exists) in their archives but the search facilities revealed nothing and the staff were unhelpful. I hope things have improved.
Comment from peacelovewoodstock
Time: May 11, 2023, 11:23 am
“Do you like Kipling?”
“I don’t know, you naughty boy, I’ve never kippled!”
Comment from Anonymous
Time: May 12, 2023, 6:47 pm
Comment from ExpressoBold Pureblood
Time: May 10, 2023, 8:14 pm
Is that Britannia in the center of the invite?
No; Britannia is a warrior armed with shield and trident.
The figure on the invite bears the royal orb and scepter, and has angel wings.
What I am curious about is what the six badges at the bottom represent. #5 (L-to-R) is the Southern Cross, presumably for Australia; #6 is a thistle for Scotland. But the other four arare mysterious.
Comment from ExpressoBold Pureblood
Time: May 12, 2023, 7:26 pm
After a little research I come up with this identification of Commonwealth badges:
1. New Zealand
2. Canada
3. the unified home countries of England, Wales, Ireland, Scotland
4. the Tudor Rose of England
5. Australia
6. Scotland
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