Bro Joseph Rudyard Kipling - a most famous Freemason

 

Bro Joseph Rudyard Kipling

30th December 1865 - 18th January 1936

Bro Joseph Rudyard Kipling was born in Bombay India on the 30th December 1865, and was known to the family as Ruddy.  At the age of five he was brought over to England and spent five years living with a foster family in Southsea where he was miserable due to mistreatment, beatings and being victimised.   As a result of this he suffered from insomnia and poor health for the rest of his life. 

At the age of 17 Rudyard returned to India and began his career as a writer beginning as the sub-editor of the Civil and Military Gazette and Pioneer in Lahore.   According to Lodge records he was Initiated on 5th April 1886.  Passed to the Degree of a Fellowcraft the following month on 3rd May 1886 and Raised to the Sublime Degree of a Master Mason on 6th December the same year into Lodge Hope and Perseverance No.782. 

He also went on to become a joining member of Independence with Philanthropy Lodge No.391 in Bengal.  Upon his return to England, his involvement in Freemasonry rapidly developed.  He joined, as an honorary member, the Motherland Lodge No. 3861 in London. 

He was also a member of The Authors’ Lodge No. 3456, and a founder member of The Lodge Builders of the Silent Cities No. 4948, which was connected with the War Graves Commission mentioned earlier. 

Another Masonic association was formed when he became ‘Poet Laureate’ of the very famous Scottish Lodge in Edinburgh, Canongate, Kilwinning Lodge No. 2.  This was a great honour since the previous incumbent was none other than Robert Burns.  Years later, he accepted a Fellowship of The Philalethes Society, an organisation of Masonic writers formed in The United States of America in 1928.  Tragically in February 1899 his daughter Josephine caught pneumonia and never recovered and his only son John was killed in action in Belgium in 1915. 

Kipling gave unstintingly of his time and effort as a member of The Imperial War Graves Commission and is credited with the authorship of the inscription seen in every cemetery, ‘Their Name Liveth for Evermore’ . 

Bro Kipling passed to the Grand Lodge Above on the 18th January 1936, at the age of 70.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudyard_Kipling

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