Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1898-11-01
KIPLING'S FIRST NAME.
A Romance About How He Came to
Receive It.
Kansas City Ster.

Kansas City Star
Into noisy, drunken, ~nldierful Chatta.
nooga there came one day 49, twaAd-
clothed Engllshman wifi rich and MAJ
velous accent. His name was ]. Bourne
Pinder and he was a salesman for the
wares of the Doulton Pottery, Stafford
shire, England. He was pa breezy sort of
chap, lacking the reseIaT e attributed to
all travelling EnglishmaH, but the fact
that he was a ''bagmarE had, perhaps,
something to do with it'd AT all events,
he was soon on speallinsN terms with the
little group of newspaper%men in the no.
tel and told some very amusing and in
structive tales about England and other
places TO which he had turneyed.
One evening I sat cha &ing with him
about unimportant thingsl when he d.
vulged this interesting fact:
do you know where K5pling got his
first name? Most people d9 not. 1 have
never seen the story in print. To begin
at the beginning, my father was Thomas
Pinder. of the pottery firm of Pinder,
Bourne & Co, now Doulton's, in Burslem,
Staffordshire. In the pottery was a
young man named John Kioling, de
signer of decorations. He was a very
clever young man, although somewhat &c
centric He used. l remember as boy.
to carry pet mice attached TO him by fine
chains. He was a very vigorous man and
full of amusing stories and could do in
Vulnerable clever tricks. When l was a
boy he made casts of my face. He made
paper squills and put them in my nos
trils. creased my face and then covered
it with wet plaster. 1t was no fun, L can
tel! you, but he was a good sort of chap
| and used to tell me stories and sing songs
| and make things with jack knife for me
| so let him do it, He was a constant Wis
| itor at our house, and both my mother
and father were very fond of him.
/ lone day my mother gave picnic tc
| the young people of the neighborhood a
| a pretty little English lake between the
villages of Rudyard and Rushton. net fal
| from Burslem. John Kipling went, o.
course. and there he met a pretty Engiisf
| girl Mary Mcdonald, the daughter OF {
| Methodist minister at Endon. Kiphns
| fell in love with her at once. They ne
very often at my mothers house and :
grew into a love affair on both sides
/ Then John Kipling went to the ar
| schools at Kensington and was after
wards sent out 10 direct the art schools
of the Madras Presidency in India Whei
| he went to India he took pretty Mar,
Mcdonald along as his wife.
In the fulness of time a son was borl
to the Kiplings in Bombay. Their frs
| meeting at Rudyard Lake must Sav
been the pretty bit of sentiment of Flei
lives, for when they named the son the,
took for him that of the little lake on til
banks of which they first saw eacl
| other.
John Kipling came back afterward
to the old potting country and when the
built an institute for the people wher
| Wedgewood first started potting. Kiplin
modelled the frieze for the building. TIL
frieze describes the potter's art with fig
ures of the thrower. the plate maker, tn
cup maker and ali the others. 1t was
| work of love. Rudyard Kipling is himsel
very fond of the Staffordshire country
side and has written the dialect, whic
he knows well. of his mothers people,"
This is the story of the origin of Rud
Iyard Kipling's Christian name, told b
the son OF the man under whom Kipling
father started on his art career.