The Collection
The Kipling Society Library is a research collection, which has been steadily built up since the Society was founded in 1927. It offers all of Kipling’s published work, including rare and unauthorised editions, selections and translations. Biography and criticism is well covered, and there are also biographies of contemporaries, and a significant range of specialist works on such relevant subjects as the British Army and the politics of India.
A selection of photographs, cuttings and ephemera is available, and much of this is being digitised for easier use. Altogether, we can claim to have one of the best facilities for researchers and enthusiasts.
All of this is housed in the stately archive building ‘The Clock House’ at Haileybury and Imperial Service College in Hertfordshire. Kipling’s own United Services College was established by a Haileybury teacher, and eventually became part of Haileybury itself. Thus the collection is associated with the records of an independent school from which many young men went out to join the old East India Company, and we are very grateful to the Master and Governors of Haileybury for offering us the base. There is also the possibility of access to the library of the Royal Society for Asian Affairs, based on the same campus.
There is a strict policy of pre-arranged visits to the Library, subject to approval from the staff at Haileybury.
Access to the Collection
Members of the Kipling Society can use the Library if they obtain a Reader’s Ticket from the Honorary Librarian, Mr John Walker:
email: jwawalker@gmail.com
postal address: 56 Chaplin Drive, Headcorn, Ashford, Kent TN27 9TN
telephone: 01622 890366
John Walker is glad to answer enquiries about the library by post telephone or email.
If he is away, enquiries can be channeled through Mike Kipling, (email: michaelrkipling@gmail.com)
[J.W.A.W.]