John Lockwood Kipling
John Lockwood Kipling (6 July 1837 – 26 January 1911) was an English art teacher, illustrator and museum curator who spent most of his career in India. He was the father of the author Rudyard Kipling.
Also recorded as J. L. Kipling · J. Lockwood Kipling
John Lockwood Kipling

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- Name
- John Lockwood Kipling
- Born
- 6 July 1837
- Birthplace
- Pickering, North Yorkshire, England
- Died
- 26 January 1911
- Place of death
- Tisbury, Wiltshire, England
- Occupation
- Art teacher, illustrator, museum curator
- Nationality
- United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
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Documentary summary
John Lockwood Kipling (6 July 1837 – 26 January 1911) was an English art teacher, illustrator and museum curator who spent most of his career in India. He was the father of the author Rudyard Kipling.
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John Lockwood Kipling (1837–1911) was an architect, art educator and illustrator, among other activities, of British nationality. The architect was born in Pickering and died in Tisbury.
John Lockwood Kipling was educated at Woodhouse Grove School. Activity centred on illustration, museology and pedagogy.
Languages used include English. Honours include Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire.
Composed from admitted, traceable facts · 26 September 2026
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In this article
Key facts
Key facts
• Name — John Lockwood Kipling • Born — 6 July 1837 • Birthplace — Pickering, North Yorkshire, England • Died — 26 January 1911 • Place of death — Tisbury, Wiltshire, England • Occupation — Art teacher, illustrator, museum curator • Children — Rudyard Kipling • Illustration — John Lockwood Kipling and Rudyard Kipling, c.1890
Life and career
Life and career
Lockwood Kipling was born in Pickering, North Riding, the son of Reverend Joseph Kipling and Frances née Lockwood, and was educated at Woodhouse Grove School, a Methodist boarding school. He met his wife Alice MacDonald while working in Burslem, Staffordshire, where his designs can still be seen on the façade of the Wedgwood Institute. • Illustration — John Lockwood Kipling and Alice Kipling in India during 1870 Alice was the daughter of a Methodist minister, the Reverend George Browne Macdonald. Kipling married during 1865 and relocated with his wife to India, where he had been appointed as a professor of architectural sculpture in the Jeejeebhoy School of Art in Bombay (now Mumbai), and later became its principal. Their son was born soon after, in December 1865, and was christened Rudyard after Rudyard, Staffordshire, the place where his parents had first met; their daughter Alice also known as Beatrice Kipling was born in 1868. His life-long friend John Griffiths, whom he had met whilst working together at the South Kensington Museum and worked with him at the Bombay School of Art, became Rudyard's godfather. During 1870–1872 Kipling was commissioned by the government to tour the Punjab, North-West Frontier and Kashmir and make a series of sketches of Indian craftsmen as well as various sights and antiquities in these regions. Several of these sketches are presently at the Victoria and Albert Museum whilst others were printed in a number of books. During 1875, Kipling was appointed the Principal of Mayo School of Arts, Lahore, British India (present day National College of Arts, Pakistan) and also became curator of the old original Lahore Museum which figured as the Wonder House or Ajaib Ghar in Kim, not to be confused with the present one. He retired back to England in 1893. Kipling illustrated many of Rudyard Kipling's books, and other works, including Tales of the Punjab by Flora Annie Steel. He also worked on the decorations for the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and friezes on the Crawford Market in Bombay. The friezes of the Crawford Market are done in a Romano-Gothic style. The west entrance displays trader and sack-scales with porter, planter and water carrier around a well-head, while the east features several bullock carts. John Kipling designed the uniforms and decorations for the Imperial Assemblage at Delhi during 1877, organised by the Viceroy of India, Lord Lytton, at which Queen Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India. During his tenure as the Principal of the Mayo School of Art, Lahore, he patronised indigenous artisans and by training and apprenticeship transformed them into craftsmen and designers. One of his protégés was Bhai Ram Singh, who assisted him in his imperial commission for decorating the Durbar Room at Queen Victoria's Osborne House. Kipling also remained editor of the Journal of Indian Art and Industry, which published drawings made by the students of the Mayo School. He died in 1911, and is buried beside his wife in the churchyard of the parish church of Tisbury, Wiltshire. During 2017 the Bard Graduate Center, New York, had an exhibition of his work: John Lockwood Kipling: Arts & Crafts in the Punjab and London.
Gallery
Gallery
• Illustration — Illustration for a chapter capital in the 1895 edition of The Two Jungle Books (1895), a compilation of The Jungle Book and The Second Jungle Book, both by his son, Rudyard Kipling. • Illustration — Bas-relief from a series illustrating Kim. • Illustration — Mayo College, Ajmer, India Coat of Arms designed by (John) Lockwood Kipling. • Illustration — Cryptic dedication page with Arabic inscriptions. • Illustration — Wood Carver at Shimla, pencil and ink drawing by J. Lockwood Kipling, 1870. • Illustration — Graves of John Lockwood Kipling and Alice Kipling, St John the Baptist Church, Tisbury, Wiltshire, England. • Illustration — Graves of John Lockwood Kipling and Alice Kipling, St John the Baptist Church, Tisbury, Wiltshire, England. • Illustration — Grave of John Lockwood Kipling, St John the Baptist Church, Tisbury, Wiltshire, England. • Illustration — Grave of John Lockwood Kipling, St John the Baptist Church, Tisbury, Wiltshire, England. • Illustration — Grave of Alice Kipling, St John the Baptist Church, Tisbury, Wiltshire, England. • Illustration — Grave of Alice Kipling, St John the Baptist Church, Tisbury, Wiltshire, England.

John Lockwood Kipling
Hollinger Co. · The Critic
Main published works
• Beast and Man in India: A Popular Sketch of Indian Animals in Their Relations with the People, Published by Macmillan and Co, London, 1891. • Inezilla: A Romance in Two Chapters, by J.L.K. Reprinted from The Chameleon, Allahabad, [1873]. • Across the Border: Or, Pathân and Biloch, by Edward Emmerson Oliver, Illustrations by John Lockwood Kipling. Published by Chapman and Hall, 1890. • Tales of the Punjab Told by the People, by Flora Annie Webster Steel, Richard Carnac Temple, John Lockwood Kipling. Published by Macmillan and co., 1894. • The Two Jungle Books, by Rudyard Kipling. Illustrations by J. Lockwood Kipling, C.I.E., and W. H. Drake. Published by Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc., New York, 1893.
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.John Lockwood Kipling, C.I.E. New York Times, 24 January 1892.
- 2.Carrington, Charles. Rudyard Kipling: His Life and Work. Penguin Books. 31–32. 1986. 014058028X.
- 3.Drawing by John Lockwood Kipling, and Biography Victoria & Albert Museum.
- 4.The Kiplings and India: Alice MacDonald Fleming (Beatrice [Trix] Kipling).
- 5.Rudyard Kipling. 6 August 2021.
- 6.A Study of a Head of a Koonbie | Griffiths, John | V&A Explore the Collections.
- 7.Lockwood Kipling: Arts & Crafts of Punjab and London. The Heritage Lab. 15 January 2017.
- 8.Book Illustration by John Lockwood Kipling. victorianweb.org.
- 9.Lockwood Kipling: Arts and Crafts in the Punjab and London – Exhibition at V&A Museum. Owlcation.
- 10.Tarin, O, in 'The Kipling Journal', June 2008, pp 10–21
- 11.For details see Peter Hopkirk, Quest for Kim:In Search of Kipling's Great Game London: J Murray, 1996
- 12.Steggles, Mary Ann. British Sculpture in India: New Views and Old Memories. Frontier. 235. 2011. 978-1-872914-41-1.
- 13.Baldwin Papers: Papers of John Lockwood Kipling. University of Sussex Library Special Collections.
- 14.John Lockwood Kipling. www.bgc.bard.edu.
Bibliography printed in the source article · 4
- Bryant, Julius & Susan Weber (eds.) John Lockwood Kipling: Arts and Crafts in the Punjab and London, Yale University Press, 2017.
- The Pater: John Lockwood Kipling His Life and Times 1837–1911, by Arthur R Ankers, Pond View Books, 1988.
- The Kipling Papers: A List of Papers of John Lockwood Kipling 1837–1911, Joseph Rudyard Kipling 1865–1936, and of Some Papers of Josephine, Elsie and John Kipling from Wimpole Hall, Cambridge. by University of Sussex Library. Manuscripts Section, Rudyard Kipling. Published by University of Sussex Library, 1980. .
- Official Chronicle of the Mayo School of Art: The Formative Years Under Lockwood Kipling. (1875 to 1893), Researched and introduced by Nadeem Omar Tarar. Samina Choonara (editor). National College of Arts, Lahore, 2003,
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