6 November 2007 – 24 February 2008

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My Boy Jack
Imperial War Museum London
6 November 2007 – 24 February 2008

This exhibition at Imperial War Museum London is the first to tell the full story of Rudyard Kipling’s only son John who was killed in the Battle of Loos in 1915. The exhibition is being launched to coincide with the screening of ITV1’s drama, My Boy Jack starring Daniel Radcliffe as John and David Haig as Rudyard Kipling.

Shortly after war was declared in 1914, John Kipling, who was medically unfit for military service due to his severe short-sightedness, secured a Commission in the Irish Guards thanks to his father’s influence. John was posted to France on his eighteenth birthday and was reported wounded and missing, six weeks later in his first action, on 27 September 1915. John’s grief-stricken parents used all possible channels and every high-level contact to establish news about their son in the hope that he might still be alive, possibly as a prisoner of war. It was not until 1919 that they finally accepted that he had died.

Rarely seen archive material is displayed including the moving correspondence between Rudyard and John; Rudyard Kipling’s wartime passport; John’s Commission and last letter; and letters of condolence from Conan-Doyle and Theodore Roosevelt, both of whom also lost sons in the war. A section of the exhibition displays material from the ITV drama including John’s uniform worn by Daniel Radcliffe along with other costumes for Rudyard and Carrie Kipling (David Haig and Kim Cattrall), designs, scripts, props and other production material.

Items from the Imperial War Museum’s collections include a bugle used by the 1st Gordons at Loos and played on Armistice Day at the Museum during the 1920s and 30s, as well as a section of the bullet-damaged Lone Tree which stood in No Man’s Land at Loos and a fragment of a sketch map showing where John died.

The Kiplings were among the millions of parents who lost sons in the war. From Britain alone over 700,000 men serving in the British Army were killed. Over half of these, like John, had no known grave. However, in 1992, over 70 years after John’s death, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission announced that the grave of an ‘unknown Irish Guards Lieutenant’ was in fact that of John. The exhibition will conclude with an examination of new evidence that strongly disputes this.

An updated edition of the biography of John Kipling, My Boy Jack? The Search for Kipling’s Only Son by Tonie and Valmai Holt (Major & Mrs Holt) in which the new evidence is presented, will be published by Pen and Sword to coincide with the exhibition launch.

Admission to My Boy Jack is free

Ends -

Notes to Editors:

MY BOY JACK?
THE SEARCH FOR KIPLING’S ONLY SON
TONIE AND VALMAI HOLT

My Boy Jack is the extraordinary story of Kipling's search for his son. John Kipling was reported missing in the Battle of Loos on the Western Front in 1915.

In 1992, 77 years later, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission took the exceptional step of naming a previously unknown soldier buried in St. Mary's ADS CWGC Cemetery in France as John Kipling. The authors, Tonie and Valmai Holt, intrigued by this unusual and newsworthy action felt drawn into taking the investigation further, to examine the evidence and to question the identification.

Now fully updated, My Boy Jack contains the results of the Holts latest research into the resting place of John Kipling. They have uncovered new evidence backing their belief that John’s grave has been wrongly identified by the CWGC and have traced the soldier they believe is buried in it.

IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM LONDON

This London branch of the Imperial War Museum houses exhibits ranging from tanks and aircraft to photographs and personal letters; they include film and sound recordings, and some of the 20th century's best-known paintings. Visitors can explore six floors of exhibitions and displays, including a permanent exhibition dedicated to the holocaust and a changing programme of special temporary exhibitions.

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