NAM.1963-03-76-1

Printed silk booklet reproducing the poem ‘The Absent-Minded Beggar’ by Rudyard Kipling, 1899. Published by the Daily Mail, in aid of wives and children of the reservists, 1899. Folded into three. With photo portrait of Kipling on the cover, and inside an illustration of Richard Caton Woodville entitled ‘A gentleman in Kharki’ Poem was printed in the Daily Mail in aid of the wives and children. Reproducing Rudyard Kipling's popular poem 'The Absent-Minded Beggar', with a photographic portrait by John Collier on the cover and an illustration by Richard Caton Woodville's defiant wounded infantryman entitled 'A gentleman in Kharki', inside. Almost as soon as war was declared in October 1899 Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) was asked by the 'The Daily Mail' to make an appeal for funds for non-regulation comforts for soldiers on their way to the front, and in the aid of the wives and children of reservists fighting in South Africa. this took the form of the verse 'The Absent-Minded Beggar', which was published in the newspaper on 31 October. Kipling received no royalties for the poem and had no objections to its use on a wide variety of products, provided that the proceeds were donated to the fund. Caton Woodville's illustration, which was inspired by the poem and is often associated with it, was reproduced on a whole range of objects; many of these were sold in aid of the fund, which realised £250,000.

Boer War (1899-1902)