Further to Eric Thompson's response below, I sent Professor Bindseil the
following some time ago which may be of interest to the forum:
'Lady Mabel Coke was actually 38 at the time that Dunlop-Smith wrote the
note. She was born in September 1878 at Holkham Hall, Norfolk and appears
in the 1881 census at the age of two. While her father, the 2nd Earl of
Leicester was 58 years old, her mother, Georgiana, was 29 and had 4 children
under 5 at the time of the census. Her father died in 1909.
Mabel married James Little Luddington at St George's, Hanover Square, on 8
August 1929, when she was 50 and died in Eastbourne on the 29 January 1967
at the age of 88.
I asked a long retired doctor about measles at such a late age and he said
that it was not unusual at the time. This was due to the fact that, before
about 1950, in British households that had adequate facilities, children
with such illnesses were quarantined and kept away from all other children.
As a result, particularly amongst the middle and upper classes, many
children had no opportunity to catch what would normally be considered to be
childhood diseases and were vulnerable to them in later life.'
Roger Ayers
Membership Secretary
The Kipling Society
----- Original Message -----
From: "Eric Thompson" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, March 29, 2005 3:43 PM
Subject: Lady Mabel Coke
> Dear list members,
>
> Further to the letter from Erling Bindseil in the March
> 2005 'Journal', the archivist at Holkham Hall tells me
> that Lady Mabel Coke, who was a daughter of the second
> Earl of Leicester of Holkham by his late second marriage,
> was born on 9 September, 1878.
>
> This would make her 38 when Sir James sent her the copy of
> 'A Diversity of Creatures' in March 1917, and not "quite
> young" as Erling Bindseil surmised.
>
> --
> Yours sincerely,
>
> Eric J Thompson, Reply to: [log in to unmask]
>
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