In a message dated 29/11/02 7:24:07 PM GMT Standard Time, [log in to unmask] quotes a Kipling letter which includes the sentence:

"I dont know whether I was a contemporary of yours at the old Coll but I remember Carden ma and minor between 1878-82.

There was a Louis Peile Carden who entered the RMA Woolwich (The Shop) as a Gentleman Cadet on 15 Jan 78 and so must have left in 1877. There was also Thomas F Carden, who was at the USC aged 12 at the time of the census of 1881. I do not know if they were related, but they might possibly have been the Cardens, major and minor, to whom RK refers.

Louis Carden was not involved in the South African war and retired as a Gunner Colonel in 1912. Thomas Carden was not a Gunner, so I don't have any records of Boer war service to hand.

It would be nice to know to whom Kipling was writing.

Yours sincerely,
Roger Ayers
Honorary Membership Secretary,
The Kipling Society