Parker, K Elsie, b c 1885

Miss K. Elsie Parker was employed by Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), author, and his wife Caroline, soon after their return to England in 1900. Presumably in her late teens, she was first employed in the summer of 1901, when they were living at Rottingdean, East Sussex, as assistant to their children's nanny, and in the following year understudying and then taking over from Mrs Kipling's secretary since July 1899, Miss Sara Anderson (1854-1942). She moved with the Kiplings to Bateman's in Burwash, East Sussex, in September 1902, and, except when laid off while her employers wintered in South Africa, continued until October 1904.