Portrait of Kenneth Grahame

Birthday profile

Kenneth Grahame

British novelist

Born
March 8, 1859
Died
July 6, 1932
Zodiac sign
Pisces
Birth year
1859

About Kenneth Grahame

Kenneth Grahame was a Scottish writer. He is best remembered for the classic of children's literature The Wind in the Willows (1908). Born in Scotland, he spent most of his childhood with his grandmother in England, following the death of his mother and his father's inability to look after the children. After attending St Edward's School in Oxford, his ambition to attend university was thwarted and he joined the Bank of England, where he had a successful career. Before writing The Wind in the Willows, he published three other books: Pagan Papers (1893), The Golden Age (1895), and Dream Days (1898). In 1868, when he was nine years old, Grahame became a boarder at the recently established St Edward's School in Oxford. In the entrance examination to become a clerk, Grahame had scored the highest marks of his intake, and became the only candidate to score 100 per cent in the English Essay paper.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

Kenneth Grahame timeline

  1. In 1868, when he was nine years old, Grahame became a boarder at the recently established St Edward's School in Oxford.
  2. Before writing The Wind in the Willows, he published three other books: Pagan Papers (1893), The Golden Age (1895), and Dream Days (1898).

The world when Kenneth Grahame was born

Kenneth Grahame was born in 1859. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1859

  • Best-selling bookOn the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin

Headlines and milestones

  • Top headlineJohn Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry
  • Technology milestoneEdwin Drake drills first successful oil well (Pennsylvania)
  • World population~1.39B

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderJames Buchanan
  • U.S. population29.2M

1859 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Kenneth Grahame's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure18592026
Population29.2M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Library of Congress. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.