The Brothers Three of Moriarty programs

I've previously posted about some of the John Bennett Shaw materials I've gathered together. One reason for collecting is that I was asked to write a short Sherlockian biography of John Bennett Shaw and wanted to have both primary materials such as meeting agendas, as well as books written by Shaw. This has led to a very modest accumulation, nevertheless I enjoy looking through it. 

The things I gathered aided me immensely in writing the chapter on JBS now available in the new Wessex Press book titled 'On The Shoulders of Giants: Great Sherlockians Remembered'. The book was conceived and edited by Rob Nunn and Pete Eckrich. In my case, Shaw was not really remembered - I never met him - but I did have a chance to speak to people who knew Shaw as I pulled my narrative together, including Peter Blau, Jim Hawkins, Evy Herzog, and Ray Betzner. 

I'll post a submitted version of that chapter on my blog soon.

One of my favorite elements of JBS is his scion 'Brothers Three of Moriarty', and I have some programs for meetings. Each year the scion hosted a trap shoot (around mid-year), and an Unhappy Birthday Moriarty meeting (in November).

Here are some examples of programs for both meetings - these are all I have. I've pasted them here roughly chronologically.

Left: Program for the 1977 Colonel Sebastian Moran Trap Shoot and Dinner Meeting and Right: Program for the 1976 The Professor James Moriarty Unhappy Birthday.

Above: Program for the 1980 The Tenth Annual Professor James Moriarty Unhappy Birthday.

Above: Program for the 1982 Twelfth Annual Colonel Sebastian Moran Trap Shoot and Dinner Meeting

Above: Program for the 1983 Thirteenth Annual Colonel Sebastian Moran Trap Shoot and Dinner Meeting

Above: Program for the 1986 Fifteenth Commemoration of the Lamentable Birth of the Depraved Professor James Moriarty.

Above: Program for the 1987 Sixteenth Colonel Sebastian Moran Trap Shoot and Dinner Meeting

Left: Program for the 1989 Seventeenth Unhappy Birthday to You Bastard Moriarty Celebration, and Right: Program for the 1989 Seventeenth Colonel Sebastian Moran Trap Shoot.

Above: Program for the 1991 Eighteenth Unhappy Birthday You Bastard Moriarty Celebration.

The Baker Street File - in the Sherlock Holmes Review for 2025

I've just returned from the Baker Street Irregulars weekend in New York, and will be posting a report soon. While I was there, two different publications were on sale for the first time that included articles by me. I post the submitted draft versions of the article on my blog to ensure those who can't access or afford the books can still read a version of my articles (similar to my scientific publications appearing in BioRxiv or Pubmed Central).

The first article was about one of my favorite books - the Baker Street File (BSF). It appears in the 2025 (published in 2026, if that makes sense) The Sherlock Holmes Review, published by Wessex Press. It's a beautiful volume, and I recommend grabbing a copy. 

 

Towards the back of the Review in a regular section titled 'Let me recommend this book...' is my article on the Baker Street File (BSF). The article explains the history of the BSF so I won't re-hash that. I am lucky enough to have a copy of the Calabash Press publication, and also of the Granada BSF signed by a member of the crew. I wrote the article partly because it's so quite rare (i.e. in high demand), and partly to understand how an internal Granada document became available in publication format.

I'm particularly thankful to two people who were willing to lend time and words as part of creating the article. The first is Chris Rodin, co-founder of Calabash Press that published BSF - Chris spent time speaking with me about his publishing experience. The second is Gus Holwerda (a co-host of the Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes Podcast) who shared some thoughts on the BSF. I'm very thankful to both of them.

The Baker Street File

Left: The practical cover of the original Baker Street File produced at Granada by Michael Cox, Stuart Doughty, and Nicky Cooney. Right: The cover of the Calabash Press printing of the Baker Street File.

One of the most sought-after pieces of Sherlockian ephemera is a copy of the 'Baker Street File' (BSF), created as a guide for the Granada series of Sherlock Holmes. It's full title was The Baker Street File, A guide to the appearance and habits of Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson, specially prepared for the Granada Television series The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes'. Such was the instant and constant fascination with the Granada series that Calabash Press published the BSF in book form in 1997, with a 2002 reprint. The Calabash rarely appear for sale, and sell for eye-watering prices when they do.

When Michael Cox convinced Granada Studios to commit to creating a new television series of the Sherlock Holmes stories, there was a commitment to authenticity of the characters, the stories, and the period setting. This required a deep understanding of the Canon, and Cox recognized he needed a way to ensure all involved were adhering to the intent of Conan Doyle. In Cox's reflections on the series published as 'Studies in Celluloid' (Rupert Books UK, and Wessex Press USA), Cox described the process of creating the BSF: "We undertook some thorough research into the original stories, dividing a complete reading of all Conan Doyle's sixty stories between the Associate Producer, Stuart Doughty, the researcher, Nicky Cooney, and myself.... This document, which is divided into separate sections for each character and subsections on clothes, mannerisms, attitudes and so forth, runs to seventy pages plus an index. Compared with such published guides to the Canon..... it did save the production team from making too many mistakes.”

A Washington Post article in 1985 covering the launch of the series on PBS Mystery in the United States revealed Cox referencing the BSF from the very beginning as a basis for the quality of the series.

"Victorian dress and customs were extensively researched by executive producer Michael Cox and his staff, who compiled what they refer to as "the Baker Street File. "We divided all the stories between us and reread them." he explained. "We noted down everything that would help us evoke Victorian life -- the way people dressed, what they ate, where they ate, even what kind of tobacco they smoked. Then we gave our file to the production designer and technical people, who worked marvelously to implement it. I think you'll find this the most authentic Sherlock Holmes yet.”

It's easy to imagine Sherlock fans reading about the BSF and wishing to get their hands on a copy. Perhaps one hundred copies of the BSF were printed for use by the Granada production team, a stapled set of about eighty pages. The file itself was divided into sections, with each point from the Canon numbered - 1,136 in total! There are 762 numbered points for Sherlock alone, structured into topics such as clothing, smoking, women, character and nature ; with each quote or annotation cross-referenced to the story it was extracted from. There are also sections dedicated to Watson, Mrs. Hudson/Billy the page, and Baker Street (and 'Inside 221B') that were essential to the characters and set design.

According to Cox, the BSF became Brett's constant companion while on set. In an interview with Edward Hardwicke in 2003 he shared that "There was a wonderful file which was passed around, The Baker Street File, which had, I mean, every single detail that appeared in the stories. And I remember, at one point, I think I had to use a fountain pen and, umm, I questioned, I said, “This seems very modern.” They said, “No, no, it’s not, it’s in the file,” and we looked it up; there it was.... And it was an amazing document, I think I’ve still got it somewhere. Umm, but it was a measure of the immense care that Granada took at that time with that series, I mean, there was just nothing that wasn’t studied and examined.”

In 2022, almost forty years after the series, Gus Holwerda (a co-host of the Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes Podcast) visited David Burke, and shared that "we were lucky enough to peek inside David’s copy of the Baker Street File.  A number of passages were ear marked, but the one that heralded the most noticeable pen-stroke in its margin was note #877 from the Three Garridebs which read “It was worth a wound – it was worth many wounds – to know the depth of loyalty and love which lay behind that cold mask.”  Mr. Burke took that passages to heart as he created his interpretation of the good doctor and I think it shows in his performance."

The story of the Baker Street File does not end with Granada's copies. The public first had a chance to sample the BSF content in Peter Haining's book 'The Television Sherlock Holmes' created 'in association with Granada Television'. First published in 1986, the book included 200 items from the BSF.

Then, in the early 1990s, Calabash Press entered the scene, and published the complete 'Baker Street File'. Christopher and Barbara Roden had founded two publishing imprints. The first was Ash Tree Press, publishing new and classic supernatural and horror literature (for example, M.R. James and Sheridan Le Fanu). Their second imprint was Calabash Press, publishing fiction ('pastiche') and nonfiction related to Sherlock Holmes. The Ash Tree Press ultimately published around 150 titles, with about 30 titles from Calabash Press, with both winding down operations in the mid-2000s.

Chris had founded the Arthur Conan Doyle Society in 1987, and the Rodens were very active members of the Northern Musgraves, an influential Sherlockian group started in 1988 that happened to be based in the north where the Granada primary shooting site was in Manchester. The Manchester studios had the Baker Street set, along with also a mock Houses of Parliament, a courtroom, and a set for Coronation Street (a British soap opera).

Michael Cox attended Northern Musgraves functions and got to know the members. Chris was kind enough to speak with me and share how put it 'Out of the blue we were approached by consultants who were working with the Granada Studios in Manchester to put together a tour of the studios and a Sherlock Holmes exhibit. Granada had contacted us specifically to help put the museum exhibit together. That museum ultimately contained an exhibit on Conan Doyle, dealt with the Strand Magazine, and contained artifacts from the show.' 

Chris' involvement allowed him to contribute to the exhibit's planning and execution, and meant he spent  quite a bit of time with Granada staff: 'While the exhibition was being put together, the three of us engaged to work on this as consultants  - David Stuart Davies, Kathryn White, and myself - met regularly, and that’s where I met David Round. David was a prop buyer for Granada, and incredible at his job - anything you wanted David could find. At one of our dinner meetings David passed a copy of the original Baker Street File to me, to show how Granada had planned out the show.'

It was that copy of the original BSF that became a focal point of Chris' publishing endeavors with Calabash Press. To Chris, the BSF seemed an obvious thing to publish: 'Nobody had seen this darned thing - Sherlockians had all heard about it, but nobody had seen it. So I approached Michael Cox and asked “What are the chances of republishing it?” and Michael said “Why not?” and it really grew from that. Michael ran the concept past the other two authors of the original Granada Baker Street File - and they gave the nod, and Calabash Press went ahead with planning publication.’

Michael Cox wrote an introduction for the Calabash edition, and the book was sold through the Calabash mailing list, book stores such as the Mysterious Bookshop in NY, and possibly a new online web retailer called Amazon. 'The first edition of the Baker Street File came out in 1997, and we would have printed 500 copies in the first edition. It was one of only two books that we ran a second printing of, and the second edition would almost certainly have had a run of 500 also - to print less in an edition wasn’t economically viable.' Two other Calabash books required a second printing: David Stuart Davies’ ‘Bending the Willow’ which had 2,500 copies printed in the first run, along with a second and third print run also (hardcover and softcover); and DSD's fictional vampire/Sherlock crossover 'The Tangled Skein'.

As Calabash Press wound down, a third printing never came to fruition. And so, fans of the Granada series, fans of Jeremy Brett, Sherlockians, and tv/film historians (and some who are all four!) all keep their eyes open for one of those elusive 1,000 copies of the Baker Street File. It's popularity lies in the uniqueness of what was created by Michael Cox and his colleagues, creating a source that ensured fidelity with Arthur Conan Doyle's stories.

END.

As part of writing this article, not all of the interview with Chris Rodin could make the article, so I include here a transcript of my interview with Chris, conducted in 2023.

The publication of the Baker Street File by Calabash Press

An interview with Christopher Roden of Calabash Press (ca. 1995-2005).

Matt Hall: Well, the Baker Street File is one of those 'must have' items for Sherlockians and fans of the Granada series - as a publisher that must feel pretty special. Can you tell me about your introduction to the world of Sherlock Holmes and how your passion for it developed over time?

Christopher Roden: I was a Sherlockian before I was a publisher, and started reading Holmes stories when I was at school as a boy in England and it developed from there. When I moved to North Wales in the late 1970s, I started collecting more seriously. I got involved joining up with the Sherlock Holmes Society of London and started to go to some of their functons. Then I joined societies like the Northern Musgraves, and established the Arthur Conan Doyle Society around 1987. Those experiences really solidified my connections within the Sherlockian community here in the UK and beyond.

Matt Hall: Right, the Arthur Conan Doyle Society was responsible for some marvelous publications including manuscript facsimiles and transcriptions. Could you elaborate on your role in establishing the Arthur Conan Doyle Society and your introduction to publishing?

Christopher Roden: I had publishing experience before that... I'd published a few tourist guide books when I was living in Wales. But the Arthur Conan Doyle Society was a significant step for me in the realm of Sherlockian publishing. It was my first major endeavor in that field, although it was more of a labor of love than a profitable venture.

Matt Hall: The Granada series was created and produced by Michael Cox, and he was central to writing the Baker Street File to guide the production of the series. Did you have a connection to him?

Christopher Roden: I knew Michael Cox because I'd met him at the Northern Musgraves functions... actually I knew him quite well. Out of the blue we were approached by consultants who were working with the Granada Studios in Manchester to put together a tour of the studios and a Sherlock Holmes exhibit. Granada had contacted us specifically to help put the museum exhibit together. That museum ultimately contained an exhibit on Conan Doyle, dealt with the Strand Magazine, and contained artifacts from the show. 

The Manchester studios had the Baker Street set of course, but also a mock Houses of Parliament, a courtroom, and a set for Coronation Street (the British soap opera). After production of the Sherlock Holmes show ceased, the Baker Street set was decommissioned and converted into an outdoor function area, and the museum kept operating for a while afterwards.

Matt Hall: I'm jealous just hearing about the experience of being immersed in that world - probably the way others might be jealous of those who saw the Beatles live! Was your time working around the show how you learnt about the Baker Street File?

Christopher Roden: My involvement as a consultant allowed me to contribute to the exhibit's planning and execution, and meant I spent  quite a bit of time with Granada staff. While the exhibition was being put together, the three of us engaged to work on this as consultants  - David Stuart Davies, Kathryn White, and myself -  met regularly, and that’s where I met David Round. David was a prop buyer for Granada, and incredible at his job - anything you wanted David could find. At one of our dinner meetings David passed a copy of the original Baker Street File to me, to show how Granada had planned out the show.

Matt Hall: A keeper?

Christopher Roden: Oh yes! Working with David Round and the other consultants was a fruitful experience. That copy of the original Baker Street File later became a focal point for my publishing endeavors with Calabash Press.

Matt Hall: OK let's move to publishing then. Can you share more about your two publishing empires - Ash Tree Press and Calabash Press - and how they got started?

Christopher Roden: Both my wife (Barbara Roden) and I were active in ghost story societies as well as Sherlockian societies - M.R. James and so on. We decided if we were going to publish, we should publish what we knew about. I started Ash Tree Press in the early 90s as a publisher of horror and supernatural literature, and Calabash emerged as a separate Sherlockian press after that. So for example Doyle's ‘Captain of the Polestar’ was published by Ash Tree Press because it was a ghost story, whereas Ron Weighell’s supernatural Sherlockian pastiches were published by Calabash Press. The Ash Tree Press really took off and we published around 150 titles, with about 30 titles from Calabash Press.

Matt Hall: That's just amazing productivity. Complete side-note here - I've always wondered how you pronounce Weighell and now I know!

Christopher Roden: Yes, it's pronounced just like "whale".

Matt Hall: What led to the decision to publish the Baker Street File, and how did Michael Cox and the other original authors react to the idea? I suppose you were technically re-publishing it?

Christopher Roden: Right. Once I’d started Calabash Press, I was looking for projects, and the Baker Street File seemed an obvious thing to publish. Nobody had seen this darned thing - Sherlockians had all heard about it, but nobody had seen it. So I approached Michael Cox and asked “What are the chances of republishing it?” and Michael said “Why not?” and it really grew from that. Michael ran the concept past the other two authors of the original Granada Baker Street File - and they gave the nod, and Calabash Press went ahead with planning publication.

Matt Hall: Tell me about the process of publishing the Baker Street File and its reception among enthusiasts?

Christopher Roden: I had the original Baker Street File to work on from David Round. It obviously looks very different in its original state, but the content in the published book is exactly the same. We had to transcribe that for publication, and Michael Cox wrote an introduction for us. The BSF was sold through a mailing list we maintained, through book stores such as the Mysterious Bookshop, and it’s possible we sold it through Amazon which was relatively new at the time.

Matt Hall: And it is popular... how many copies are out there?

Christopher Roden: The first edition of the Baker Street File came out in 1997 when we’d just moved to Canada where my wife Barbara Roden was from, and we would have printed 500 copies in the first edition. It was one of only two books that we ran a second printing of, and the second edition would almost certainly have had a run of 500 also - to print less in an edition wasn’t economically viable.

Matt Hall: And what was the other Calabash book that needed a second run?

Christopher Roden: That was a Granada series-related book too! It was David Stuart Davies’ ‘Bending the Willow’ which had 2500 copies printed in the first run, along with a second and third print run also.

Matt Hall: So perhaps in obvious question for the Baker Street File is: why not a third edition? There's clearly appetite.

Christopher Roden: I’m sure we probably could have sold a few thousand more books, but the time came for Calabash Press to close. It was a 15 hours-a-day job and the time came to end. We never had the response with Calabash I would have liked to see. Some books we published I thought would have gone well such as the Case Files series, and they didn’t sell well, and printing costs were increasing dramatically in the early 2000s. Distribution was a problem as well with book stores and dealers closing down. So we won't see a third printing.

Matt Hall: Reflecting on your experiences with Sherlockian publishing, what do you believe contributes to the enduring popularity and demand for copies of the Baker Street File?

Christopher Roden: I believe the enduring popularity of the Baker Street File is a testament to the timeless appeal of both Sherlock Holmes, and the Granada series. The interest in Sherlockiana continues to thrive, keeping the legacy alive for generations to come. I'm glad he Baker Street File will continue to be a part of that legacy.

Matt Hall: Thanks so much for sharing some of the story behind the Baker Street File!

Finally, Gus Holwerda shared quite a bit more text than I was able to quite in the article (again, darned word count limit!) so I'm sharing that original text here also.

I first learned of the Baker Street File (as I am sure many have) while reading Michael Cox’ excellent chronicle of his work on the Granada series.  I remember my eyes perking up at the prospect that this document could be obtained and I immediately tossed the book aside, diving into internet search engines like a sleuth-hound on a fresh scent.  I have only recently become aware of how lucky I was to procure a copy so easily from Baskerville Books in the UK for a total of just £23, including shipping to the US.  It has since become one of my most treasured articles of Granada-related memorabilia. 

It is a pity that the BSF is not more easily available today, particularly for new actors and writers seeking to bring the Great Detective to the screen in updated iterations.  If more productions had access to this document, it could serve as an easy tool to add significant (and, too often, lacking) authenticity to the bevy of current adaptations.  One would think that conducting similar research would be a joyful exercise for creatives bringing Baker Street back to the airwaves, but sadly it seems that most of these delicious details are either discarded, re-written, or simply ignored in the current crop filmic endeavors - usually to their own detriment.  Perhaps the world is finally ready for another canonically respected outing of Holmes and Watson to rival the work of Cox, Davies and Granada, and we will finally see the canon completed on screen by a new team equally as devoted to the work of Doyle as were those original trailblazers in the 1980s.  But I digress.

The truth is that no matter how professional and skilled a production team might be, it would be asking quite a lot for the entire crew to read every Holmes tale written by Doyle and to retain the pertinent details.  The commissioning of this small tome for the benefit of series regulars and guests alike was just one example of the genius of Michael Cox.  He somehow managed to distill the bits of greatest importance to the fidelity of the work into a pocket-sized reference guide that could inform actors, writers, directors, wardrobe people, make-up artists, and set-builders alike. 

When my co-hosts and I visited with David Burke (who portrayed Dr. Watson opposite Jeremy Brett in 1984-85) back in 2022, we were lucky enough to peek inside David’s copy of the Baker Street File.  A number of passages were ear marked, but the one that heralded the most noticeable pen-stroke in its margin was note #877 from the Three Garridebs which read “It was worth a wound – it was worth many wounds – to know the depth of loyalty and love which lay behind that cold mask.”  Mr. Burke took that passages to heart as he created his interpretation of the good doctor and I think it shows in his performance. 

The impact of the Baker Street File cannot be understated.  Its implementation informs and heightens every aspect of Granada’s finished product.  I think true fans of the stories can sense the effect of that exquisite knowledge behind the eyes of Jeremy Brett, David Burke, Edward Hardwicke, and the other personalities who inhabited the show.  While each and every detail compiled for the BSF may not present itself front-and-center on screen, it is all there beneath the surface for those interested in peeling back the layers.

2025 blog in review

This is a brief post to look at 2025 for this blog - a brief year in review. I've previously looked at the first year of the blog and found it useful to review what was accomplished.

Let's look at the most-read blog posts in 2025 (and trust me, we aren't talking huge number here). First, I posted 68 (sixty eight) times in 2025. I have to say I am surprised to find I posted more than once-a-week. 

What has been 'popular'? I don't share every blog post on social media - for me that's Bluesky @221bcooee.bsky.social , and the Facebook page 'The Stranger's Room' for Sherlockians - but posts I do share get many more views.

Here are the five most viewed blog posts this year:

1. June 2025: Untangling the skein

This post includes a description of my finding of a letter by Conan Doyle in 1885 with the first reference to the first Sherlock Holmes story 'A Study in Scarlet'. The letter is held by the State Library of New South Wales (SLNSW). The article was published in the 'Sherlock Holmes Journal'. There were a series of blog posts afterwards that transcribed the four letters held by the SLNSW.

While only six months old, this post is already the most-read post on my blog.

2. October 2024: Tucked in the back - a philately connection

Even though I'm only assessing 2025 views, the second most-read post was from 2024. This short post describes a copy of Susan Rice's 'A Compound Of Excelsior' that included special stamps in the back.

3. August 2025: Watson's Tin Box meeting brief report - 18 August 2025

After each Watson's Tin Box meeting, I write up a report of the meeting. That includes the agenda, and I try to capture the discussion of the story, describe the Evidence Box on display, and make a brief report of the guest presentation. I try to include photos, and capture any fun elements.

4. April 2025: My Musgrave Monograph monomania - third (and final) version

This article is the culmination of my effort to catalog and collect all of the Musgrave Monographs published by the Northern Musgraves. Along the way I sorted out a couple of 'not monograph' publications from the Northern Musgraves also. 

5. September 2025: Edgar W. Smith's output

So glad this was read - like number 4 above - this post was the first step in cataloging and showing covers of all the publications by Edgar W Smith and his Pamphlet House. 

Was there a post I'm surprised was not more popular? I'll choose two, a Sherlockian and a Doylean:

1. Charles Blasson, Doyle's Boer war dresser and secretary. This post compiled information about Blasson, and his time spend with Doyle. I looked at Blasson partly because of other research on Doyle's time in South Africa, but was glad to take this diversion into the life of a young man who lost his life in the service of his country.

2. A walking tour of Martin Beck's Stockholm. This is very left-field for my blog, but I really love the Martin Beck novels, and the Beck books are set in the true Stockholm of the time (just like Holmes in London). I hope over time people visiting Stockholm (or living there!) will find the post and have a chance to visit some of the sites. 

So what about 2026 and the blog? 

Well one thing I enjoy is being able to post the text of my articles here once they've been published. I have a few articles that I know are coming along in 2026, and look forward to sharing them here. I share them on the blog to allow as many people as possible to read them - I know it's hard to subscribe to multiple journals, buy all the books, and then once a book is sold out it is rare and even more expensive.

I'll also continue creating meeting reports - for Watson's Tin Box, and for other meetings I attend. I hope those stand as a useful record, and taking photographs is a nice way to show to others who may be curious what a meeting is like. I hope through these posts that people who are curious can learn more about what meetings are like, and take the plunge to join in.

Quite a few of my posts are 'finds' - tidbits or observations from newspapers and other primary sources that I find interesting or entertaining.

Where did you get that hat?

The latest Passengers' Log, from the Sydney Passengers, has arrived.  If you aren't already a member, you should be - you can join here: http://www.sherlock-holmes.au and it includes a subscription to this wonderful journal.

The latest issue includes a follow-up article on The Dancing Men photograph from Western Australia. In the first article I studied the photographer of the photograph to help confirm that Lakeside near Boulder/Kalgoorlie was the location of the photographs.

In this follow-up I describe the finding of a second Dancing Men photograph, and the location of the original. Along with the journal, I included a limited-edition postcard designed by my good friend Kyle Brimacombe, showing the original photograph, and portraits of each man posed in the photograph.

 

Posted here is the original submitted texts. There are likely some editorial errors.

Where did you get that hat?
Matthew D. Hall

The August 1904 issue of the Strand magazine lead its Curiosities section with a Sherlockian submission (Figure 1). These dancing miners represent the first organized Sherlockian activity documented. The answer to the question - the name of the mine location - was never answered in later issues of the Strand. However, Sherlockian research published in the Passenger's Log over the years has showed that the men as posed spelt the word 'LACESIGE'. There was no 'K' present in the original canonical cipher, and it is assumed a hard 'C' was substituted providing us with 'LAKESIGE'. The 'G' is in fact meant to be a 'D', as the two letters have mirrored cipher symbols. And so we have 'LAKESIDE'. Further work in the Passenger’s Log had identified a number of possible locations for Lakeside, but no categorical answer existed. 

Figure 1. “WHAT IS THE NAME OF THE MINE? Some miners in Australia have adapted the cipher of "The Dancing Men" given in the Sherlock Holmes story published in THE STRAND MAGAZINE for December, 1903, and have spelt out the name of their mine as shown in the photograph. Can our readers give the name of the mine? The photograph was sent to Sir A Conan Doyle, Undershaw, Hindhead, Haslemere.”

I recently published an article analyzing the photographer of that photo, H. Grose, in an effort to determine where the photo was taken. Henry Herman Grose (1874-1918) practised as a professional photographer in the arid Karlgoorlie and Boulder region of Western Australia, where a gold rush had led to rapid settlement in the area around ten years before the photograph was taken. Contemporary newspapers contain photographs taken by Grose at the nearby mining location of Lakeside, such as the day shift crew at the Leviathan Battery and Cyanide Plant.
When I was in London in 2024, climbing the stairs at the ‘Sherlock Holmes’ pub to gaze in at the 221B sitting room recreation, I was excited to notice a photo of the famous 'dancing men' on the wall of the stairway. I absent-mindedly took a photo on my phone, impressed that the Australian miners were being shown so far from home, and continued up the stairs.
  

Figure 2. The framed photograph on the stairway of the ‘Sherlock Holmes’ pub, London. 

That evening I had a chance to review the framed photograph (Figure 2). It revealed in great detail the miners, and looked like an original photograph. Affixed to the glass was a circular label stamped with the number 18, and underneath was a legend:
"THE DANCING MEN a photograph. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle on a lecture tour of the United States, was greeted at one town by these men forming letters from the code deciphered by Sherlock Holmes in The Adventure of the Dancing Men."
What? Americans!?! Something is wrong. How did the photograph end up in the pub, and how did these Brits get it so wrong and mis-label the most important Sherlockian gathering EVER, stealing the credit those Australian miners deserve? I was flummoxed, and resolved to understand this historical error.

"A comparison of photographs has proved conclusively" 
(The Adventure of the Second Stain)

Things became more confusing when comparing the Sherlock pub photo with published Strand photograph (Figure 3). The pub photo is understandably more clear than the small grainy Strand photo. Both have the same background, the same word is being ciphered by the same people. But wait - when we look closer, what has happened to the hats? In the Strand the dancing miners wear hats (except the gentleman balancing on his head), but in the photograph at the ‘Sherlock Holmes’, they are hatless! One plausible hypothesis is that someone at the Strand manipulated the photo for publication by adding hats. Do we have a prequel to the Cottingley scandal? No. Close inspection reveals that the miners are in slightly different positions, and one or two hats can be seen on the ground in the 'hatless' photo. 
 

Figure 3. A comparison of the Strand Magazine photograph in August 1904, and the ‘Sherlock Holmes’ pub photograph.

The conclusion then must be that two photographs were posed and taken by H.H. Grose, and mailed to Doyle. Having gone to the bother of setting up the scene, a photographer in 1904 would have certainly taken more than one exposure to ensure a good-quality photo. Doyle provided the photograph of the miners in hats to the Strand Magazine for publication, and retained the other. There are no archival holdings from this period of operations of the Strand Magazine, so that original is considered lost.

What of the hatless photograph then? Does the ‘Sherlock Holmes’ in London have an original photograph that was sent to Doyle?

A large number of items on display in the ‘Sherlock Holmes' pub were originally displayed in the 1951 Sherlock Holmes exhibition in London, but the Dancing Miners photograph is not in the catalog for that exhibition. The following year (1952), Adrian Conan Doyle organized a follow-on Sherlock exhibition in New York. This American exhibition used many items from the London exhibition, and some new items were included. The framed Dancing Men photograph was one of the items exhibited for the first time in New York. The catalog of the American exhibition catalog lists it as item number 143: ‘THE DANCING MEN: a photograph. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, one a lecture tour of the United States, was greeted as one town by these men forming letters from the code deciphered by Sherlock Holmes in The Adventure of the Dancing Men.’ The item is in Section VI of the exhibition, that contains many items with American connections, such as a wood inlay of two profiles of Sherlock Holmes made by Jay Finlay Christ lent by Vincent Starrett, and a poker-work drawing of Sherlock Holmes sent to ACD by ‘an ardent admirer’ in 1903.

After these exhibitions, items went into storage, and then many items from the 1951 and 1952 exhibitions were loaned as part of the ‘collection in the bars and the grill room and in the reconstruction of part of the living room at 221B Baker Street’ at the ‘Sherlock Holmes’ pub when it opened in 1957. The published catalogue of the Sherlock Holmes pub collection indeed lists the photograph as item ’18’ with an identical description to that from the New York catalog of 1952. The hatless  photograph was later reproduced in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Centenary 1859-1959, published by Adrian, and its caption continues the American line: "Local inhabitants of small American town greet Conan Doyle in the style of The Dancing Men from the 'Adventures of Sherlock Holmes’”.

It turns out that the presence of two photographs has been noticed once before ('there is nothing new under the sun’). The 1963 Baker Street Journal contains a report on a meeting of 'The Speckled Band of Boston' scion. The Strand photograph was handed out, and they held a competition to see who could decipher it (presumably without the benefit of the dancing men cipher) and Dr. Dunning won the competition. The meeting report acknowledges a different picture without hats in the 1959 Centenary book, but for some inexplicable reason they did not recognize the Australia v America discrepancy in captions.

“That the piece is genuine is certain”
(The Illustrious Client)

Many documents and items owned by Adrian Conan Doyle are now held by the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Foundation, which he created in 1965 when he moved to the castle of Lucens (the Château de Lucens) in Switzerland. At the same time, he established a Sherlock Holmes museum, originally located in the castle, displaying his recreation of 221B and various documents and items belonging to the Foundation. Following Adrian’s death in 1970, the archives owned by the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Foundation were placed in the Manuscript Department of the Bibliothèque cantonale et universitaire of Lausanne, while the Sherlock Holmes Museum stayed in the castle until it was eventually relocated in another building in Lucens.

Laurence Pernet, who worked at the Conan Doyle archives in Lausanne, stepped in to help. Included in the Lausanne archives are some of the framed pictures that were exhibited in New York in 1952, including the one of the Dancing Miners. It is identical to the framed picture in London, with the caption in a matte window below the picture. Laurence also found the original 'hatless' photo mailed from Australia in the Lucens collection. As produced by H.H. Grose, the photograph is pasted on a brownish cardboard bearing an ink stamp of the photographer’s name on the lower left corner ("H. H. Grose. PHOTO"). Directly beneath the photograph on the card, in what is clearly Arthur Conan Doyle's own hand, is written "The Dancing men" done by Western Americans”. The rear of the cabinet card is blank.

Adrian Conan Doyle is famous for his... 'inaccuracy' when it comes to his father's legacy, so my first reaction to the description of Americans is that it was wishful thinking on the part of Adrian. In fact, it was ACD who got it wrong, and Adrian simply created a legend for the photo for his American exhibition based on his father's note! ACD's memory was on the right track - the photo was taken in Western Australia, not 'Western America’, but in this case his memory had failed him. A little license was taken by Adrian in creating a photo description that describes the men greeting Doyle as he visited a town.
 

Figure 4. The original cabinet card photograph taken by H. H. Grose, and held in the Lucens collection.

"I stepped to my bureau and brought out an enlarged photograph.” 

(The Adventure of the Lions Mane)

A museum-quality scan of the photograph was arranged, that allows the card backing with the 'H. H. Grose' stamp and ACD's handwritten note to be seen for the first time. The resolution from the original allows us to see the faces of these early Sherlockians. Four men wear waistcoats, three have moustaches, and their expressions present a combination of smiles and focus. Our 'D' can be flipped, revealing his head resting on a blanket on the ground, with his feet and an arm behind his back supporting himself against the well. Several hats can be spotted, cast aside for the second photograph. While many photographs taken by Grose appear in newspapers at the time, including of miners working at Lakeside, those printed photographs are of poor resolution. 
 

Figure 5. Portraits of the eight Australian Dancing Miners.

There is one more note to make regarding our dancing miners. Many photographs of mine employees were published in Kalgoorlie area newspapers. For example, the Kalgoorlie Western Argus regularly published collections of photographs and advertised them in other newspapers, but in most cases the very large groups doesn’t allow for easily distinguishing individuals. Its edition of 17 March 1903 included a photo captioned ‘Official Staff, Lakeside’ of five men wearing hats. The following year (21 Jun 1904) the Argus again published a photo of the five official staff (Figure 6). In these photographs we find some of our Lakeside Dancing Miners, and quite probably all five. Frustratingly, there are no captions naming the men in the newspaper, but it both confirms Lakeside as the location of the photos, and lays the foundation for finding names for our first Sherlockians.

Figure 6. Illustrations of ‘Official Staff, Lakeside’ from the Kalgoorlie Western Argus, 17 March 1903 (center upper) and 21 Jun 1904 (center lower). At left and right are comparisons of men from the official staff photographs, with the Dancing Miners photograph.

The bottom line. The original photograph of the Dancing Miners wearing hats published in the Strand Magazine in 1904 is likely lost. Excitingly, the original of a  second photograph (without hats) sent to Arthur Conan Doyle at the same time exists in Lucens. It was retained by ACD and at some point he mis-labeled it. It passed along to Adrian, who probably selected it for exhibition based on its American connections. The eight Dancing Miners may still be anonymous, but now we can see these Australians - they are no longer grainy faces in the 1904 Strand Magazine. They smile at us from their home in Lucens, and from the wall of 'The Sherlock Holmes' in London, perhaps a little happier now that the record has been corrected, and the world knows they are 'Western Australians'.

Acknowledgements. Thanks to a number of Sherlockians who went out of their way to provide advice. Bill Barnes of the Sydney Passengers (Australia), and Peter Blau of the Red Circle (USA) directed me to Jean Upton, Catherine Cooke and Roger Johnson of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London. They provided wonderful insight into the 1951 and 1952 exhibitions, and advice on where to look next. Massive thanks to Laurence Pernet (Switzerland) whose encyclopedic knowledge of their collection was so helpful in identifying the original Dancing Men photograph in their collection.