Sunday, March 30, 2025

Sherlockian England, 2025.

I've been on a Spring Break trip to England. First in the 'West Country' (Somerset) for four days, and then two days in York, and finally four day sin London. This post gathers a number of items Sherlockian that I came across along the way.

It lead me to wonder - when does York get a mention in the canon? Well - yes, and also sort of. There was nothing Sherlockian in Somerset - I went to Bath but Sherlock took Turkish baths, not Roman ones.

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And so you York.....

The word 'York' makes 24 appearances in the Canon. However, twenty of these are references to New York, and one is a reference to the 'Duke of York' in His Last Bow.

The only direct reference to York appears in Hound of the Baskervilles, when Sherlock is explaining the back-story of Jack Stapleton and how he plotted to kill off the remaining Baskervilles, in order to get the inheritance money that would come from the estate.


Technically only one quote relates to the city of York:


"I have come prepared to do so," said Holmes, drawing several papers from his pocket. "Here is a photograph of the couple taken in York four years ago. It is indorsed 'Mr. and Mrs. Vandeleur,' but you will have no difficulty in recognizing him, and her also, if you know her by sight."


Two other references are made to the county of Yorkshire in relation to relating the Stapleton's story (who operated in Yorkshire under the name Vandeleur).


"....he changed his name to Vandeleur and fled to England, where he established a school in the east of Yorkshire."


"I learned at the British Museum that he was a recognized authority upon the subject, and that the name of Vandeleur has been permanently attached to a certain moth which he had, in his Yorkshire days, been the first to describe."

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While in York, I had the delightful opportunity to meet one half of the Doings of Doyle podcast. It was an honor to meet Paul Chapman, and discuss Doyle, the wonderful podcast, and learn more about the Northern Musgraves.


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After York, we travelled by train directly to London - and the trip made me reflective.... 


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In London, I didn't think there were too many things for me to hunt down, given my previous Sherlockian post on London from a previous visit in 2023, and observation on the Artist's Colourmen, and reflections on Paddington Station.

I should admit that I've never been into the Sherlock Holmes museum on Baker St ..... but I'm sure I will some year. 

Nevertheless there were a couple of Conan Doyle sites of importance that I decided to visit.

But my first stop was at the British Museum, to meet up with the OTHER HALF of the Doings of Doyle podcast - Mark Jones. We talked of bookstores and bookhunting, Doyle and his letters, and the Dancing Men. It was a delightful few hours well-spent.

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And so - once in London there were two places to visit.

First was an evening walk to the Langham Hotel. The story of the Langham Hotel is well known. It was here that Doyle had his 'Golden Day' in 1889 when Lippincott’s Magazine editor Stoddart hosted Doyle and Oscar Wilde at a dinner at the hotel. That dinner resulted in the second Sherlock novel (The Sign of the Four) being written for publication in that magazine, and also Wilde's novel The Picture of Dorian Gray.



The hotel looked resplendent, with highly effective lighting, and based on other photos of the hotel it appeared the brick-word had been cleaned. I did enter the hotel foyer but it was clear that it had been radically altered in the entrance area. Up on that wall is a plaque that I wanted to see - a little out of the way....


City of Westminster
Oscar Wilde and Arthur Conan Doyle
Dined here with the publisher of 'Lippincott's Magazine'
on 30 August 1889, a meeting that led to
'The Sign Of Four' & 'The Picture of Dorian Gray'
Sherlock Holmes Society of London
Oscare Wilde Society

Doyle referenced the Langham three times in the Canon.

1. Mary Morstan's father was last seen at the Langham in The Sign of Four (1890)

In the year 1878 my father, who was senior captain of his regiment, obtained twelve months’ leave and came home. He telegraphed to me from London that he had arrived all safe, and directed me to come down at once, giving the Langham Hotel as his address. His message, as I remember, was full of kindness and love. On reaching London I drove to the Langham, and was informed that Captain Morstan was staying there, but that he had gone out the night before and had not yet returned.

2. Count Von Kram was staying there in A Scandal in Bohemia (1891)

"Oh, then we have three days yet," said Holmes with a yawn. "That is very fortunate, as I have one or two matters of importance to look into just at present. Your Majesty will, of course, stay in London for the present?"

"Certainly. You will find me at the Langham under the name of the Count Von Kramm."

3. The Hon. Philip Green stayed there in The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax (1911)

"That is for us to find out," said Sherlock Holmes with peculiar gravity. "What is your London address, Mr. Green?"

"The Langham Hotel will find me."

and

Three times had our bearded friend from the Langham called for news--the third time within an hour of this fresh development.

The first reference is particularly nice, given the importance of the hotel to Doyle's career. But I realize now it makes another point to the English reader: the hotel is now, as it was then, a very high-end hotel. As such, the fact Col. Morstan was staying at The Langham gives a clue to the reader that he has a significant amount of money.

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Finally, I decided to visit Doyle's home around 1891. Not long after his fateful dinner at the Langham, Doyle moved from Southsea to London. As he describes in Memories and Adventures:

I searched the doctors’ quarters and at last found suitable accommodation at 2 Devonshire Place, which is at the top of Wimpole Street and close to the classical Harley Street. There for £120 a year I got the use of a front room with part use of a waiting room. I was soon to find that they were both waiting rooms, and now I know that it was better so. Every morning I walked from the lodgings at Montague Place, reached my consulting room at ten and sat there until three or four, with never a ring to disturb my serenity.

And so I too walked up Wimpole Street to number 2 Upper Wimpole Street. 



 

A couple of points about the building. First, the door happened to be open so I could step inside. There is a small entrace room, with a second dor (also open) that allowed me to enter. The door to Doyle's room would have been at the right, and presumably have looked out the windows to the right of the front door. The fan-light was impressive, but looking at the Canon I could find not mention of a fan-light directly. Also, while Doyle's waiting rooms were on the ground floor (street level), I can confirm there were more than seventeen steps to reach the first floor.


Westminster City Council
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Author
1859-1930
Worked and wrote here in 1891
Arthur Conan Doyle Society

To emphasize - Doyle worked at Upper Wimpole Street (or tried to) and wrote here while waiting for patients who never arrived. He lived at Montague Place behind the British Museum with his family.


And so, two wonderful Doyle sites were visited and enjoyed, and some wonderful Doyleans were met on this trip to England.





Wednesday, March 26, 2025

York!! 2025

I've been in the 'West Country' (Somerset) for four days, and am now spending two days in York. It lead me to wonder - when does York get a mention in the canon? Well - yes, and also sort of.

The word 'York' makes 24 appearances in the Canon. However, twenty of these are references to New York, and one is a reference to the 'Duke of York' in His Last Bow.

The only direct reference to York appears in Hound of the Baskervilles, when Sherlock is explaining the back-story of Jack Stapleton and how he plotted to kill off the remaining Baskervilles, in order to get the inheritance money that would come from the estate.


Technically only one quote relates to the city of York:


"I have come prepared to do so," said Holmes, drawing several papers from his pocket. "Here is a photograph of the couple taken in York four years ago. It is indorsed 'Mr. and Mrs. Vandeleur,' but you will have no difficulty in recognizing him, and her also, if you know her by sight."


Two other references are made to the county of Yorkshire in relation to relating the Stapleton's story (who operated in Yorkshire under the name Vandeleur).


"....he changed his name to Vandeleur and fled to England, where he established a school in the east of Yorkshire."


"I learned at the British Museum that he was a recognized authority upon the subject, and that the name of Vandeleur has been permanently attached to a certain moth which he had, in his Yorkshire days, been the first to describe."



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Saturday, March 22, 2025

A Conan Doyle letter

UPDATED. I took the plunge recently and managed to buy a letter written by Arthur Conan Doyle. I'll have it put in a frame. Let's take a look at it. It's a single sheet of watermark vellum paper that measures 7 in. x 4 1/2 in. There is foxing (those are the brown spots) and the letter has been folded in half.


Transcript

Connie's
Thursday Wednesday May 2nd
My Dear Clara,
Very many thanks for your kind
letter. I shall meet Stratten at the 5.5. (I have
an afternoon appointment as well) and come
back with him next morning (I have a lunch
engagement). I am looking forward to seeing
you both immensely.
Yours very cordially,
A Conan Doyle
Touie can't get about much but is very jolly.


There are several points of context we can determine for this letter.

The letter is addressed from 'Connie's'. That is Constance Amelia Monica Doyle (1868-1924), Arthur's sister. She married E.W. Hornung in 1893, they had a son in 1895, and by 1901, Connie was living in Kensington, London. ACD says "I am looking forward to seeing you both", suggesting Connie was already married.

Many Doyle letters have no date. Here, we at least have day and day/month information - but no year. A latest date for the letter can be inferred from the statement 'Touie can't get about much but is very jolly'. Doyle's wife Louisa Hawkins (whom he called 'Touie') died in July 1906, so the years that match 'Thursday May 2nd' during which Touie was alive are 1895 and 1901. 

The letter is addressed to Clara. Doyle had a sister-in-law named Clara, but she didn't marry John Francis Innes Hay Doyle (called Innes) till 1911, and so it is not her. Clara is very likely the wife of 'Stratten' - this particularly makes sense in the context of the letter.

So, who is Stratten? It can be inferred that he was to meet with ACD at the 5:50 train ("5.5" - or does that mean 5:30? or 5:50?) to head into London together. I shared this blog post on social media asking 'Who is Stratten?' and 'Selv' came back with the answer.

Stratten Boulnois was a succesful English businessman, but I was surprised how little information I could find. Selv noted that 'they were both on the board of the Horniman Museum in SE London'. Boulbois was Chairman of the Board from 1895 to 1912, and Doyle continued on the board till at least 1917. Electoral registers show that Boulnois lived in Chertsey (Surrey), which means he could easily meet Doyle on his train line from Haslemere (near his home of Hindhead). 

Sratten and Doyle must have been quite close. When Doyle married Jean Leckie on Wednesday September 18, 1907 at St. Margaret's Westminster, the Evening Standard reported that only old friends and relations were invited. Among the old friends were 'Colonel and Mrs. Stratton Boulnois'. 

To close the loop on this letter - it is addressed to Clara. Censuses and the Probate Calendar for Stratten Boulnois' deah in 1912 show that his wife's name was Clara. Clara W Stringfield married Stratten on February 4 1888 at the British Consul-General in Florence, Italy. The ACD Encyclopedia notes that Doyle's youngest sister Ida received £500 and jewelry from the Clara Boulnois' will in1920.

So this letter from Doyle was to Clara, wife of Stratten Boulnois. Given how unwell Touie is, the letter was likely written in 1901.

Saturday, March 15, 2025

Red Circle origns

Newspapers can be a wonderful source of information, and it's surprising how often Sherlockian scions received attention. As my home scion, I found myself wondering about the earliest articles on Red Circle. There's a good history of the Red Circle on its web page. 


Times Herald
Washington, District of Columbia . Fri, Nov 16, 1951


Quick Watson, The Irregulars Will Needle Holmes Tonight

There are mystery fans who naively believe Sherlock Holmes is merely a fictional character created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle but any member of the Baker Street Irregulars could set them straight at the drop of a gasogene. 

To the Irregulars Sherlock Holmes is a real person who still is very much alive. And the tales of his sleuthing exploits they explain were actually written by his assistant Watson, Arthur Conan being only a pen name. 

Organized many years by Christopher Morley and a group of friends the Baker Street Irregulars are members of probably the largest fan club of its kind in the world. It Is certainly the most unique: sole requisite for membership is a sincere devotion and loyalty to the Baker Street detective.

Chapters of the parent organization are to be found in nearly everv maior American city. Each chapter is named for some incident or episode in the Sherlock Holmes saga. In Washington the Irregulars call their chapter the "Red Circle" named for the story in which Holmes deals with a branch of the Sicilian "Black Hand" gang. 

The Baltimore chapter is called the "Six Napoleons" after the story in which a jewel thief hides his loot jn one of six statues' of Napoleon (Holmes of course solved the case). And tonight at the Army Navy Club Farragut Square and I St NW the Washington and Baltimore chapters will meet in the first formal dinner to be held by the Red Circle group.

The name of the parent organization is taken from the name given by Holmes the street urchins whom he often employed to aid him in capturing criminal quarries. He referred to his modest little army as "Baker Street Irregulars". 

They're Irregulars. And they still are. The only thing most members have in common is a love of literature in general and of Sherlock Holmes in particular. In the Washington chapter for example are such men as Stephen F. Crocker, Professor at the University of West Virginia; Dr. David C. Mearns, assistant librarian of Congress ; Walter Trohan, chief of the Chicago Tribune's Washington bureau ; and Robert Wrigley, geografer for the census bureau.

As to the "gasogene" mentioned above that is the title conferred on chapter presidents. A gasogene as explained in one of the Holmes books is the old English version of the American seltzer siphon. Gasogene of the Red Circle chapter is Sven Petersen. National head of the Irregulars is Edgar W. Smith of New York vice president of General Motors Corp in charge of exports. He will attend the meeting tonight. Chief diversion at meetings of the Irregulars is - you guessed it - talking about Sherlock Holmes. Members take great pride in their ability to recognize almost any quotation from the Holmes books.

Where to Find It. "Tell me" one member might ask "who referred to The Star Spangled Banner as 'Columbine's Bannock"? "That's easy" would probably be the reply "that was a British bobby who heard a man singing the American national anthem and in identifying it got the name twisted up". 

There are some standing arguments however which may never be resolved but which supply constant fuel for conversation in any Holmesian group. One is the question of whether Watson while serving in the army was wounded in the shoulder or the leg. References to both wounds are found in different places in Holmes stories and one argument seems as strong as the other. The controversy rages and a quarterly magazine The Baker Street is published for the express purpose of keeping Holmes fans up to date on the latest developments in this and other arguments.

Among other Washington members at tonight's meeting will be Col Ross L Hunter (ret.), Dr. Gordden Link, adviser at the Pentagon; Felix Morley brother of Christopher Morley; John O'Donnell of the Washington bureau of the New York News; and Isaac George, secretary of the St Vincent de Paul society.


Times Herald
Washington, District of Columbia · Sunday, March 08, 1953

Mr. Svend Petersen of Takoma Park, Md., wants to know "...If there are any Sherlock Holmes devotees who may want to join the Red Circle.:
In case you thought the Red Circle was a "front" organization, it's part of the "Baker Street Irregulars," the Sherlock Holmes enthusiasts who meet to talk about their favorite detective... While the parent group invites only men to its dinners, the local group welcomes women.


Evening star
Washington, DC Wed, Jan 19, 1955

THE WHAT CIRCLE?

There is an item of news that no man in his right mind would hesitate to pass along in these times. As Hank Fort's witty song says, don't tell Joe - but an organization known as the Red Circle will assemble here tomorrow night. It will be no clandestine meeting either. Members of the Red Circle are planning to hold their brazen gathering right out in public, in the Caribar Room of the Sheraton Park Hotel.

Some of the names associated with the Red Circle might surprise you. Among those listed to attend this function are John O'Donnell, anti-FDR columnist of the New York News; Walter Trohan, Chicago Tribune; Felix Morley, Dean Henry Grattan Doyle and Elmer Davis. There will be less surprise, however, if you will stop laughing at the thought of Mr. O'Donnell being a member of the Red anything, long enough to learn what the Red Circle really is.

It is the local outpost of a law-abiding and highly respected organization known as the Baker Street Irregulars and you know who the Irregulars are. The meeting of the Washington group tomorrow will be for the purpose of inspecting a couple of installments in a new TV film series, "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes." The detective yarns, filmed in England by Producer Sheldon Reynolds ("Foreign Intrigue") already have been approved by the Baker Street Irregulars. The WRC management hopes the Washington segment of the group will do the same for the series before it starts next Monday at 7 on WRC-TV.


The Washington Daily News
Mon, Jan 24, 1955


The New Sherlock Laughs It Up

BASIL RATHBONE can hang up his deerstalker and magnifying glass if he so desires, and I think he does. A compelling and eminently satisfying new Sherlock Holmes is in our midst, as of 7 o'clock tonight, WRC-4.

As a matter of fact, if Ronald Howard didn't bear such an uncanny resemblance to his late father, Leslie Howard, he could pass for a distant kin of Rathbone's (taking after the fair side of the family).

How does the new Sherlock differ from the others? Basically, I'd estimate that the contribution of young Howard and Yank producer-writer Sheldon Reynolds to the classic concept of the super sleuth is a contemporary sense of humor. If memory serves, and it better, as the Baker Street Irregulars will promptly roar into action, Sherlock wasn't exactly a man given to happy talk.

In fact, he was pretty much a cold fish.

His few sallies were on the academic side, but sly, and usually 20,000 leagues over the heads of his associates.

In the first two installments, which were "previewed" here last week, I caught Sherlock laughing out lead at least twice. The local chapter of the Irregulars, called the Red Circle, remained reasonably calm during this umseemly display and, indeed, applauded loudly at the conclusion, so I guess it's okay. 

Tuesday, March 4, 2025

The other Dr Watson: Dr. Archibald Watson (1849-1940)

The latest Passengers' Log, from the Sydney Passengers, has arrived. 


This is a double-issue, and so I have two articles in this edition. The first is about Henry Hermon Grose, who was the photographer of the Australian 'Dancing Miners' photograph. That information is already on a blog post, and there's a second article coming out soon.



The second article is new, and the fourth in my series of articles providing a short biography of each person ACD mentions meeting in Australia in 'Wanderings of a Spiritualist'. The latest article is a fun one: a "Dr Watson" that Doyle met and described unironically. 


The Passing Acquaintances of Arthur Conan Doyle - Part 4: Dr Watson

During his tour of Australia and New Zealand, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle interacted with many people, and spoke to tens of thousands in his audiences. Yet ACD’s book describing the tour, ’The Wanderings of a Spiritualist’, mentions relatively few people by name . This article is the fourth in a series that shines a light on those people ACD mentions by name on his visit. Why did ACD choose to mention those that he did? Who were these Australians? The biosketches presented aim to address these questions, and point to more detailed resources. 


Like the previous (third) article on Mr Thomas in Adelaide , the fourth individual required a small amount of research to identify. Doyle describes a dinner with a group of doctors:


"The Adelaide doctors entertained me to dinner, and I was pleased to meet more than one who had been of my time at Edinburgh. They seemed to be a very prosperous body of men. There was much interesting conversation, especially from one elderly professor named Watson, who had known Bully Hayes and other South Sea celebrities in the semi-piratical, black-birding days. He told me one pretty story. They landed upon some outlying island in Carpentaria, peopled by real primitive blacks, who were rounded up by the ships crew on one of the peninsulas which formed the end of the island. These creatures, the lowest of the human race, huddled together in consternation while the white men trained a large camera upon them. Suddenly three males advanced and made a speech in their own tongue which, when interpreted, proved to be an offer that those three should die in exchange for the lives of the tribe. What could the very highest do more than this, and yet it came from the lowest savages. Truly, we all have something of the divine, and it is the very part which will grow and spread until it has burned out all the rest. "Be a Christ!" said brave old Stead. At the end of countless æons we may all reach that point which not only Stead but St. Paul also has foreshadowed."


Watson! And a Dr. Watson at that! Doyle resisted the temptation to comment that he had met a Dr. Watson - surely a feature that all readers of Wanderings would have immediately grasped. The reader is then struck with realization that Dr. Watson is relating to Doyle a horrifying tale of slavery ('blackbirding') in Australia and the Pacific, and that Doyle appears to relate this as a grand old tale of times past. Blackbirding is now recognized as an appalling element of Australian history, the practice of 'kidnapping, tricking, or coercing' indigenous people from various Pacific Islands to work as slaves or poorly paid laborers in the Australian colonies. Bully Hayes (~1829-1877) was an American ships' captain based in Australia who engaged in blackbirding, and was ultimately murdered by his crew .


So who was this Dr. Watson that engaged Doyle so? While it is not explicit in Wanderings, the connection to blackbirding confirms that it was Dr. Archibald Watson (1849-1940), a surgeon considered at the time to be Australia's greatest anatomist. Watson's life truly reads like an adventure story, so remarkable and rich in events that it is far beyond the word limit of this august journal, but certainly rewards investigating (and it is hoped the references provided allow adequate coverage of his varied life). Watson has received an entry in the Australian Dictionary of Biography , numerous academic articles describing his surgical career , a Memorial Lecture exists in his name that has included a biographical seminar and publication , and a recent book 'Painting the Islands Vermillion' examines Watson's life and his role in 'blackbirding' aboard the bright 'Carl' in 1871-2 . 


 

Figure 1. Portrait of Archibald Watson, painted by William Beckwith McInnes (1889-1939), that hangs in the anatomy department at the University of Adelaide.


Watson was born in 1849 in Tarcutta, NSW, to a wealthy pastoralist family and educated in Sydney and then Scotch College in Melbourne. In 1871 Watson arrived in Fiji as his father's agent, and joined the brig Carl on it's 'second voyage' in 1872 to the Solomon Islands. The ship, captained by Joseph Armstrong, went on a kidnapping cruise capturing many natives and shooting at least two. On return to Fiji, the brig was seized by a Royal Navy ship and the crew charged (as this practice was illegal). Watson was among those charged with kidnapping and murder, but he was bailed at considerable expense to the family, and ordered to Australia for trial. Watson fled to England via crossing America, escaping trial and justice. The Captain of the Carl was sentenced to death - later commuted to life - primarily for atrocities on the first voyage of the Carl, during which up to ninety captured 'natives' were appallingly slaughtered.


After arriving in England, Watson studied medicine in Gottingen (graduating 1878) then again in Paris (1880), before living in London where he became a member (1882) and fellow (1884) of the Royal College of Surgeons. In 1883 he went to Egypt as surgeon with Hicks Pasha's Sudan force, then in 1885 Watson returned to Australia, where he was appointed Elder professor of anatomy at the University of Adelaide where he spent the remainder of his career. Watson's notebooks of patients, surgeries and post mortems executed and observed cover the period 1883-1937, are probably unique, and are certainly of great historical importance. He travelled the globe observing leading surgeons, including the Mayo brothers in the US. Watson was a consulting-surgeon during the Boer War in South Africa (1901-1901), and at 65 when the Great War was announced joined the Australian Imperial Forces as consulting-surgeon and pathologist to No. 1 Australian Stationary Hospital at Heliopolis in Egypt (1914-16).


Wealthy and a bachelor, Watson travelled the globe after his retirement in 1919, but not before being present in Adelaide for dinner with Conan Doyle on Thursday, 23 September 1920. While Doyle describes the dinner in Wanderings, there is no contemporary account of the dinner in newspapers. The location of the dinner is not certain, but research by Francesca Zilio of the Museum of South Australia showed that Conan Doyle was proposed as a Honorary Member of the Adelaide Club the day before he arrived (and Watson was a member there), nominated by surgeon Henry Simpson Newland (1873-1969) . Zilio's research also showed that Watson's personal diary (more of which below) affirms he attended "Newland's dinner to Conan Doyle" on Thursday 23rd. That diary page also reveals that exactly one week later on Thursday 30th September, Watson "Went with Dodwell to Conan Doyle's lecture. Raining and cold" - this was Doyle's fourth and final lecture in Adelaide.


Watson's life was one of of intrigue, and as eventful as Conan Doyle's. He was described as an 'erratic, histrionic genius', spoke six languages, visited every corner of the globe from Iceland to China to Russia to the Falkland Islands. He spent time as a seafarer, rode motorcycles, and kept a daily diary that he ordered burnt on his death. Despite this, personal diaries survived and show that 'He recorded details of his paramours... he entered the names in Greek, his sexual experiences in Fijian and his actions often in variations of a coloured Maltese cross’ . A notorious story from his surgical days exemplifies his reputation as a bodysnatcher. Watson was following the treatment of a patient 'J.W.A.' who died after suffering for years with the rare disease myositis ossificans progesiva that results in the crippling fusion of bones in the body. During the autopsy, Watson secretly removed the entire torso, arms, and thighs of this rare skeletal example, leaving only the skin which he stuffed with padding and an opened umbrella. When the body was cremated the umbrella was discovered - and scandal only just prevented. That skeleton is still on display at the Adelaide Medical School.


Watson spent his final years living on Thursday Island (the northernmost point in Australia), where he died on 30 July 1940 aged 91. He was buried there and his headstone reads "In Memory of Professor A. Watson MD FRCS LSA, late of Adelaide University” (Figure 2).





Figure 2. Photograph of the headstone of Archibald Watson, located at Thursday Island Cemetery, Queensland .


And so to the irresistible Sherlockian aspect. The Dr. Watson who is the subject of this article first met Dr. Conan Doyle in 1920 - Doyle certainly does not suggest they had met previously. However, Archibald was living in London for several years prior to the formulation of the first Sherlock Holmes story. Let us focus for a moment on Archibald Watson's time in London. In late 1880 Watson was listed as passing the Royal College of Surgeons exam , and in January 1882 he was noted as being admitted as a member of the RCS . Watson first appeared in the medical register in 1883, address 154 Euston Rd, having been registered 31 January 1882, with the qualifications 'Lic. Soc. Apoth. Lond. 1880 ; Mem. R. Coll. Surg. Eng. 1882’ . The entry for 1884 is identical, and for 1885 onwards Watson is listed living in Adelaide. In December 1884 it was announced that Watson was a Fellow of the RCS .


In 1992, the Adelaide pathologist Dr. Philip W. Allen spoke at the Historical Society of South Australia on the topic of 'A Sherlock Holmes Approach to Dr. Watson’ . The presentation was not Sherlockian in nature, but actually an investigation into the life of Archibald Watson, though Allen did speculate that ACD and Archibald Watson could have intersected in London.


Watson moved in London circles with men who studied with Conan Doyle. While in London, Watson was demonstrator of anatomy at Charing Cross Hospital Medical School. Watson's surgical diaries reveal that he observed surgeries conducted by Joseph Lister . Lister revolutionized surgery with his implementation of sterile technique, and had arrived in London from Edinburgh in early 1877 (where Doyle was six months into medical school), where he had been a colleague of Joseph Bell. Did word reach ACD of an eccentric Australian surgeon named Dr. Watson? Did ACD perhaps meet Archibald Watson on a visit to London, or hear of his tales of "the side of a hill near Ballarat, where the prospectors had been at work"? Perhaps it is a not a coincidence that in the Hound of the Baskervilles, James Mortimer, M.R.C.S. had been 'house-surgeon, from 1882 to 1884, at Charing Cross Hospital' - exactly when Archibald Watson had studied there! Opportunities for Archibald Watson to have influenced Doyle's creation of his own Dr. John Watson abound.


When Archibald Watson was appointed Elder Professor of Anatomy at the University of Adelaide in 1885, the time and distance of his self-exile had cleaned away the legacy of his involvement in blackbirding, and his avoidance of a criminal trial fourteen years earlier. It was simple stated in newspapers that "London, Jan 7. Dr. Archibald Watson, Senior Demonstrator of Anatomy at the Charing Cross Hospital, leaves for Australia on January 29” . Archibald Watson is not the only intersection between the Doylean world and blackbirding. Ken Methold's Australian pastiche "Sherlock Holmes in Australia: The Adventure of the Kidnapped Kanakas" brings Holmes to Australia and to the experience of a blackbirding raid where natives were "rounded up by the ships crew" - Archibald Watson knew only too well the horrors perpetrated in those raids .


Monday, March 3, 2025

White Rose Irregulars (of Mechanicsurg PA)

On February 22, 2025 I attended my first meeting of the White Rose Irregulars

This scion meets in Mechanicsburg, PA, a town adjacent to Harrisburg, the capital of Pennsylvania. The scion was originally based in York PA, and a dated website shows that was the case as recently as 2015. The scion is led by Denny Dobry, and the agenda normally features lunch, a discussion and quiz on one of the 60 Sherlock Holmes stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a presentation by a member or guest, and announcements of upcoming events.

Here is their magnificent scion pin ; a silhouette of Sherlock in deerstalker and pipe, set over a white rose. The name of the scion puzzled me... while there are certainly references to the rose in the canon, I couldn't find out where the scion name came from, so I checked in with Denny:

"The White Rose Regulars were founded in the late 1980's by Mrs. and Mrs. Kane. They had been members of the the 5th Northumberland Fusiliers (scion) in Pittsburgh.  When they moved to 'YORK' County, PA , they found that there was no Scion Society in the area.  They decided to start one. The next county over was 'LANCASTER'  County.  The Kanes being familiar with British history were immediately reminded of the wars between the House of Lancaster and the House of York which were fought for control of the British Crown. The wars became known as "The War of the Roses"  (1455 - 1487), since  the Lancaster family Badge was a "Red Rose"  and the York family Badge was a "White Rose". If the Kanes had  move to Lancaster County, our Scion would have been "The RED Rose Irregulars".

Brilliant. And so if anyone starts a scion in Lancaster County, PA, please name it the 'Red Rose Irregulars'.

And so I went to my first meeting Marzoni’s Italian restaurant in Mechanicsburg, PA. Denny Dobry led proceedings. Despite the serious look in this photograph, Denny's opening involves a series of outstanding jokes, and he then called for jokes from the floor. About thirty people were present and ready to contribute their own jokes! Here's a joke from one of the attendees:

“I found a dating site for people my age - it’s called carbon dating”

Watson would have loved the jokes. The story discussion for the day was “The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax”. Prior to the discussion, Denny read out a series of REALLY DIFFICULT questions on minutiae in the story, and this was followed by general discussion. I was pleased with the Australian connection of course.

All this was happening while I shoveled food into my mouth.

Next up was the presentation, and this time it was Dana Richards, BSI, ASH. His presentation was titled 'The Fires of Fate: A Morality Play that is Bad Medicine'. The presentation was on Victorian medicine and the condition called 'posterior sclerosis' - a consequence of syphilus. Dana then discussed Doyle's own writings on sclerosis of various types and their mentions in Doyle's works of fiction, and finally reflected on Doyle's own medical thesis submitted to the University of Edinburgh.

If you wish you had seen the talk, fear not - Dana delivered a version of this talk as the 2023 Cameron Hollyer Memorial Lecture at the Toronto Public Library in 2023.

First, the lecture was published as a booklet by the Friends of the ACD Collection and can be purchased here. Second, the presentation in Toronto was recorded and the Youtube channel is shown above.

 


Last but not least, each member of the White Rose Irregulars receives a membership certificate! And so I was presented with mine by Denny. A very nice touch indeed - and another reason for Sherlockians out there to try and get to Mechanicsburg, or Harrisburg, or even York for a meeting some day!

Saturday, February 15, 2025

The John Bennett Shaw bookplate - 1969

I've previously posted about some John Bennett Shaw items I have, which included some of his later Holiday greeting cards from the 1980s and 1990s.

As a continuation, I recently purchased a few items and among them was this gem. It's a Holiday card from 1969, and it launches Shaw's bookplate. Included inside is a pasted-in copy of Shaw's new bookplate. The primary content of the 'card' is an excerpt from the book "The Anatomy of Bibliomania" by Holbrook Jackson. 

The cover title is "On Choosing a Library for a Desert Island" and states "The shelf of the best books: books for pleasure, books for reference, books for mental expansion, books for peace of mind, What books would you choose?"



Inside is the excerpt:

Excerpt from an essay upon this subject taken from "The Anatomy of Bibliomania" by Holbrook Jackson

ON CHOOSING A LIBRARY FOR A DESERT ISLAND

Many have speculated upon which are the best books, and it is no easy matter to come to a conclusion where there are so many claimants ; especially is it difficult to decide upon what books, or book, were we confined to one, we would choose for an imprisonment, or of marooned on a desert island. Since this is a matter of familiar curiosity, what some of them have said upon it I shall briefly recount. The most fortunate of readers who may be forced to bring their libraries down to an irreducible minimum are these one-book-men whom I have discussed in an earlier chapter, for they have made a choice for all occasions. To make an enforced choice has innumerable problems not readily solved. Yet some have adventured, in theory at all events, to that end. Schopenhauer declared that if the Almighty had to stint him to a single book he would choose Helvetius, Mr. Justice McKinnon has put it on record, says Lewis Hind, that if he were cast on a desert island, he would find it difficult to decide between 'Pickwick' and 'Pride and Prejudice'. Compelled to limit himself to the reading of one book, Walter Jerrold would unhesitatingly decide upon Southey's Select Works of the British Poets, which he well class a library in a single volume. Leigh Hunt is divided, among poets, between Shakespeare and Spenser. Were I to sell me library, Diderot wrote, I would keep back Homer, Moses, and Richardson. Those two great Cambridge scholars, Henry Jackson and Henry Sidgwick, if limited to three books would have Shakespeare, Plato, and Aristotle.

Some, as I have shown in my dissertation on Readers of Books, have practised what they preached or preferred, and read one book over and over; but most claim a vaiety, even though it be within prescribed lmiits, as Rovert Southey, whose hypothetical library of twelve English authors contained Shakespeare, Chaucer, Spenser, and Milton; Lord Clarendon; Jackson, Jeremy Taylor, and South; Izaac Walton, Sydney's Arcadia, Fuller's Church History, and Sir Thomas Browne, his Hydriotaphia. Such a collection, he claims would prove an inexhaustible reservoir, a Bank of England, to its possessor. John Ruskin stoutly claimed that every reader who would keep out of the salt swamps of literature in these days of book deluge must seek to live on a little rock island of his own, with a spring and a lake in it, pure and good. Whatever other books would compose that pure and good lake, Homer, Plato, Aeschylus, Herodotus, Dante, Shakespeare, and Spenser would be there. If all the books in the world were in a blaze, the first twelve, Archdeacon Farrer would snatch out of the flames are, the Bible, the Imitatio Christi, Homer, Aeschylus, Thucydides, Tacitus, Virgil, Marcus Aurelious, Dante, Shakespeare, Milton, and Wordsworth; of living authors he would have rescued first Tennyson, Browning, and Ruskin. Edward Fitzgerald claims that in a library there should be only what is enduring and original, for, as Washington Irving puts out in his Sketch Book, when all that is worldly turns to dross around us, these only retain their steady value. Arnold Bennett would not include more than one novel in a list of twenty books for a Desert Island, it would be either The Brothers Karamazov, The Charterhouse of Parma, or The Woodlanders; but he says, Andre Gide, who as a youth made out such a list every quarter, would include no novels. At a banquet given to celebrate the completion of the Oxford Dictionary, Mr. Stanley Baldwin, then Prime Minister, told Professor Craigie that he chose that great work for his desert island reading; I could live with your Dictionary, he said; and he recalled that Lord Oxford not long since had said that if he were cast on a desert island, and could only have one work, he would have the forty volumes of Balzac.


After this, Shaw adds in his own hand:

I have made my choice and here it is pictured on my new Bookplate


 

And now let's itemise John Bennett Shaw BSI's Library for a desert island:
  • The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes
  • The Dachshund Book 
  • The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
  • The Return of Sherlock Holmes
  • The Holy Bible
  • The Atlas of the World
  • His Last Bow
  • The World Alamanac
  • The Valley of Fear
  • Cookery
  • Shakespeare
  • The English Dictionary
  • The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes
  • The SIgn of Four
  • The Constitution of USA
  • Where to Eat and Sleep in America
  • A Study in Scarlet
  • The Hound of the Baskervilles

Distributed as a Holiday Greeting to the Friends of John Bennett Shaw and Sherlock Holmes. Tulsa, Oklahoma, December, a1969


And now for a Sherlockian bibliophile question: 

has anyone ever recreated Shaw's bookplate on a library shelf?

I'll post photos I receive here.


Sherlockian England, 2025.

I've been on a Spring Break trip to England. First in the 'West Country' (Somerset) for four days, and then two days in York, an...