I was pleased to receive the latest issue of the Passenger's Log, the journal of the Sydney Passengers. It contains my second article on the people ACD met in Australia, the first being on Victor Cromer (https://221bcooee.blogspot.com/2023/08/plans-for-articles-on-wanderings-of.html).
This second article is on Thomas P. Bellchambers. I'm slightly embarrassed to say this article in 7 pages long, but it was an absolute delight to write. Thomas P. Bellchambers was an intriguing man who marched to the beat of his own drum. He lived in the Australian bush, protecting animals, communing with nature, and making a modest living for his family. One reason this was enjoyable to research and write is that Doyle's visit to Bellchambers resulted in multiple articles providing different perspectives, and there are some wonderful articles about Thomas, and by him, in Adelaide newspapers. I sourced a book that compiled articles written by Thomas (I have another to find), and was very happy to find a published biography of T P written by his descendants. Best of all, I made a connection with Fran Zilio at the Museum of South Australia as a result of my searches, that led to an enjoyable correspondence.
I recognize that creating biographies of people ACD met in Australia is niche, but I'm pleased to find that I'm shining a light on some intriguing personalities who may not have received attention in decades.
The Passing Acquaintances of Arthur Conan Doyle - Part 2: Thomas P. Bellchambers
Matthew D. Hall
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 second 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.
The second individual mentioned is Thomas Paine Bellchambers (page 68, see Note 1), and he receives a significant amount of attention. What is immediately striking is that ACD sought out a meeting with Bellchambers while in Adelaide, specifically to discover whether someone “who was so near nature might know something of nature's more occult secrets”. ACD outlines the meeting in some detail in his book:
There was one man whom I had particularly determined to meet when I came to Australia. This was Mr. T. P. Bellchambers, about whom I had read an article in some magazine which showed that he was a sort of humble Jeffries or Thoreau, more lonely than the former, less learned than the latter, who lived among the wild creatures in the back country, and was on such terms with our humble brothers as few men are ever privileged to attain. I had read how the eagle with the broken wing had come to him for succour, and how little birds would sit on the edge of his pannikin while he drank. Him at all cost would we see. Like the proverbial prophet, no one I met had ever heard of him, but on the third day of our residence there came a journalist bearing with him a rudely dressed, tangle-haired man, collarless and unkempt, with kind, irregular features and clear blue eyes— the eyes of a child. It was the man himself. "He brought me," said he, nodding towards the journalist. "He had to, for I always get bushed in a town."
This rude figure fingering his frayed cap was clearly out of his true picture, and we should have to visit him in his own little clearing to see him as he really was. Meanwhile I wondered whether one who was so near nature might know something of nature's more occult secrets. The dialogue ran like this:
"You who are so near nature must have psychic experiences."
"What's psychic? I live so much in the wild that I don't know much."
"I expect you know plenty we don't know. But I meant spiritual."
"Supernatural? "
"Well, we think it is natural, but little understood."
"You mean fairies and things? "
"Yes, and the dead."
"Well, I guess our fairies would be black fairies."
"Why not? "
"Well, I never saw any."
"I hoped you might."
"No, but I know one thing. The night my mother died I woke to find her hand upon my brow. Oh, there's no doubt. Her hand was heavy on my brow."
"At the time?"
"Yes, at the very hour."
"Well, that was good."
"Animals know more about such things.' '
"Yes."
"They see something. My dog gets terrified when I see nothing, and there's a place in the bush where my horse shies and sweats, he does, but there's nothing to see."
"Something evil has been done there. I've known many cases."
"I expect that's it."
So ran our dialogue. At the end of it he took a cigar, lighted it at the wrong end, and took himself with his strong simple backwoods atmosphere out of the room. Assuredly I must follow him to the wilds.
This, then, is ACD's first meeting with Bellchambers, presumably at the Grand Central Hotel in Adelaide. ACD then moves on to describe his first lecture in Adelaide, and other activities in Adelaide. A few pages later in Wanderings, ACD returns to Bellchambers, and reveals that he repaid the meeting and did 'visit him in his own little clearing', spending a day with Bellchambers at his nature sanctuary, and providing some insight into the life of Bellchambers.
"I refreshed myself between lectures by going out to Nature and to Bellchambers. As it was twenty-five miles out in the bush, inaccessible by rail, and only to be approached by motor roads which were in parts like the bed of a torrent, I could not take my wife, though the boys, after the nature of boys, enjoy a journey the more for its roughness. It was a day to remember. I saw lovely South Australia in the full beauty of the spring, the budding girlhood of the year, with all her winsome growing graces upon her. The brilliant yellow wattle was just fading upon the trees, but the sward was covered with star-shaped purple flowers of the knot-grass, and with familiar home flowers, each subtly altered by their transportation. It was wild bush for part of the way, but mostly of the second growth on account of forest fires as much as the woodman's axe. Bellchambers came in to guide us, for there is no one to ask upon these desolate tracks, and it is easy to get bushed. Mr. Waite, the very capable zoologist of the museum, joined the party, and with two such men the conversation soon got to that high nature talk which represents the really permanent things of material life—more lasting than thrones and dynasties. I learned of the strange storks, the "native companions" who meet, 500 at a time, for their stately balls, where in the hush of the bush they advance, retreat, and pirouette in their dignified minuets. I heard of the bower birds, who decorate their homes with devices of glass and pebbles. There was talk, too, of the little red beetles who have such cunning ways that they can fertilise the insectivorous plants without being eaten, and of the great ants who get through galvanised iron by the aid of some acid-squirting insect which they bring with them to the scene of their assault. I heard also of the shark's egg which Mr. Waite had raped from sixty feet deep in Sydney Harbour, descending for the purpose in a diver's suit, for which I raised my hat to him. Deep things came also from Bellchambers' store of knowledge and little glimpses of beautiful humanity from this true gentleman.
"Yes," he said, "I am mostly vegetarian. You see, I know the beasts too well to bring myself to pick their bones. Yes, I'm friends with most of them. Birds have more sense than animals to my mind. They understand you like. They know what you mean. Snakes have least of any. They don't get friendly-like in the same way. But Nature helps the snakes in queer ways. Some of them hatch their own eggs, and when they do Nature raises the temperature of their bodies. That's queer."
I carried away a mixed memory of the things I had seen. A blue-headed wren, an eagle soaring in the distance; a hideous lizard with a huge open mouth; a laughing jackass which refused to laugh; many more or less tame wallabies and kangaroos; a dear little 'possum which got under the back of my coat, and would not come out; noisy mynah birds which fly ahead and warn the game against the hunter. Good little noisy mynah! All my sympathies are with you! I would do the same if I could. This senseless lust for killing is a disgrace to the race. We, of England, cannot preach, for a pheasant battue is about the worst example of it. But do let the creatures alone unless they are surely noxious! When Mr. Bellchambers told us how he had trained two ibises—the old religious variety—and how both had been picked off by some unknown local "sportsman" it made one sad.
We had a touch of comedy, however, when Mr. Bellchambers attempted to expose the egg of the Mallee fowl, which is covered a foot deep in mould. He scraped into the mound with his hands. The cock watched him with an expression which clearly said: "Confound the fellow! What is he up to now?" He then got on the mound, and as quickly as Bellchambers shovelled the earth out he kicked it back again, Bellchambers in his good-humoured way crying "Get along with you, do!" A good husband is the Mallee cock, and looks after the family interests. But what we humans would think if we were born deep underground and had to begin our career by digging our way to the surface, is beyond imagination.
There are quite a clan of Bellchambers living in or near the little pioneer's hut built in a clearing of the bush. Mrs. Bellchambers is of Sussex, as is her husband, and when they heard that we were fresh from Sussex also it was wonderful to see the eager look that came upon their faces, while the bush-born children could scarce understand what it was that shook the solid old folk to their marrow. On the walls were old prints of the Devil's Dyke and Firle Beacon. How strange that old Sussex should be wearing out its very life in its care for the fauna of young Australia. This remarkable man is unpaid with only his scanty holding upon which to depend, and many dumb mouths dependent upon him. I shall rejoice if my efforts in the local press serve to put his affairs upon a more worthy foundation, and to make South Australia realise what a valuable instrument lies to her hand.
Thomas Paine Bellchambers (1858-1929) was a naturalist of local repute in South Australia, who received significant press attention in Australia and in international publications. Today we might refer to Bellchambers as a prominent 'citizen conservationist' who was driven to protect Australia's unique fauna and flora. It is surprising that T.P. Bellchambers does not have an entry in the Australian Dictionary of Biography, but a biography was published by a descendant (Note 2), and there are first-hand accounts of Bellchambers' life and motivations in two books that gathered published articles - the first published in 1918, and the second in 1931 following his death (Note 3 and 4). There are also newspaper interviews that provide supporting information. Bellchambers' books are solidly focused on Australia's fauna and flora, and do not mention ACD.
Figure 1. Portrait photograph from 'A Nature Lovers Notebook' (Note 4).
Bellchambers was born in Walworth, Surrey (south London) in 1858, the son of Naomi nee COLLINS and George Thomas BELLCHAMBERS (married in Surrey UK 1855). Thomas' parents appear to have been primarily based in or near Brighton where the family were in the 1861 census: Thomas' father was listed as a 'journeyman tailor'. His father died in 1871 (the family still in Brighton), and the family evidently were in financial difficulty. Like so many others, Thomas emigrated to Australia, sailing with a friend on the 'Lightning' for Adelaide in 1876. The four-month journey on the 'Lightning' provided a tumultuous end, as Thomas' reminiscence years later relates:
"JULY, 1876 found my mate and me in Adelaide looking for a job. We were straight from a stranded vessel in the Gulf. We had a drunken captain, and lively and exciting had been the experiences of the last few days. We were strangers in a strange land and when my mate told me of the work on a road contract he had acquired, we decided to stick together." (Note 5).
Bellchambers became fascinated with the Australian wilderness during his work in the districts around Adelaide, exemplified by an early prize for his entry in the 'drawing from nature' section of the Crystal Brook Exhibition in 1884 (Note 6). He was joined by a brother in 1880 (who died shortly afterwards), and his widowed mother and remaining brother and sister joined him in 1884. Arriving with Bellchambers' mother was 'a girl his mother had adopted' named Eliza HARMER, and they were married in 1887:
"BELLCHAMBERS—HARMER.—On the 5th November, at Mannum, by the Rev. W. R. Milne, Thomas Paine, second son of the late T. G. Bellchambers, to Eliza, third daughter of Thomas Harmer, both of Brighton, England." (Note 7).
The Bellchambers family lived and made a living from the great Murray River, before settling in Humbug Forest (subsequently named Humbug Scrub) about 50 km northeast of Adelaide.
By 1905 the 'Humbug Scrub Sanctuary' had been established, centered around Bellchambers' goal 'to teach Young Australia to love God's creatures, who all have a place in His great scheme'. Interviews and articles indicate that this mission arose from a love for Australia's wildlife, and concern for environmental damage that were well before his time, including the introduction of foreign species (fox and rabbit), shooting and trapping ("that wantonly pulls the trigger on any living thing, nothing being sacred"), and land clearance. At the Sanctuary, Bellchambers rehabilitated wounded animals and birds, and through years of careful observation and experimentation he became the first person to successfully breed the Mallee fowl in captivity. Bellchambers churned out articles and letters published in newspapers, gave educational lectures, and hosted visitors to the Sanctuary. His income appears to have been derived from providing animals to zoos - either bred in captivity or caught in the wild ("You would hardly think of him catching and grappling the deadly tiger-snake.... but he will catch you one and send one to a zoo for a Ten Shilling Treasury Note"), and a committee of prominent South Australians formed a committee to help him financially.
In 1918 Bellchambers published a collection of articles originally published in 'The Saturday Journal' aimed at young people, titled 'Nature: Our Mother', and the book was placed in every school library in South Australia. ACD's visit to the sanctuary was covered by reporters (see below), and publication of Conan Doyle's Wanderings furthered Bellchambers' international audience. Remarkably, in 1925 Bellchambers gifted a breeding pair of mallee fowl to the King, and these were placed in the London Zoo (Note 8). Bellchambers also formed the Nature Lovers' League of South Australia in the same year. Bellchambers was respected for his scientific observations and work, and regularly appeared in newspaper articles. His death at home on 18th July 1929 aged 72 resulted in multiple obituaries and letters to newspapers lamenting his death. His wish that he be buried at Humbug Scrub was granted, and his grave remains at the sanctuary and can be visited to this day (Figure 2). The 'roughness' of ACDs trip to the sanctuary had not improved in the decade since he visited, and at a rainy funeral "the roads were so bad that many arrived when the service was over. One car had to be left three miles from the house, and the occupants tramped through the mud to the burial place" (Note 9). Bellchambers had a large family, with four daughters and five sons alive at his death, and the family continue to operate the sanctuary.
Figure 2. Grave of Thomas Paine Bellchamber (1857 - 1927) and his wife Eliza Mary Harmer (1887 - 1930), at the Humbug Scrub sanctuary that he founded. Source of photo: playfordspast.recollect.net.au .
What was the "article in some magazine" that inspired ACD to seek out T.P. Bellchambers? While ACD is a little vague, the journalist Rufus' (Ernest Whitington (1873-1934), Note 10) accompanied ACD on the trip to Humbug Scrub and published an article on the visit in 'The Journal' (Note 11). Whitington comments that that "When Sir Arthur Conan Doyle called on the Editor of The Observer he mentioned that there was one man in Australia he wanted to meet, and that was Mr. T.P. Bellchambers, whose nature work he had become deeply interested in through reading an article in My Magazine by his old friend, Arthur Mee" (Note 12). Passenger Mark Jones in the UK was kind enough to visit the British Library to inspect the indexes of 'My Magazine', and identified that the article in question was published in the July 1920 issue, just months prior to the Conan Doyle family departure for Australia. Possibly the magazine was one ACD's son had read, or the issue was laying about on the long journey to Australia by ship.
Figure 3. The opening pages of the article in 'My Magazine' on T.P. Bellchambers that ACD read. Photograph by Passenger Mark Jones.
The trip ACD took to visit the sanctuary was something of an event, and his enquiry led to a party of three cars accompanying ACD. Based on the available articles those on the trip from Adelaide included:
• ACD and his sons Adrian and Denis
• Mr. Edgar Ravenswood Waite, Director of the Museum of South Australia
• Evan Kyffin Thomas and wife Mary, General Manager of the family-owned Register newspaper
• Ernest Whitington, journalist (nom de plume ‘Rufus')
• W. Sidney Smith, press photographer
• Dr. W. Munro Anderson (a guest Mr. Smith visiting from Japan)
• Carlyle Smith, ACD's agent for the tour who accompanied the Doyle family
• Major Alfred Wood, ACD's private secretary who accompanied the Doyle family
Rufus 'exclusive' coverage of the party's visit to Humbug in 'The Register' (Note 11) that was accompanied by the photographs in Figure 4 (likely taken by press photographer W. Sidney Smith). The article provides a lively perspective on the trip and the banter between ACD and Bellchambers, and the charming insight that the orphaned juvenile possum held by ACD when it "crawled on his shoulders, got inside his coat, and eventually found a resting place in the great literary man's pocket".
Rufus (Whitington) revisited the event in July 1930 in the Observer when marking the death of ACD (Note 13), and noted that "Sir Arthur asked me what I thought was the best way in which he might help the keeper of the sanctuary. I asked him to write an article for The Register telling of his visit to Humbug Scrub. He consented, and although tired by the long day's trip, he sat down at night and wrote an article which he handed me at the Grand Central Hotel. Conan Doyle's closely-written six pages of copy were penned without a correction." This article by Conan Doyle was first published in The Register on the 1st of October 1920, and is reproduced below (Note 14).
Figure 4. Left: A full page of photographs in The Observer on Saturday 9 October 1920 covering ACD's visit to Bellchambers' sanctuary, accompanying an account of the visit by ACD elsewhere in the same edition. It is likely all the photographs were taken on the visit (see comments regarding photographer in this article). Right: Only one of the eleven photographs in the spread is of ACD, captioned "Sir Arthur Conan Doyle with a "joey" possum" (Note 15).
Figure 5. Photographs of "Sir Conan Doyle" at Humbug Scrub. Left: holding the possum. Right: ACD at center, with his private secretary Major Alfred H. Wood at right. Source: South Australian Museum Waite Collection AA 356.
The Verities of Nature.
[Written for The Register by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.]
Before ever I reached Australia there was one man whom I had made up my mind to see. This was Mr. Bellchambers. I had read an account of him in some English magazine, and I knew him to be one of those men who were very close to Nature, who loved her as their mother, and who found in her communion a treasure which no worldly success could equal. Now I have not only met him, but I have seen his little domain out in the Humbug Scrub (is it too late to alter the name of that unlucky tract of country!) I will not easily forget my day.
Bellchambers is a mixture of the New Forest Brusher (see Note 16), a famous character whom I knew in my youth, who lived and died in a bark hut in the forest, and Thoreau, the American philosopher. He is half-way between those points — more refined than the first, less literary than the second. He is a kind-eyed, -unkempt man in the fifties, with no thought of appearances, but with the look and the voice which bespeak the gentle soul within. There is the real gentleman — that much-abused word; the man too gentle to be harsh to living creature, or to take pleasure in slaughter.
"Yes, I am mostly vegetarian, except fish," said he; "you see, I know the beasts so well that I can't bring myself to pick their bones."
I have come back from a long day with mixed impressions. There are vivid colour impressions — deep green of the Australian spring; late grey of eucalyptus trunks with untidy moulting bark; light yellow of budding wattle; purple pink of the carpet of knot grass; and everywhere the familiar home flowers, but all a little altered in their new home — the dandelion, the buttercup, the mustard plant, each imprinting its tiny yellow dot upon the variegated ground work of Nature.
Of my conversations, too. I had the same mixed impression. It was nature-talk. We spoke or those things which may seem slight to the world, and yet are more permanent than thrones and dynasties. I learned of the strange storks — the "native companions" who meet 500 at a time for their stately balls; of the bower birds who decorate their homes with glass and pebbles; of the little Ted beetles who fertilize the insectivorous plants without being eaten like other insects; of all manner of nature secrets. Some deep things were drawn from Mr. Bellchambers's store of knowledge.
"Birds have more sense than animals. They understand yon, like. They know what you mean. Snakes have least of any. They don't get friendlylike the same way."
Then I have the same mixed memory of the things I have seen. A blue-headed wren; an eagle soaring in the distance; a hideous lizard with a huge open mouth; a laughing jackass which refused to laugh; many more or leas tame wallabies and kangaroos; a dear little 'possum which, got raider the back of my coat, and would not come out; noisy mina birds which fly ahead and warn the game against the hunter. Good little noisy mina! All my sympathies are with you! I would do the same if I could. This senseless lust for kitting is a disgrace to the race. We of England cannot preach, for a pheasant battue is about the worst example of it. But do let the creatures alone unless they are surely noxious! When Mr. Bellchambers told us how he had trained two ibises — the old religious variety — and how both had been picked off by some unknown local "sportsman," it made one sad.
We had a touch of comedy, however, when Mr. Bellchambers attempted to expose the egg of the malice fowl. He scraped into the mound with his hands. The cock watched him with an expression which clearly said — "Confound the fellow! What is he up to now?" He then got on the mound, and as quick as Mr. Bellchambers shovelled the earth in he kicked it back again, Mr. Bellchambers, in his good-humoured way, crying — "Get along with you, do!" A good husband is the mallee cock, and looks after the family interests. But what we humans would think if we were born deep underground, and had to begin our career by digging our way to the surface, is beyond imagination.
Might I, a visitor, take the liberty of giving a word of advice to the Government of this beautiful State? In Mr. Bellchambers you have a very rare and valuable man. Yon are wasting him. I have travelled far, and I know that both in Canada and the United States, by the time that Nature reservations have occurred to the powers that be, they have become economically impossible, save as spots so far from centres of population that they are useless to the average man. Here you have the very thine within, a drive of Adelaide. My advice is this. Let the State acquire several blocks round Bellchambers's area, and let the whole be enclosed. Let him be ranger with adequate remuneration. Let the roads connecting up be improved. All this would cost very little; but see what you would have in return! You would have a show place which folk would come from far to see. You would have a wonderful pleasure resort for the people of Adelaide. Finally, you would leave in the very best and most loving hands those numerous birds and other creatures which are seriously threatened with extinction. Do this, and your grand children will extol your wisdom. Don't do it, and in 10 years it will be too late.
No account of my day could be complete which did not acknowledge the company and teaching of Mr. E. R. Waite, Director of the Museum, who placed his stores of knowledge at my disposal. I admire learning, but I admire still more a man who Is a man; and when I learned that this gentle naturalist had gone down 60 ft. in Sydney Harbour to steal the egg of a shark, I took off my hat to him. That's a form of bird-nesting that's worth doing.
In this brief account for the newspapers Doyle wrote “I admire learning, but I admire still more a man who is a man”. This provides some key to what drew Doyle to Bellchambers. Bellchambers was certainly the central non-spiritualist interaction of ACD's time in Adelaide. A number of artefacts likely remain to be tracked down from Doyle’s naturalist jaunt. The first is ACD's "closely-written six pages of copy" for the Register - does this survive? Similarly, the sanctuary kept a visitor's book that ACD signed (Note 17), does this book survive? ACD's visit resonated in Adelaide for many years. A 1953 interview with press photographer W. Sidney Smith (aged in his 80s) shares that "Among Mr. Smith's treasures is Sir Conan Doyle's book, The Wanderings of a Spiritualist, autographed and sent him by the author in October, 1921... He readily gave Conan Doyle permission to use in photographs in the book" (Note 18). This copy of the book is possibly still sitting on a shelf in Adelaide.
ACD's visit to Adelaide left a lasting legacy on the reputation of Bellchambers and his sanctuary, and T.P. Bellchambers clearly left an impression on Conan Doyle. Earlier in his literary career, Doyle wrote stories (The King of the Foxes, 1901) and poems (A Hunting Morning, 1898) celebrating the thrill of hunting foxes. It is remarkable then to read of Doyle lamenting that “This senseless lust for killing is a disgrace to the race.” Did Bellchambers influence Doyle’s attitudes to hunting for recreation? A tribute from Doyle lies in ACD’s third Professor Challenger novel in 1926/ The "Land of Mist" tells a tale in which scientific empiricism is applied to shine a light on the spiritualist phenomenon. In the book, three men spend a night investigating a haunted home in Dorsetshire, owned by Mr. Belchamber.
References
Note 1. I am using the 1988 reprint published by Ronin Publishing, Inc. Berkeley CA.
Note 2. Phillip Bellchambers, "The Wizard of Humbug Scrub, The Story of Thomas Paine Bellchambers 1858-1929", self published, 1998. Author's copy.
Note 3. T. P. Bellchambers, "Nature: Our Mother (Reprinted from the Saturday Journal)", W.K. Thomas & Co., Adelaide, 1918. Digital copy available at National Library of Australia.
Note 4. T. P. Bellchambers, "A Nature-Lovers Notebook", The Nature Lovers League, Adelaide, 1931. Author's copy.
Note 5. T.P. Bellchambers, "Hindmarsh Island Long Ago", The Register (Adelaide, SA), Tue 16 Apr 1918, page 6. Digital copy available at National Library of Australia: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/60350215
Note 6. The Area's Express (Booyoolee, SA), Tue 15 Jan 1884, page 3. Digital copy available at National Library of Australia: trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/218913329
Note 7. The Express and Telegraph (Adelaide, SA : 1867 - 1922) Tue 6 Dec 1887, page 2. Digital copy available at National Library of Australia: trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/207711436
Note 8. Illustrated London News, Sat 24 Jan 1925.
Note 9. Observer (Adelaide, SA), Sat 27 Jul 1929, page 16. Digital copy available at https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/164896515
Note 10. SA Newspapers: Pen names of SA journalists and cartoonists, maintained at State Library of South Australia: https://guides.slsa.sa.gov.au/sanewspapers/pennames
Note 11. Rufus, "Mr. Bellchambers at Home. Visited by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle". The Journal (Adelaide, SA), Sat 2 Oct 1920, page 11. Digital copy available at National Library of Australia: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/200888266
Note 12. Arthur Mee (1875-1943), English writer, journalist and educator. Published a range of children's periodicals and encyclopedia's including The Children's Encyclopædia which ACD contributed articles to.
Note 13. Observer (Adelaide, SA), Thu 17 Jul 1930, page 53. Digital copy available at National Library of Australia: trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/164797612
Note 14. The Register (Adelaide, SA), Fri 1 Oct 1920, page 7. Digital copy available at National Library of Australia: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/57918477
Note 15. Observer (Adelaide, SA), Sat 9 Oct 1920, page 25. Digital copy available at National Library of Australia: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/165911424
Note 16. New Forest Brusher, also known as ‘Brusher Mills’ was Harry Mills (1840-1905), a resident of the New Forest in Hampshire England. Mills was a snake-catcher who lived in the forest and made his living catching snakes, and became a local celebrity. New Forest was a matter of miles from Portsmouth where Conan Doyle resided for eight years, and based on the phrase ‘whom I knew in my youth’ it is possible Conan Doyle sought out and met Mills.
Note 17. The Mail (Adelaide, SA), Sat 24 Sep 1927, page 1. Digital copy available at National Library of Australia: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/58530391
Note 18. The Advertiser (Adelaide, SA), Fri 6 Feb 1953, page 4. Digital copy available at National Library of Australia: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/48301772
A wonderful display of deep research.
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