Charles Altamont Doyle and his Sunnyside angels

I've been super interest in Bryan Charles Waller and his role in the Doyle family, and as a result I've been going back over everything about Charles Altamont Doyle. CAD was a severe alcoholic, and from 1885 onwards was in permanent care till his death in 1893. CAD was a draughtsman by trade and an artist, and he executed illustrations for both 'A Study in Scarlet' and 'The Mystery of Cloomber' while in Montrose Royal Lunatic Asylum (Sunnyside).

While in Montrose, CAD also created what is believed to be a series of artistic notebook. It is suggested these were partly created to demonstrate that he was not insane. One of these notebooks, covering about three months in 1889, was discovered in the 1970s. Sherlock enthusiast Michael Baker published the notebook.... I'm assuming it was then broken up to sell. individual leaves (I might be wrong). Baker's introduction mentions that the Foley family owned two other notebooks, so others may some day be available for inspection and analysis.

Two things ; CAD regularly draws angels over people (including himself) and regularly expresses the feeling or with that he'll be free / dead soon. So sad.

One little sketch along this line intrigued me, with a note next to it:

'Come home'

NOTE: That Book he has got is the "Ursuline Manual", and has been his best friend. The Ursulines are a community of Nuns in Ireland where this valuable book was compiled. 7th June 1889.

And when we look at the Ursuline Manual (1855) what do we see? 

Where is home? A house in Edinburgh that he may not know no longer contains a family? Heaven? Ireland? To wherever his wife is? 

There is also an opportunity to examine names in CAD's book and see whether they were in the real world, or CAD's imagination.

Here's a wonderful example:

Mrs Brewster in our hour of care

Well, I'll take another cup if you please

For when a headache wrings the brow

A ministering Angel - thou

Was Mrs Brewster working at Montrose? The sketch was made in 1889, and Charles Doyle was still at that asylum in early 1891 when the census for Scotland (and the wider UK) was conducted.

In the 1891 census there were 527 resident patients in the asylum, and about 58 attendants and house servants living there (some with families). C A Doyle was one of those patients.

There is indeed a Mrs Brewster at the asylum: 

Jessie Brewster, Officer, Widow, aged 54, Head Female Attendant, Born Montrose, Forfarshire (now Angus)

So Mrs Brewster was indeed  a member of staff, possibly the most senior female member of staff, at Montrose, and we see her reflected in a coffee pot in CAD's sketchbook.

Here's a third connection.