The Real Henry Baskerville

    THIS MAN'S NAME IS BASKERVILLE

AND WHAT HE SAYS TODAY BRINGS A BIG ARGUMENT

OVER THE SHERLOCK HOLMES LEGEND

This delightful graphic headline appeared in the Daily Express on Monday 16 March 1959, and believe it or not this is Mr. Henry M. (Harry) Baskerville (1871-1962).

It is well-known that Conan Doyle spent time with Bertram Fletcher Robinson in Devon as part of finalizing research for his book The Hound of the Baskervilles. Robinson's family were from Ipplepen, and Henry Baskerville was the family's coachman. Doyle picked the name up during the time in Devon, and used it for the subject of the book.

Here is Harry in the 1901 census in Ipplepen, right around the time he met Doyle.

We know a great deal about Henry Baskerville. In my opinion the two best sources of information are Paul R Spiring's biography for Bertram Fletcher Robinson which dedicates a chapter to their time in Devon, and Richard L. Green's two-part articles on the background to The Hound of the Baskervilles published in the Sherlock Holmes Journal in 2000.

This article is not the first time that Henry appeared in newspapers in the later decades of his life in connection with the Hound story, but it is probably the last one prior to his death, and it appears to be the only newspaper article that features a photograph of Baskerville.

And it's a delight.

I'm working up to an article on Henry - but I have quite a bit of work to do on it - and an avenue to chase down.

Meantime, here's the article that accompanied the headline above from the Daily Express on Monday 16 March 1959. It demonstrates the debate about how much Robinson contributed to the story was still a point of great speculation. It is a bit of a beat-up, but Henry's recollection is likely accurate - that doesn't mean Robinson wrote any of the actual novel. The article even intersects with the Baker Street Irregulars and James Montgomery.

Peter Evans

THOUSANDS of devoted admirers of Sherlock Holmes, the Baker-street detective to whom all things were elementary, will be surprised this morning by a new mystery—a real life one—which sprang up last night. It isa mystery which may well become as legendary as the bitter, long-running Bacon-Shakespeare controversy. 

For, after more than 50 years, the authorship of one of the best-known Holmes stories, “Hound of the Baskervilles,” is being disputed. And disputed by no less an authority than the man the story is named after, Harry Baskerville. 

Shadow

LAST night I drove to a small narrow-streeted village in the silent shadow of Dartmoor to talk to the wispy, white-haired Baskerville, who claims that a brilliant young journalist, who was soon to die in mysterious circumstances, helped Doyle write the great thriller. Pink-faced and younger-looking than his 88 years, Baskerville told me in a firm, fine Devonshire voice :— “Doyle didn't write the story himself. A lot of the story was written by Fletcher Robinson. But he never got the credit he deserved. 

“They wrote it together at Park Hill, over at Ipplepen. I know, because I was there.” Baskerville, who was a coachman to Robinson’s father, told me that long before Doyle arrived at Park Hill, in Devon, Fletcher Robinson had confided:"Harry, I'm going to write a story about the moor and I would like to use your name.” 

“Shortly after his return from the Boer War, Bertie (Robinson) told me to meet Mr. Doyle at the station. He said they were going to work on the story he had told me about. Mr. Doyle stayed for eight days and nights. I had to drive him and Bertie about the moors. And I used to watch them in the billiards room in the old house, sometimes they stayed long into the night, writing and talking.

"Then Doyle left and Bertie said to me: "Well, Harry, we've finished that book I was telling you about. The one we're going to name after you." But last night, Baskerville's story was angrily denied by Arthur Conan Doyle's son Adrian. When I phoned him in Geneva, Switzerland, where he now lives, he said :— “Fletcher Robinson wrote not one word of the story. He refused my father's offer to collaborate and retired at an early stage of the project."

Riding

"FURTHERMORE, my father never stayed with Robinson. He stayed at the Duchy Hotel, Princetown. He accepted Robinson's offer of a coach and went riding with him on the moors simply to get the atmosphere of the place. “In fact I have letters from Robinson proving this. It was Robinson who told my father about a West Country legend, but that was just about the extent of his contribution.” Indeed, in a short preface to the book, author Doyle wrote : “My dear Robinson, it was to your account of a West Country legend that this tale owes its inception. For this and for  your help in the details, all thanks".

Mystery 

BUT was this enough? Baskerville is convinced Robinson played a larger part. Soon after the publication of the book mystery-man Robinson —described by a 1907 newspaper cutting as the author of many “thrilling detective stories" — started a fateful investigation into an Egyptian mummy's curse. Before he could complete his research he died. He was 35. When Doyle heard of his death he said : “I warned him against concerning himself with the mummy. I told him he was tempting fate by pursuing his inquiries. but he was fascinated and would not desist. Then he was overtaken with illness. He was the last man in the world to want to die — strong, vigorous, and in excellent physical condition—but he died. 

“The immediate cause of death was typhoid fever, but that is the way in which the ‘elementals’ guarding the mummy might act.” 

Possible 

COULD Robinson have contributed more than the world has realised? A Holmes expert told me: “This could explain the big mystery of why Holmes appears so infrequently in the Hound: “We know that when Doyle wrote the story he had already killed off Holmes — whom he disliked and regarded as a potboiler in ‘The Final Problem'. If this information is correct, it is just possible that Doyle, faced with a public outcry for killing his hero, had to quickly produce another Holmes story." 

“He may have agreed with Fletcher Robinson to adapt an existing Robinson story but found it impossible to make Holmes the central figure.” 

Hints 

AND in London last night the mystery deepened. A member of the Sherlock Holmes Society told me : — “This sounds like the story James Montgomery was working on. He was a rich American, a member of the Baker-street Irregulars (the American Sherlock Holmes Society) and he came to Britain about three years ago to interview Baskerville. 

“He hinted at his discoveries but refused to say very much because he planning to publish a monograph. He was very excited and talked about startling discoveries. But he returned to America and within three weeks he was dead. The monograph was never published and his notes were never found.” 

It is a curious story. A mystery worthy of the brain of Baker-street himself. But I'm afraid he would discover little that is elementary.