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Britain Unlimited covers 250 Great British people and what made them famous
Who was Arthur Conan Doyle? Novelist. Creator of Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson.
Date and Place of Birth: 22nd May 1859, Edinburgh, Scotland.
Family Background: The son of Charles Doyle a Civil Servant from Ireland and an alcoholic and Mary Foley. He was one of ten children. His grandfather was John Doyle a famous caricaturist.
Education: At home and then a local school in Edinburgh. Jesuit Preparatory School in Hodder, Lancashire. Stonyhurst, a Jesuit Secondary School nearby. University of Edinburgh. Helped fund his course by working as a surgeon on ships such as the "Hope" which was then bound for the Arctic and the "Mayumba" bound for West Africa where he nearly died of Typhoid).
Chronology:
Whilst studying he worked as a medical assistant to Dr Richardson of Sheffield which only lasted three weeks. He then moved to Shropshire working for Dr Elliot and then to Birmingham where he was treated like a son by Dr Reginald Hoare and his family.
1882: Set up as a Doctor in Plymouth with a fellow student from Edinburgh Dr George Budd but it was unsuccessful and the two did not get on. Doyle then set up in Em Grove, Southsea near Portsmouth but had very few patients and therefore little money. He subsidised his income writing detective stories. His first story was accepted by Chambers Journal in Edinburgh.
1887: Published the first of his Sherlock Holmes story "A Study in Scarlet" in Becton's Christmas Annual and had enough money to give up medicine. Holmes was reputedly based on one of his medical school lecturers Doctor Joseph Bell. His Short Stories about Holmes where published in the "Strand Magazine" from then on. Became a member of the Portsmouth Literary and Scientific Society.
1890: Went to Vienna to study opthalmology.
1891: Moved back to London. Holmes stories published in the Strand Magazine.
1893: Holmes is killed off in "The Final Problem" and the reading public were horrified. His pregnant wife was weak with tuberculosis and so they went to Egypt to effect a cure. Unfortunately war broke out between the British and the Dervishes but not to be outdone Conan-Doyle become a temporary war correspondent for "The Westminster Gazette" newspaper.
1894: Moved back to England to live in Hindhead in surrey.
1897: Meets Jean Leckie and continues a platonic relationship during his wife's illness.
1899-1902: Served as a doctor in the Boer War with a hospital paid for and organised buy John Langman.
1902: Knighted for his contribution to the war and appointed Deputy-Lieutenant of Surrey.
1903: Forced to revive Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson.
1912: Introduces his character Professor Challenger in "The Lost World".
1913: Began to talk about the need for a Channel Tunnel.
1914: Attended the meeting of writers called by the Liberal politician Charles Masterman who wanted to form a Writer's Propaganda Bureau at the start of the First World War. Conan-Doyle wrote the pamphlet "To Arms!" as his contribution. He also wrote many articles about the war for the newspaper the "Daily Chronicle". Although well into his fifties he served as a private throughout the war in the Crowborough Company of the Sixth Royal Sussex regiment.
1916: Became a convinced Spiritualist a cause to which he would spend the rest of his life often working with his friend Sir Oliver Lodge.
1917: (October) Death of his son Kingsley Conan-Doyle. He died after being wounded and contracting pneumonia.
1922: Declared the "Cottingley Fairy" fake photographs to be genuine and was ridiculed in the press.
1929: Becomes ill after a tour of Scandinavia.
Written Works:
- 1887: "Micah Clarke".
- 1890: "The Sign of Four". "The White Company".
- 1896: "Brigadier Gerard". "Rodney Stone".
- 1902: "The Hound of the Baskervilles". "The War in South Africa".
- 1906: "Sir Nigel"
Marriage: 1885 to Louise Hawkins the sister of one of his patients. (died 1906) 1907 to Jean Leckie.
Places of Interest:
BIRMINGHAM:
Aston, Blue Plaque at the former home of Doctor Hoare.
DEVON:
DARTMOOR (Location for the Hound of the Baskervilles)
HAMPSHIRE:
Member of the Portsmouth Literary and Scientific Society).
Bush Villas, Elm Grove, Southsea. (home).LONDON:
Sherlock Holmes Pub and Museum, Northumberland Avenue.
Baker Street, (221b now insurance offices) Museum.
Montague Place. (Site of his Rooms).
2 Upper Wimpole Street. (site of his rooms).SURREY:
House at Hindhead.
SUSSEX:
Crowborough. (lived with his second wife).
YORKSHIRE:
Masongill Cottage, Mother's home and site of his marriage
Date and Place of Death: 7th July 1930, Crowborough, Sussex, England.
Age at Death: 70.
Site of Grave: All Saint’s Churchyard, Minstead, Hampshire, England.
