Doyle, Arthur Conan |
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BORN 22 May 1859, Edinburgh: 11, Picardy Place - DIED 7 Jul 1930, Crowborough, Sussex: Windlesham Manor BIRTH NAME Doyle, Arthur Ignatius Conan CAUSE OF DEATH heart disease GRAVE LOCATION Minstead, Hampshire: All Saints' Churchyard (East End) |
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Arthur Conan Doyle was born in Edinburgh and was sent to the Jesuit Prepatory School in Stonyhurst in 1868. He continued his education at Stonyhurst College and from 1876 to 1881 he studied medicine in Edinburgh. During his studies he started writing short stories and "The Mystery of the Sasassa Valley" was published in 1879. He sailed on the SS Mayumba to West Africa as a ship's doctor before he finished his doctorate in 1885. After a luckless attempt to start a practice with his friend George Budd in Plymouth, he started a medical practice in Portsmouth in 1882 at 1 Bush Villas in Elm Grove, Southsea. He did not receive a lot of patients and during his spare time he wrote "A Study in Scarlet", the first Sherlock Holmes story. It was published in 1887. He based Holmes on Joseph Bell, a professor at Edinburgh who used logical deduction. From 1891 onwards Sherlock Holmes stories were published in the Strand Magazine. In Southsea he was the goalkeeper of the Portsmouth Association Football Club, the future Portsmouth FC. Between 1899 and 1907 he also played cricket on a high level. Apart from that he was an enthusiastic golfer and amateur boxer. In 1885 he married Louise Hawkins, the sister of one of his patients, John Hawkins. In 1889 they had a daughter, Marie Louise, followed by a son in 1892, Kingsley. In 1893 Doyle joined the Society for Psychical Research and spiritualism would play an increasingly important part in his further life. In 1890 he had studied the eye, and he started his own practice as an ophthalmologist in London in 1891. He stated later that he did not have a single patient and he dedicated most of his time to writing. His Sherlock Holmes stories were immensely popular, but Doyle was bored with his hero and killed him at the Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland in order to be able to turn his attention to his historical novels. In 1894 he lectured in the USA and in 1895 he visited Egypt. In 1900 he served in the Boer War. In 1902 he was knighted. He believed this was because of a pamphlet he had written on the Boer War in which he justified the role of the United Kingdom. On that occasion he met Oliver Lodge, who was knighted on the same day. They started a correspondence on the subject of spiritualism. Doyle met Jean Leckie on 15 March 1897 and it was love at first sight for both of them. But Doyle felt he could not betray Louise, who was already suffering from tuberculosis at that time, and he and Jean decided that their love should be platonic. Doyle's mother knew all about it and even comforted Jean. Louise died in 1906 and Doyle was saddened by her death and felt guilty about his love for Jean. He suffered from a depression, but in 1907 he married Jean and they enjoyed a happy marriage that lasted until his death. With Jean he had three further children. Denis was born in 1909, Adrian in 1910 and Jean in 1912. After killing Holmes, Doyle had discovered that the golden age of the historical novel in the tradition of Sir Walter Scott was over. The public did not agree with him that they were his best work and only wanted more Holmes. Slowly he gave in. In 1901 "The Hound of the Baskervilles" with Holmes as the main character was published but Doyle made clear that the story took place before the Reichenbach Falls. The public acclaim was enormous and in "The Adventure of the Empty House" Holmes returned and explained that his death had been faked. In 1912 he published "The Lost World", a novel about an expedition to an area in South America where prehistoric creatures still lived. The main character was Professor Challenger, who returned in other fantasy stories by Doyle. In 1918 Doyle's son Kingsley died of pneumonia in Belgium after he had been seriously wounded at the Battle of the Somme in 1916. Doyle tried to contact his son's soul and he fell deeper and deeper under the spell of spiritualism. The death of his brother Innes Doyle (also of pneumonia) and his brother in law E.W. Hornung (in 1921) probably intensified his attempts to contact the death. In 1918 he published "A New Revelation", a book on spiritualism. In 1920 he sailed for Australia to promote spiritualism by means of public readings. In 1922 he continued his readings in the USA and there he continued a curious friendship with Harry Houdini, whom he had met in 1920. Houdini also studied spiritualism, but as a sceptic. Houdini had an enormous library and Doyle read the letters by D.D. Home and Ira Davenport that were in Houdini's possession. Things went wrong after a seance in 1922 in which Doyle believed that the spirit of Houdini's mother had been contacted by automatic writing with Jean as the medium. Houdini was there. In 1924 he started ridiculing his friend publicly and Doyle wrote to him bitterly that he had said quite different things at the home of the Doyles. In 1925 Houdini called Doyle a 'menace to mankind' in Sympathy Hall in Boston. But many people in the public agreed that Doyle might be mistaken and foolish to believe in several obvious frauds (like some pictures of fairies) but they believed that his intentions were good and he certainly didn't deserve such a treatment by a former friend. One person from the audience called: "I know one thing you can't do, Houdini, that Conan Doyle could!" An angry Houdini asked what this was, and the man answered, "Fill this hall twice!". Doyle had spoken before on spiritualism in the same hall. Houdini and Doyle did not meet again until Houdini suddenly died in 1926. Doyle devoted the rest of his life to spiritualism, although in 1927 a last volume of Sherlock Holmes stories appeared. In 1925 Doyle opened a Psychic Bookshop in Victoria Street, London and in 1926 he spoke to 5,000 people in the Royal Albert Hall. "The Edge of The Unknown" was published in 1930 and it was his last book. All his travelling had worn him out and in 1930 he died at home from heart failure. Everybody who had known him was convinced that a man with a very good heart was gone and a special train transported all the flowers on the day of his funeral. He was buried in the garden of his house Windlesham in Crowborough, Sussex. When Jean died in 1940, she was buried beside him. In 1955 the house was sold, and their remains were transferred to Minstead, Hampshire in the New Forest. A simple gravestone was erected in a far corner of the cemetery because they had not been Christians. Family • Wife: Leckie, Jean (1907-1930, London: St.Margaret's Church, Westminster) Related persons • was inspired by Bell, Joseph • was a friend of Houdini, Harry • was criticized by Houdini, Harry • was a friend of Kipling, Rudyard • met Wilde, Oscar Events |
| 0/9/1869 | Conan Doyle enters Stonyhurst College in Clitheroe, Lancashire. It was a school run by Jesuits. |
| 0/10/1876 | Arthur Conan Doyle enrolls at the Edinburgh University of Medicine. His teacher Joseph Bell would be an inspiration for his character Sherlock Holmes. Another teacher, Professor Rutherford, was an inspiration for Professor Challenger. [Bell, Joseph ] |
| 22/5/1878 | Arthur Conan Doyle Sees Henry Irving in "Louis XI". The play was performed by the Lyceum Theatre Company. Doyle was staying in London with hus uncles Henry and James Doyle and his aunt Jane Doyle at 54 Clofton Gardens, Maida Vale. |
| 28/5/1878 | Arthur Conan Doyle visites Westminster Aquarium |
| 29/5/1878 | Arthur Conan Doyle visits the Royal Academy in London |
| 0/9/1879 | Arthur Conan Doyle's first short story "The Mystery of Sasassa Valley" is published |
| 0/2/1880 | Arthur Conan Doyle starts on the whaler Hope as a surgeon. It was for six months. |
| 0/10/1881 | Arthur Conan Doyle graduates in medicine and surgery in Edinburgh. He is now a Bachelor of Medicine and a Master of Surgery. |
| 0/12/1887 | Arthur Conan Doyle's "A Study in Scarlet" is published. It was the first Sherlock Holmes story and it was published in Beeton's Christman Annual. The story had been rejected by several publishes before Ward, Lock & Co accepted it on 30 October 1886. |
| 25/2/1889 | Arthur Conan Doyle's novel "Micah Clarke" is published. The publisher was Longmans, Green & Co. |
| 30/4/1889 | Arthur Conan Doyle and Oscar Wilde meet at a dinner in London. It was organised by J.M. Stoddart, the American editor for Lippincott's Magazine and it was held at the Langham Hotel. To Doyle's surprise Wilde had read "Micah Clarke" and he was very favourably impressed by Wilde. The dinner led to commissions for Wilde for "The Picture of Dorian Grey" and for Doyle for "The Sign of Four". [Wilde, Oscar] |
| 0/2/1890 | Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Sign of Four" is published in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine. It was the second Sherlock Holmes story. |
| 0/4/1890 | Arthur Conan Doyle's novel "The Firm of Girdlestone" is published. It was first published in "The People" between 27 October 1889 and 13 April 1890. In april 1890 it was published in book form by Chatto & Windus. |
| 0/1/1891 | Arthur Conan Doyle studies ophthalmology in Vienna. He had been advised to do so by Malcolm Morris, whom he had met accidentally in a train to Berlin. |
| 6/4/1891 | Conan Doyle begins a practice in ophthalmology in London. The address was 2 Upper Wimbole Street. He hardly received any patients. |
| 25/6/1891 | Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes story "A Scandal in Bohemia" is published in Strand Magazine. It was the first Sherlock Holmes short story that was published in the Strand Magazine. |
| 0/8/1891 | Arthur Conan Doyle gives up medicine to become a full time writer. Around this time he moved to 12 Tennison Road, South Norwood. |
| 1/10/1892 | Publication of Conan Doyle's novel "The Great Shadow" starts. It was published between 1 October and 5 November in The Globe in Toronto. On 2 October publication started in several other publications. In the novel he expressed a fascination for Napoleon. |
| 0/1/1893 | Arthur Conan Doyle's novel "The Refugees. A Tale of Two Continents" is published in Harper's Monthly Magazine. It was published between January 1893 and June 1893. The novel was illustrated by Thure de Thulstrup. |
| 0/11/1893 | Arthur Conan Doyle joins the Society of Psychical Research |
| 0/12/1893 | Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Adventure of the Final Problem"is published in Strand Magazine. In this story he finished off Sherlock Holmes and his enemy Professor Moriarty at Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland. Doyle wanted to concentrate on more serious literary work. |
| 0/11/1894 | Arthur Conan Doyle visits Rudyard Kipling in Vermont. Doyle and his brother Innes interrupted their American tour to visit Kipling at his home. Doyle had brought his golf clubs and they played a game of golf over frozen ground. [Kipling, Rudyard] |
| 0/11/1895 | Arthur Conan Doyle travels to Egypt with his wife Louise. He went there because of his wife's health. Louise was suffering from tuberculosis. In Egypt he was a witness to the conflict between the British and the dervishes. He acted as war correspondent for The Westminster Gazette. |
| 0/1/1896 | Start of the publication of Arthur Conan Doyle's "Rodney Stone". It was a novel about boxing, first published by the Strand Magazine between January and December 1896. |
| 15/3/1897 | Arthur Conan Doyle meets Jean Leckie and falls in love with her immediately. It happened during a visit to London and it was love at first sight for both of them. Doyle was married and his wife suffered from ill health. Jean was only 23 years old at the time and Doyle was 37. They entered into a platonic relationship platonic until the death of his wife Louise. All the time Jean pretended to be a friend while they conducted their discreet affair. Doyle's mother knew about it and acted as a chaperone when they met in hotels. [Leckie, Jean] |
| 0/5/1897 | Arthur Conan Doyle's novel "Uncle Bernac" is published. It was a Napoleonic novel. |
| 23/12/1898 | Jean Leckie attends Conan Doyle's grand fancy dress ball at the Hindhead Beacon Hotel. She was disguised as one of the Queens Maries. [Leckie, Jean] |
| 12/6/1899 | Copyright performance of William Gillette's play "Sherlock Holmes" at the Duke of York Theatre in London. Gilette had written it together with Arthur Conan Doyle. This first performance was only meant to establish the copyright, with Herbert Waring playing Sherlock Holmes and only three people attending. The official remoere was the first performed in the USA on 23 October 1899 at the Star Theater in Buffalo, where Gillette played Holmes and Ida Conquest was Alice Faulkner. On 6 November 1899 it was first performed on Broadway in New York. Gillette would play the part of Sherlock Holmes for 35 years. |
| 0/2/1900 | Arthur Conan Doyle goes to Bloemfontein as a doctor during the Boer War. He met young Winston Churchill there. On 10 July he returned to England. |
| 0/10/1900 | Arthur Conan Doyle is defeated as an Unionist candicate in Edinburgh in parliamentary elections |
| 23/10/1900 | Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Great Boer War" is published. It was published by Smith, Elder & Co. |
| 18/9/1907 | Arthur Conan Doyle marries Jean Leckie. They married at St. Margaret's Church, Westminster. His brother Innes Doyle was best man and Cyril Angeli married them. They held a reception at Whitehall Rooms in the Hotel Metropole that was attended by Bram Stoker, J.M. Barrie, Max Pemberton and Jerome K. Jerome. [Leckie, Jean][Stoker, Bram] |
| 29/4/1918 | Arthur Conan Doyle's "A New Revelation" is published. It was an essay that was first published in book form on this date by Hodder & Stoughton. |
| 0/3/1921 | Arthur Conan Doyle visits the grave of his brother Innes |
| 30/10/1922 | Houdini denies having observed any evidence of contact with the death. He stated in an article in the New York Sun that he had an open mind, but that he never had seen anyhing that pointed in the direction of communication with the death. Thirteen days earlier he had participated in a seance together with Arthur Conan Doyle. Houdini did not refer to this event, but Doyle took it badly and wrote Houdini an irritated letter. [Houdini, Harry] |
| 25/5/1923 | Arthur Conan Doyle visits the shooting of "Rosita" with Mary Pickford. Doyle and his wife Jean posed with Pickford for photographs. Douglas Fiarbanks joined the scene as well. [Leckie, Jean] |
| 2/1/1925 | Harry Houdini publicly scolds Arthur Conan Doyle at the Sympathy Hall in Boston. Until then they had been friends. He also raged against Oliver Lodge. Houdini called them 'menaces to mankind'. That same day he had brought $5,000 to mayor Curley of Boston, to be paid to someone that would produce a spiritualist phenomenon that he would not be able to reproduce as a magician. Nobody took the bet. Doyle and Lodge were strong promotors of spiritualism. His attack didn not please the audience and one spectator shouted: 'I know one trick you can't do, Houdini. Fill this hall twice, like Conan Doyle did!'. Doyle had previously spoken at the Sympathy Hall. [Houdini, Harry] |
| 11/7/1930 | Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is buried in the garden of Windlesham. It was a sunny day and flowers were sent from all parts of England. |
| 13/7/1930 | 8,000 people attend the memorial service for Arthur Conan Doyle. It was held at the Albert Hall in London. The spiritualist medium Estelle Roberts claimed that she saw Conan Doyle walking to the empty square between his widow Jean and his son Denis. [Leckie, Jean] |
| 7/7/1955 | Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is reburied at Minstead. Doyle and his wife Jean Leckie were buried in the garden of their house Windlesam in Crawborough, Sussex. When the house was sold, the family transported the coffins to Minstead, Hampshire. An open air service was held in the presence of family an friends. [Leckie, Jean] |
| Images | ||
 The grave of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle at All Saints' Churchyard, Minstead. Picture by Androom (19 Jun 2010) |
 The grave of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle at All Saints' Churchyard, Minstead. Picture by Androom (19 Jun 2010) |
 The grave of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle at All Saints' Churchyard, Minstead. Picture by Androom (02 Jul 2017) |
Sources • BBC Ceefax • Christopher, Milbourne, Houdini: The Untold Story, Pocket Books, New York, 1975 • Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan, Letters To The Press, The unknown Conan Doyle, Secker & Warburg, London, 1986 • Higham, Charles, The Adventures of Conan Doyle, Pocket Books, New York, 1978 • Jones, Kevin I., Conan Doyle And The Spirits, The Aquarian Press, Wellingborough, 1989 • Lellenberg, John; Daniel Stashower; Charles Foley, Arthur Conan Doyle, A Life in Letters, The Penguin Press, New York • Miller, Russel, The Adventures of Arthur Conan Doyle, St. Martin's Press, New York, 2008 • Pearson, Hesketh, Conan Doyle, His Life and Art, Methuen & Co, London, 1943 • Polidoro, Massímo, Final Séance, The Strange Friendship between Houdini and Conan Doyle, Prometheus Books, New York, 2001 • Arthur Conan Doyle - Wikipedia (EN) • Chronology - The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia • Chronology/ - The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia • File:1921-03-arthur-conan-doyle-at-innes-doyle-grave.jpg - The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia • Jean Elizabeth Leckie - The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia • Rodney Stone - The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia • The Great Boer War - The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia • The New Revelation - The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia • The Refugees - The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia |
