You probably know that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle lived in Crowborough, and that he created the famous fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes. But there are some other fascinating facts about our town’s most famous son that you might not be aware of. In the spirit of curiosity, and because it’s raining outside, Crowborough News set about investigating.
But before you credit Crowborough News with being an amateur sleuth cunning enough to unearth such information, it was actually very easy thanks to https://www.discoverbritain.com/ and https://www.englishbookeducation.co.uk/ . In fact you could say it was “Elementary, my dear Watson.”
• He was knighted…but not for the reason you think.
Yes, Arthur Conan Doyle became a “Sir” in 1902 having been knighted by King Edward VII. But his honour was for his work on a non-fiction pamphlet regarding the Boer War, not for creating his national fictional hero, Sherlock Holmes.
• He believed in fairies
He was convinced that fairies existed. He even wrote a book, The Coming of the Fairies, about the authenticity of the Cottingley Fairy photographs (a famous hoax) and spending a fortune promoting the images.
• And he also believed in a number of mediums
But this came at the cost of his friendship with Harry Houdini, who at the same time was trying to disprove the claims of the Spiritualist movement. Following his death, a séance was conducted at the Royal Albert Hall. Thousands attended, including his wife and children. A row of chairs were arranged on the stage for the family, with one left empty for Sir Arthur. Even though he did not appear, there were many people in the audience who claimed they had felt his presence among them.
• He obviously loved the South Downs and East Dean
“I shall retire to Sussex and keep bees”. He retired Sherlock Holmes to a cottage on the green in East Dean near Eastbourne. The cottage bears a plaque describing the fictional sleuth as “Consulting Detective and Bee Keeper.”
• He was a keen sportsman, and used to play cricket (with an illustrious chum)
He helped to popularise skiing and predicted that in the future hundreds of Englishmen would come to Switzerland for the “ski-ing season”. He was also an avid cricketer, playing on the same team as Peter Pan creator, JM Barrie.
• He was a goalkeeper (but not for Crowborough Athletic FC)
Under the pseudonym AC Smith, the writer played as a goalkeeper for amateur side Portsmouth Association Football Club, a precursor of the modern Portsmouth FC.
• He ran for Parliament, twice
Conan Doyle’s political aspirations led him to run for parliament once in Edinburgh (as a member of the Unionist Party) in 1900 and once in the Border Burghs in 1906. He was relatively successful both times but was never actually elected.
• He died holding a flower
His dramatic death on 7 July 1930 saw him collapse in the garden of his home in Crowborough, Windlesham (now the Windlesham Manor Care Home in Hurtis Hill). Clutching his heart with one hand and holding a flower in the other, he apparently whispered his last words to his wife: “You are wonderful.”
• Conan was not part of his surname
Conan was one of his two middle names. He started using it as part of his surname after leaving school. His full name was Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle.
• He was one of the earliest motorists in Britain
Despite never having driven one before, he bought a car and took part in the Prince Henry Tour in 1911 – an international road competition organised by Prince Henry of Prussia.
• He didn’t like Sherlock very much
In 1891 he wrote to his mother: “I think of slaying Holmes … and winding him up for good and all. He takes my mind from better things.” He even raised his fees extortionately to put his publisher off but found instead they were happy to pay more, thus making him one of the best-paid authors of his day. He had earlier told a friend: “I couldn’t revive him if I would, at least not for years, for I have had such an overdose of him that I feel towards him as I do towards pâté de foie gras, of which I once ate too much, so that the name of it gives me a sickly feeling to this day.”
• He had a row with George Bernard Shaw about the Titanic
After the Titanic sank in 1912, Doyle and George Bernard Shaw had a very public disagreement about the disaster. Doyle was outraged by the dismissive and bitter comments made by the playwright regarding the many acts of heroics that took place aboard the ship as it went down.
• He was something of a detective in real life
Conan Doyle got involved with The Curious Case of Oscar Slater – the murder of Marion Gilchrist, a wealthy old lady from Glasgow. He uncovered new evidence, recalled witnesses and questioned the prosecution’s evidence, all of which was then published as a plea for Slater’s pardon. The writer’s remarkable findings led to calls for a retrial, but all this was of course ignored by the Scottish authorities, just like what frequently happened to the fictional Holmes. Slater later smuggled messages out of prison to contact politicians, one of whom, Ramsay McDonald – Britain’s first Labour prime minister – informed the Scottish Secretary that the police and the legal authorities had withheld evidence. Slater was released from prison with £6,000 compensation, of which Doyle never saw a penny.