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As for today ...
Birds chirping, a bright and chilly dawn, and I find it is the perfect moment to delve back into the world of Arthur Conan Doyle. So after my third cup of tea now, I'm ready to tackle the next subject regarding Sir Arthur: his family.
For today and tomorrow, let's take a step back and look at his parents, his childhood and upbringing a bit. Let's examine what shaped the boy into the man.
Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle was born on May 22, 1859 in Edinburgh to Charles and Mary Doyle. They would have nine children, seven surviving into adulthood, and Arthur was the second child.
Born during the reign of Queen Victoria, Arthur was a man molded by that age and formed by difficulties that made life hard for his parents. There were good things from his childhood no doubt, but things became darker and darker and it was not a rosy, easy existence. As I have read about Arthur Conan Doyle, he seems like the embodiment of the Victorian age to me. There was real tragedy in his family, yet also golden ideals. For me, Doyle's upbringing and family circumstances reads like a novel: an early life of dealing with things falling apart, overcoming, remaining loving and loyal to those who have lost their way, and finding old fashioned values to strengthen him.
The following is from the website siracd.com: ( Any bolding or underlining is mine and please note the photos are not from the siracd.com website)
Doyle's father ~
Charles Altamont Doyle was born around 1832. He was the last surviving child of John Doyle, an artist, who moved in high society. John Doyle included people like the Prince of Wales and Queen Victoria in his list of acquaintances.
Charles and his brothers had artistic leanings like their father.
In November of 1849 Charles left England for Edinburgh to take a position in Her Majesty's Office of Works. He hoped that the job would lead to a successful career, promotion and an eventual triumphant return to England.
When Charles arrived in Edinburgh he rented a room from a widow with two daughters. One of the daughters, Mary, caught Charles's eye. In July of 1855 they were married.
Charles was able to supplement the income from his civil service job with money he received from paintings and book illustrations. However because of the demands of his job he was not able to devote a great deal of time to his art. He grew depressed as he was torn between the necessity to make a living and his dreams. No doubt his depression grew as he compared his lack of progress with his brothers' successes in London.
As his dreams faded Charles grew more and more depressed. He drank more and his paintings became dark and macabre.
The reality of his situation became more than he could face. Although he did not abandon the family physically he did emotionally. His ever-worsening bouts of depression and inebriation separated him from his family. Mary Doyle became, in effect, a single parent.
In 1876 Charles was dismissed from his job at the Office of Works and put on a pension. Later that year he was sent to Fordoun House, a nursing home that specialized in the treatment of alcoholics.
While Charles was originally sent to Fordoun House because of his alcoholism he later developed epilepsy. At the time there was no known treatment and the condition was widely misunderstood. Sadly, his epilepsy doomed him to a life of confinement.
In 1885 Charles tried to escape from Fordoun House. He became violent during the attempt and was sent to the Montrose Royal Lunatic Asylum until early 1892. From there he was transferred to the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary and finally to the Crighton Royal Institution. In 1893 Charles Altamont Doyle died.
However much Arthur Conan Doyle was hurt by his father's inattention he was also proud of him. Rather than disassociate himself from his father he drew attention to his father's work. In 1888 an edition of A Study in Scarlet was published that contained illustrations by Charles Doyle. In 1891 Arthur Conan Doyle decorated his new office, his first office as a full-time writer, with paintings by his father. In 1924 Conan Doyle organized an exhibition of his father's work.
Conan Doyle wrote in his biography, "My father's life was full of the tragedy of unfulfilled powers and of underdeveloped gifts. He had his weaknesses, as all of us have ours, but he also had some very remarkable and outstanding virtues."
* * * * * * *
Some genuine tragedy in that. An artistic father who struggled and worked hard to provide for his family, who yearned to grow and be acknowledged as an artist ... but who finally succumbed to deep depression, alcoholism, and worsening ill health. I shudder to think of the conditions in various institutions and asylums during that time. I think that Arthur Conan Doyle's attitude concerning his father is admirable and touching.
And let us fill in the picture, with information about Doyle's mother, who certainly remained a strong influence on him.
Again, from the siracd.com website:
* * * * * * *
Doyle's mother ~
By anyone's definition Mary Foley Doyle, known as "the Ma'am" by her son Arthur Conan Doyle, was an interesting woman. She saved the Doyle family from ruin when her husband was institutionalized. She gave her children hope for tomorrow with tales of past glories and victories. She also had a mysterious relationship with a man fifteen years her junior.
Mary Foley met her future husband, Charles, in Edinburgh where her mother ran a boarding house. Charles Doyle had recently arrived from England to take a civil service job and need a place to live. In 1855 Mary and Charles married. Over the course of time they had seven children that survived to adulthood.
Charles did his best to provide for his large family. He supplemented his income with money he earned from painting and drawing. He was a talented artist who longed to devote himself to his art full-time. Eventually the unfulfilled longings turned into despair. Charles fell into a deep depression and began drinking heavily.
He was dismissed from his job. That same year he was sent to a hospital specializing in the treatment of alcoholics. Later he developed epilepsy. At that time the condition was misunderstood and untreatable. As a result Charles Doyle spent the rest of his life confined to a series of hospitals and asylums.
Even before her husband was sent away life was hard for Mary Doyle. Charles was emotionally absent because of his depression and drinking. After he was sent away the financial worries were considerable. However Mary had a unique coping mechanism.
Mary had long been interested in the tradition of chivalry and tales of knights. She shared these stories and values with her children. She also told them that they were of noble blood through her mother's family. The veracity of her claim is unproven, but the outcome of her actions is not. The stories gave the family the courage. The tales of deeds of bravery sustained the family as they dealt with the uncertainty of their situation.
The stories also inspired Mary's oldest son, Arthur Conan Doyle, in other ways. He would later say that he got his love of literature and storytelling from his mother. He once said, "I am sure, looking back, that it was in attempting to emulate these stories of my childhood that I began weaving dreams myself."
* * * * * * *
More information on Doyle's mother later today, along with the tidbit about the "mysterious relationship with a man fifteen years her junior." But for now, I wanted to have this posted for all to enjoy reading. I must hurry off to work soon.
Regarding Doyle's mother, I think she did a wonderfully good thing with her storytelling to her children, and her strong determination to overcome hard and almost unbearably sad circumstances. Although Doyle's family were never destitute or extremely poor, they certainly had their share of tragedy and struggle.
More to come ... thanks for reading, and joining us here during this intensive look at Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Today I want to share four websites with you. The first being the Doyle Estate's own website: http://www.conandoyleestate.co.uk/ which offers a wealth of information and family photos. Second is one I found through the estate's site, which is an exhibition about Sherlock Holmes. It is a traveling exhibition, four years in the making, and is currently in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. It looks rather interesting! I'd love to go. Some of our American readers may have the chance. I hope this does tour internationally, but we shall see. In the meantime, here is the exhibition's website: http://sherlockholmesexhibition.com/
I hope you enjoy looking through those two.
Now back to our consideration of Arthur Conan Doyle's family, first finishing with his mother.
One of the articles in my previous post mentioned that Doyle's mother had "mysterious relationship with a man fifteen years her junior." I found that info on http://siracd.com/life_mother.shtml, and here is the information on that from that site:
*******
Conan Doyle openly discussed many aspects of his life. However he was oddly silent regarding the subject of Dr. Bryan Waller.
To make extra money after her husband was institutionalized, Mary Doyle started taking in boarders. Dr. Bryan Waller was one of those boarders.
It would seem that he had a positive effect on the family. His presence helped to financially stabilize the household. While he was only six years older than Arthur, certainly he must have acted as a role model for him. Arthur followed Waller into medicine and even attended the same university as Waller.
Waller and Mary Doyle unquestionably had a good relationship. So good that in 1882 she and two of her daughters moved into a cottage on Waller's estate. She would live there, rent free, for more than thirty years.
Historians have suggested that Waller and Mary had an affair. However no one has been able to prove it. The closest Conan Doyle came to talking about the subject was when he said that Mary's taking boarders "may have eased her in some ways, but was disastrous in others."
Despite his feeling about his mother's association with Dr. Waller, Conan Doyle had an excellent relationship with her. He always sought her advice, but felt free to disagree with it. He was inspired by her example in the face of adversity and respected her opinion in all matters.
*******
Some sources simply state this was platonic; there is no hard evidence either way, so we shall leave that bit of info as it is.
Continuing on with information about his schooling ~
This photo is from the Stanford Univ. site, http://sherlockholmes.stanford.edu/biography.html
Arthur at age 4, three years before beginning his schooling.
I have come across a mixture of information on this website: http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/doyle/bio.html (As always, any bolding or underlining is mine, not the website, and I have added one note in brackets because I think the article misspelled a source's name).
So I'd like to share what they have written about Doyle's education. It was a harsh, though thorough, education. Amid the strict school, Arthur enjoyed sports and wrote stories ... I'll include their info through his time at med school:
*******
At the age of seven Arthur began his education at Newington Academy in Edinburgh. Then thanks to his mother and the financial help of his uncles, particularly, Michael Conan, a Paris correspondent for the Art Journal, Arthur received good education. First, he was sent for a year to Hodder, a prep school which prepared for a prestigious Jesuit school, Stonyhurst College, in Lancashire, which Arthur started in autumn 1870. As Andrew Lykett i]I believe it is spelled Lycett[/i writes:
Stonyurst was conservative and ultra-montane. This meant that its Rector or Head, Father Edward Ignatius Purbrick, followed a firm papal line in seeking to stem the tide of materialism in post-Darwinian Britain. [Lycett 32]
Arthur did not like the strict discipline and excessive religious instruction which the Jesuits had imposed on pupils. He was soon disillusioned with the Christian faith and when he was leaving the school he became almost an agnostic. While at Stonyhurst College, Arthur edited a school paper called Wasp and next the Stonyhurst Figaro, in which he revealed his talent as a future story writer. He also became a keen sportsman. In his later life he played cricket, rugby, football and golf, and was a cross-country skier.
After passing the London Matriculation Examination at Stonyhurst, Arthur spent a year in a Jesuit grammar school, Stella Matutina, in Feldkirch, Austria, where he was to learn German. He did not speak much German because he was surrounded by other English boys, but he discovered the short stories of Edgar Allan Poe, such as “The Gold Bug” and “The Murder in the Rue Morgue,” which later exerted a great influence on his detective fiction. At Feldkirch he also edited a student paper, the Feldkirch Gazette, which carried the motto “Fear not, and put it in print.” However, when he wrote an editorial criticising the Jesuit teachers' custom of censoring the boys' letters, the paper was shut down. Arthur's uncle, Michael Conan, a famous journalist, encouraged him to write, but he did not take this idea seriously at that time. (Pascal 18)
As a young boy Arthur was an avid reader, and one of his most favourite books was Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe. His other early readings included the novels of Robert Michael Ballantyne, Mayne Reid, James Fenimore Cooper, and Jules Verne. He spent much of his spare time reading, and once he borrowed so many books from the local library that, as he recalls in Memories and Adventures, a special meeting of a library committee was held in his honour, at which a bye-law was passed that no subscriber should be permitted to change his book more than three times a day. (Pascal 13)
In 1876, Arthur Conan Doyle began to study medicine at his mother's suggestion at the University of Edinburgh, which had been one of the best medical schools at that time. He met Dr. Joseph Bell (1837-1911), the famous lecturer and an expert in the use of deductive reasoning, who inspired the character of Sherlock Holmes, and the physiologist, Professor William Rutherford (1839-1899), a model for Professor Challenger. He also studied under Sir Robert Christison (1797-1882), one of the founding fathers of modern toxicology. (Harris 449)
During his medical studies, Arthur desperately tried to earn money for his living and to support his family. 1879, he worked as a medical assistant to Doctor Hoare in the town of Aston (now a district of Birmingham); next he worked in Sheffield and in Ruyton-XI-Towns, Shropshire. As a student he began writing short stories to earn some extra money. His earliest fiction, “The Haunted Grange of Goresthorphe,” was rejected by Blackwood's Magazine, but The “Mystery of the Sasassa Valley” was accepted for publication by Chambers Journal. He also published a scientific article, “Gelseminum as a Poison” in the British Medical Journal.
*******
Some of the sources for the above article's info are:
Pascal, Janet B. Arthur Conan Doyle Beyond Baker Street. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Harris, Susan Cannon. “Pathological Possibilities: Contagion and Empire in Doyle's Sherlock Holmes Stories,” Victorian Literature and Culture, 31(2), 2003, 447-466.
Lycett, Andrew. Conan Doyle: The Man Who Created Sherlock Holmes. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2007.
Beginning at the tender age of 7, Arthur had a strict schooling. That was not unusual for the era, if a family could afford to send a child to a good school. Surely that helped shaped his character and tastes. It is interesting for me to hear about his early writings. At some point, I hope to locate and read some of his earliest stories. And I do plan on reading at least one of the above sources.
I do recommend this entire site also: http://sherlockholmes.stanford.edu/biography.html
And from the Stanford Univ. site again, here is Arthur age age 14:
And from the same site again, this nice photo of Arthur graduating from med school at age 22:
We shall leave Arthur there, for the time being.
More to come much later today or perhaps tomorrow.
Cheers!
As for BMJ: Yes, and that one paper was on a poison! I thought, oh how appropriate.
More Doyle info coming ... much later today. Thanks to all who are reading this thread, and I hope you find one or two bits of info that are new and interesting for you. Sir Arthur certainly led a full, adventurous, and passionate life.
http://www.anthonyhorowitz.com/
It sounds brilliant.
Thanks for sharing, 0Brady. :-bd
The following info is from http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/doyle/bio.html
(as always, any bolding, underlining, or italics is mine) - and please note the photos are not from that website, but found randomly online.
Doyle had an ancient Irish surname, ranking twelfth in the list of the most common surnames in Ireland. It can be derived from the Gaelic Dub-Ghaill ('dark foreigner'), the name which the Celts gave to the Vikings, who began settling in Ireland more than 1,000 years ago, or from the Anglo-Norman surname of d'Oillys, who arrived in England with William the Conqueror and then settled in Ireland.
...
The Doyle family originated in Ireland and were dedicated Roman Catholics. Arthur Conan Doyle's grandfather, John Doyle (c. 1797-1868), a tailor, was born in Dublin into a devoutly Catholic family. All John's siblings entered Catholic religious orders, but John, who exhibited artistic talents, decided to become a painter. In 1820, he married Marianne Conan, a daughter of a Dublin's tailor. In c. 1822, John and Mary Doyle moved to London with their baby daughter and rented a house in Soho, which was inhabited by artists and writers. John wanted to become a portrait painter, but soon he gained fame as a political cartoonist under the pseudonym of HB. In 1833, he moved with his wife and children to a large house near Hyde Park at 17 Cambridge Terrace, where he subsequently entertained notable people including Sir Walter Scott, Charles Dickens, Benjamin Disraeli, William Makepeace Thackeray, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Millais, and Edwin Lanseer.
In 1832, Charles Altamont Doyle, Sir Arthur's father, was born. He grew up with one sister and three brothers. All his brothers made splendid careers: James William Edmund (1822-1892) was a historian and history illustrator; Richard (1824-1883) became a Punch cartoonist like his father; and Henry Edmund (1827-1892) became an art critic and a painter. In 1869, he was appointed Director of the National Gallery of Ireland.
Charles (1832-1893), Arthur's father, was not as successful as his elder brothers. Although he exhibited an original artistic talent, he was not able to earn a living from his paintings. At the age of 17, he moved to Edinburgh, Scotland, and got the job of a clerk in the Office of Works as an architectural draftsman. He rented lodgings in the New Town, a central area of Edinburgh, in a house owned by a Roman Catholic widow Catherine Foley. In 1855, he married his landlady's daughter, Mary Josephine (1837-1921), aged seventeen, with whom he had nine children, seven of whom survived infancy.
Arthur's mother was a strong-minded Irishwoman, who traced her ancestry to the Plantagenets. She held the family together and carried the burden of running the household and raising the children. In his Memories and Adventures Conan Doyle writes that his boyhood in Edinburgh was:
Spartan at home and more Spartan at the Edinburgh school where a tawse-brandishing schoolmaster of the old type made our young living miserable. From the age of seven to nine I suffered under this pock-marked one-eyed rascal who might have stepped from the pages of Dickens.
Arthur's mother, who knew well contemporary English and French authors, was a masterful storyteller, and she inspired her son to take interest in history and literature. She exerted a strong influence on his future career. She told him stories of their family ancient aristocratic roots. At the age of about five Arthur wrote his first story, which had only thirty-six words. It was about a Bengal tiger and a hunter.
...
Conclusion
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was a versatile and complex personality; he was physician by education, keen sportsman, war correspondent, campaigner for social justice, creator of the world's most famous fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, author of historical and social novels, and active Spiritualist. As Douglas Kerr has written in his recent book: “Arthur Conan Doyle was, arguably, Britain's last national writer.” An Irish by ancestry, Scottish by birth and upbringing, and British by choice, devoted to Crown and Empire, he still remains one of the most popular British authors and a national icon.
*******
I enjoyed reading the details from this particular website (victorianweb.org). They also have a list of further reading recommendation. Do check it out.
And so we get a clearer picture of Arthur Conan Doyle's ancestry and heritage.
Young Arthur with his father, Charles
Arthur's father watched his own brothers shine and become solidly successful, even as his own work and artistic talents started to unravel as he succumbed to addiction and illness.
Arthur's grandfather, John Doyle - sketched in chalk by his son Henry Edward Doyle
He had a few strong characters in his family, including truly remarkable grandfather - a man who remade his life from tailor to a popular political cartoonist, moving from Ireland to London; one who counted Sir Walter Scott, Charles Dickens, Benjamin Disraeli, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and other notable persons of that time as friends and acquaintances, people he entertained at his home and who were part of his social circle.
Mary Doyle, Arthur's mother
Doyle's mother, as we have read earlier, was a very strong woman who instilled in Arthur a love of history, pride in his own heritage, and forged him with vivid storytelling.
Later this week, I will take a look at Sir Arthur's wives and children.
Cheers!
Taken from a blog (that I have not read, but it does not appear to be Doyle or Sherlock related, but rather about spiritualism): http://0366df7.netsolhost.com/WordPress/2013/04/21/arthur-conan-doyle-presentation-part-one-more-than-the-man-behind-sherlock-holmes/
I just wanted to share these earlier photos of Charles and Mary. :)
taken from http://www.araltas.com/features/doyle/
The website page is a little lengthy, but states in part: Though the name Doyle is generally regarded as quintessentially Irish, there is general agreement among the experts that the family is ultimately of Norse origin. The modern Irish form, Ó Dúill, masks the older form Ó Dubhghaill derived from the two root words "dubh" meaning black or dark and "gall" meaning foreigner. So who was the "dark foreigner" who gave rise to such a numerous family? Scandinavians, variously referred to as Danes, Vikings or simply foreigners are mentioned in Irish history before the end of the first millennium.
This site also states (having just mentioned John Doyle through Arthur Conan Doyle) : This Doyle family has been described as the only one to have given, in the space of three generations, five separate entries to the Dictionary of National Biography ...
This is not including Charles (Arthur's father). I have not looked at this Dictionary of National Biography but I am assuming the names would be Arthur's grandfather, John, and some of Arthur's uncles on his father's side as well as Arthur Conan Doyle himself. Remarkable, indeed.
Translation of motto is: "He conquers by fortitude."
Congratulations!!
=D> =D> =D> ^:)^ ^:)^ ^:)^
Before I delve into Sir Arthur's marriages and children, I want to have a minor diversion about Sherlock Holmes. We have looked at the kinds of pipe Holmes smokes, and today I'd like to tackle another famous part of his iconic image:
The deerstalker hat. Ah yes, that one!
This iconic hat was never specifically described as a "deerstalker" in any of the Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle. But that style of hat is described in general in Silver Blaze. The deerstalker specifically originated with Sidney Paget, the wonderful illustrator of Holmes - and then this hat took on a life of its own, so to speak, with the film adaptations.
Please note: As always, bolding and underlining are mine, for all website material quoted and also when I have three dots in a row (such as this: ... ), it denotes skipping a passage in the same article and picking up more words from the same article. My longer symbols used such as ******* or +++++++ denote the end of a quoted article.
Here is some info from http://bakerstreet.wikia.com/wiki/Deerstalker
A deerstalker is a type of hat that is typically worn in rural areas, often for hunting, especially deer stalking. Because of the hat's popular association with Sherlock Holmes, it is also a stereotypical hat of a detective. Holmes was first seen wearing a deerstalker in Sidney Paget's illustration in The Boscombe Valley Mystery, although Sir Arthur Conan Doyle never wrote Holmes as wearing one specifically, though he did describe him as wearing a "close-fitting cloth cap" and in Silver Blaze as wearing "his ear-flapped travelling cap". The idea of Holmes wearing the countryside hat in his city-based stories, as many have depicted, is unlikely, as Holmes is known to be fashionably aware and would never commit such a fashion faux pas.
The deerstalker cap helped Sherlock Holmes to become instantly recognisable in popular culture. The hat also appears in many adaptations in order to identify Holmes. There are often re-imaginings of how the hat came to be famous;
In the 1939 Fox films The Hound of the Baskervilles and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Basil Rathbone's Holmes sports the cap as regular clothing. When the rights of the films were sold to Universal Studios by 20th Century Fox, Universal made the choice to re-marginalise the films as modern-day (1940s) British propaganda and therefore replaced the deerstalker with a fedora - in Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror, Holmes and Watson are about to leave Baker Street when Holmes picks up a deerstalker and Watson protests "no, Holmes! You promised!" and Holmes reluctantly puts down the deerstalker in favour of a fedora.
The Granada Television Sherlock Holmes series shows Holmes wearing a grey deerstalker frequently, notably in the series' adaptation of "The Final Problem".
In Young Sherlock Holmes, Holmes takes the hat from a deceased friend at the protest of his friend Watson.
In the second series of the contemporary Sherlock, Benedict Cumberbatch's Holmes attempts to shield his face from paparazzi with the deerstalker, only to find that the media have twisted it into his official image. Sherlock himself despises the hat and the image it portrays of him, referring to it as "a death frisbee."
Some film makers make the decision not to include the image to avoid their version of Holmes resembling others'. For example, Guy Ritchie personally decided not to include the deerstalker in his Sherlock Holmes film, joking that only one person in history ever wore that hat.
+++++++
And some more interesting info can be found on http://www.sherlockian-sherlock.com/sherlock-holmes-deerstalker-hat.php
Do check out the website itself; it is copyrighted, so I cannot copy info here. Good info on Sidney Paget wearing a deerstalker and that he gave one to Holmes because Holmes "hunted" criminals.
Do any of you have a deerstalker hat? I have a warm lined hat with ear flaps, but it is not a cloth deerstalker. I may have to rectify that some day. ;)
The hat is such a part of our image of Holmes now.
from the Baker Street tube station:
Statue in Edinburgh
And ... (don't get dizzy watching this) ~
Talking of something different, take a look at this piece of gold:
http://www.entertainment-focus.com/tv-section/tv-news/sherlock-holmes-rareties-display/
Ormond Sacker and Sherrinford Holmes (but then, Benedict Cumberbatch is a name that sounds as if it could have been made up by Doyle and it's real). Let us all thank the heavens that Doyle later changed their names [-O<
I do like the description of Holmes "Reserved, sleepy eyed young man - philosopher - collector of rare violins" and the reference to Amati and the chem lab. The BSBs have been posting photos of the exhibition and I will search for them later and post them. I also took a photo of the exhibition poster I saw in a magazine but I have to upload it somewhere to share :)
Outstanding job @4EverBonded :-bd
I was recently made aware of a large traveling Holmes exhibit currently in the U.S., set up by the Doyle family foundation, but I did not know about this one that is on display now in London. I so wish I could attend either of them! I'll look at more photos and read more about this later today.
And here I am trying to post the nice video (brief) that is on the museum's website:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=2pVRi8Ltunw
I hope that works.
The exhibit is called "The Man Who Never Lived and Will Never Die." Rather neat, that. ;)
It is indeed a splendid time to be a Sherlock Holmes fan. Much to see, to read, and plenty of Holmes related activities to indulge in.
Today, as we continue to look at Sir Arthur's family, I'd like to share some information about Arthur Conan Doyle's marriages. The basic facts are simple. Arthur had two wives. His first wife, Louise, died from tuberculosis, and his second wife, Jean, outlived him. He had two children with his first wife and three children with his second wife. But, true to form for the romantic Victorian gentleman that he was, the more complete story reads rather like an old fashioned Victorian melodrama/romance.
I'd like to quote the entire entire article from that fine site, siracd.com, because I like the way it is written. http://www.siracd.com/life_wives.shtml
(photos are NOT from that website, but found elsewhere online; as always, bolding or underlining is mine, not the website's)
*******
A man is torn between loyalty to his dying wife and the passion he feels for another woman. While this sounds like the plot of a romance novel, it was Arthur Conan Doyle's daily struggle for almost ten years.
Conan Doyle's mother told him tales of chivalrous knights and family honor when he was a boy. He took those stories to heart and throughout his life he was guided by those noble principles. It was no surprise then, when in 1885 he came to the rescue of the Hawkins family.
Young Jack Hawkins was terminally ill with cerebral meningitis. Jack, his mother and his sister were about to be evicted from their lodgings because of Jack's seizures. Conan Doyle, then a practicing physician, agreed that the entire Hawkins family should move into his home. Jack could be treated as a resident patient and the family would be able to stay together.
Sadly, Jack's case was so advanced that he only lived a short time after the move to Conan Doyle's residence. However something wonderful did spring from the tragedy of Jack's death. Louise, Jack's sister, was impressed with the young doctor's kindness and dedication. Conan Doyle was struck by Louise's gentle and friendly ways. They fell in love and in a short time they were married.
Their marriage was comfortable and congenial. Together they had two children and enjoyed Conan Doyle's blossoming literary career.
Things changed drastically in 1893. In that year Conan Doyle's father passed away, Sherlock Holmes met his temporary end in The Adventure of the Final Problem and Louise was diagnosed with consumption. She was only given a few months to live.
Consumption, today known as tuberculosis, had no known cure. However Conan Doyle was not going to let "Touie", his nickname for Louise, go without a fight. Like a knight planning for a battle Conan Doyle examined his options. There was some evidence that people moving to the healthy climate of Switzerland showed improvement. Wasting no time, Conan Doyle arranged a move to Davos Switzerland.
Louise's health improved, but she and Conan Doyle found it difficult living so far away from their family and friends in England. Later they were very pleased to learn from Grant Allen, a novelist, that the air of Hindhead, Surry was just as beneficial as that of Davos. Conan Doyle wasted no time in having a home built in that area. In 1897 Touie and Conan Doyle returned to England and took up residence in their new home, Undershaw.
However Conan Doyle's life was about to take another dramatic turn. He would celebrate the events of March 15, 1897 for the rest of his life. On that day he met Jean Leckie and fell in love.
No one knows how the couple came to meet. All that is known is that it was love at first sight for both of them.
Jean was an accomplished horsewoman, a trained vocalist and single. Conan Doyle was a doctor, a famous author and married. While he could not deny what he felt for Jean, his code of honor prevented him from acting on it.
They couldn't be together, but they couldn't be apart. Conan Doyle loved Jean passionately, but he was fond of Louise as well. She was his wife and the mother of his children. She was a gentle woman and Conan Doyle couldn't bear the thought of hurting her.
Conan Doyle and Jean came to an unusual understanding. Theirs would be a platonic love. It would be a purely spiritual union. The most important part of the agreement was that Louise must never be hurt. She could never know about Jean.
For years Conan Doyle and Jean carried on a relationship that was both open and secret. It was open in that Conan Doyle introduced Jean to members of his family. His mother was fully aware of the situation and even comforted Jean as she struggled to deal with the circumstances.
The relationship was also a secret. Almost ten years passed between the day that Conan Doyle met Jean Leckie and the day that Louise died in 1906. Louise died not knowing about Jean. Louise had not been hurt.
For Conan Doyle the days after Louise's death were dark ones. He truly cared about her and he grieved her passing. Added onto that was the guilt he must have felt about his feelings for Jean and the stress of leading a double life for so many years. His health declined and he suffered from depression.
However time and hard work cures many ills. In Conan Doyle's case the hard work was clearing the name of George Edalji, who had been wrongly convicted of several crimes. Conan Doyle's efforts paid off and Edalji was found innocent of most of the crimes for which he'd been accused. Edalji even attend Conan Doyle's wedding to Jean in September of 1907.
The couple had three children. The marriage was a happy one and lasted until Conan Doyle's death in 1930.
Miss Morstan and I stood together, and her hand was in mine. A wondrous subtle thing is love, for here were we two who had never seen each other before that day, between whom no word or even look of affection had ever passed, and yet now in an hour of trouble our hands instinctively sought for each other. I have marveled at it since, but at the time it seemed the most natural thing that I should go out to her so, and, as she has often told me, there was in her also the instinct to turn to me for comfort and protection. So we stood hand in hand, like two children, and there was peace in our hearts for all the dark things that surrounded us. – The Sign of The Four by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
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That lovely romantic passage from The Sign of The Four was written when Arthur was with Louise, before he had met Jean.
I will add that there are other sources that maintain that Sir Arthur did not have a completely platonic relationship with Jean while he was still married to Louise. And some people do question whether Louise remained totally unaware or unhurt. However, for our look at Doyle now, I feel that we do not need to hash out particulars or try to dig out sources and debate all this. I simply wanted to present what happened - and this is the view or scenario that Sir Arthur presumably wished to have, tried to live out, and would like future generations to believe. What is without doubt, I think, is that he loved both Louise and Jean.
Louise
Jean
Found here: http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2014/10/20/british_authors_and_wwi_propaganda_manifesto_signed_by_hg_wells_arthur_conan.html
I hope you enjoy! I so wish I was able to go there and see it for myself, it looks smashing.
I found it interesting that Arthur had five children, but none of them had children of their own. Before researching this, I thought that Doyle would have liked for the rights to his works to stay within his family. Well, he mostly did. He tried.
[Note: As always, I use +++++++ or similar to denote a section quoted from a website, or when returning to my own text.]
His children with his second wife, Jean
Kingsley during his time of service in WWI
Doyle's first wife Louise, with Kingsley and Mary
Mary Louise as a baby
But who runs the Doyle estate now? Ah, that story is a twisting, melodramatic, convoluted and interesting one! Please head over the the official Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Literary Estate website to read about this. It covers about 5 pages and reads like a family yarn, one in which I believe Sir Arthur would probably not be very pleased with how his family members dealt with all of this (infighting, squandering of money, bad decisions galore).
http://www.sirarthurconandoyle.com/TheEstate/index.htm
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So to be clear:
Doyle's two children with his first wife, Louisa, were:
Mary Louise
Arthur Alleyne Kingsley
His three children with his second wife, Jean, were:
Denis Percy Stewart
Adrian Malcolm
Jean Lena Annette
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The following information is from this website: http://www.conandoylecollection.co.uk/about-doyle-family.html
Arthur was devastated by the death of his eldest son, known as Kingsley, in 1918. Although badly wounded on the first day of the battle of the Somme, Kingsley was in relatively good health when he was struck down by the Spanish influenza epidemic.
...
His children continued his spiritualist interests after his death. His eldest daughter Mary continued to run the Psychic bookshop in London. She remained unmarried until her death in 1976.
Denis and Adrian continued to give talks, promote spiritualism and to run the Conan Doyle estate. Denis married Nina M’divani, a Georgian princess, and travelled to world. He died relatively young while visiting India in 1955.
Adrian married Anna Anderson and they settled first in Tangiers before opening the Conan Doyle Foundation in Switzerland. He continued to run the estate until his death in 1970.
The youngest daughter, Lena Jean, after a long career, became the Director of the Women’s Royal Air Force, (becoming a Dame), in 1963. She married, late in life, Geoffrey Bromet, who was 20 years her senior. She died in 1997 at the age of 85.
None of Arthur’s children had offspring so he left no direct descendants.
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It seems that Arthur's second wife, Jean, went by the double surname "Conan Doyle" the rest of her life. And it appears his children were also similarly known as Conan Doyle.
Reading about Arthur's first two children is really quite sad, no way around that. It seems that Kingsley and Mary were rather "cold shouldered" by Jean and did not enjoy a close relationship with their father after the death of their own mother. Both were cut out of copyright inheritance when Arthur died. He did not include them in that provision. It was not just the loss of that future income, though. They were not treated the same as the younger children with Arthur's second wife.
Kingsley's tragic death was a heartbreak for all. And Arthur's first daughter, Mary Louise, continued on the best she could. She never married, helped to run a psychic book shop in London, but died without a lot of money. The Telegraph article below includes this: "... Mary lived frugally and lunched for 2s 6d in cafes, Adrian and Denis lived the life of playboys thanks to their father's royalties. Mary, a spinster, died in 1976, aged 87, with only a small terrace house in Twickenham and little money to her name."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1470450/Revealed-the-cruelty-of-Conan-Doyle-to-his-eldest-daughter.html
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With Arthur's three children by his second wife, two of them turned out to seemingly squander their inheritance rather recklessly, and only the daughter, Jean, appeared to maybe not do so. She had a long career in the WRAF and tried to keep the Doyle rights within the family. But mistakes were made. Please read this link in full (same as one listed further above) to see the scope of this chain of events. http://www.sherlockholmesonline.org/Theestate/index.htm
The Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Literary Estate is now administered by Andrea Milos-Plunket, Lady Duncan's daughter (and has been for some time).
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Conan_Doyle has this to say:
Commandant Dame Lena Jean Annette Conan Doyle, Lady Bromet DBE AE WRAF ADC (21 December 1912 – 18 November 1997), best known as Jean Conan-Doyle, was a British stateswoman and military officer in the WRAF.
...
Dame Jean said that Sherlock Holmes was the Conan Doyle family curse because of the fighting over copyrights. She and the widows of her brothers initially shared control of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle′s literary trust; however, the women did not get along.
+ + + + +++
Adrian Conan Doyle seemed to be quite a spender. This is mentioned in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Conan_Doyle
Adrian Conan Doyle has been depicted as a race-car driver, big-game hunter, explorer, and writer. Biographer Andrew Lycett calls him a "spendthrift playboy" who (with his brother Denis) "used the Conan Doyle estate as a milch-cow".
Adrian with his father
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Denis Conan Doyle and his wife
By just casually looking at the internet this morning, I also found this article. It is regarding the luxurious and highly extravagant lifestyle of Denis Conan Doyle's wife, Princess Nina Mdivani. It does not focus on him. However, I thought it gave a fascinating glimpse into one portion of the set of wealthier people during the 30's through the 60's. From the 70's on, it became an even sadder tale. I'd like to include it as a link, in case you would like to read about this. It is a story of social climbing, greed, and a real waste of inheritance. Unlike fiction, this is sadly true.
http://www.jewelsdujour.com/2014/04/clive-kandel-reveals-the-true-story-of-the-hutton-mdivani-cartier-jadeite-necklace/
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So a rather downhearted look, some sadness and tragedy as we learn more details about Arthur Conan Doyle's children. I'm not happy to end this post on this note, but it is what it is. You can do further research also, if you care to, of course. Families are seldom straightforward or merely what it is presented to the public.
No matter. Cheers for now! And thanks for joining us on our continued focus on that splendid writer, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle!
And another link between Conan Doyle and Ian Fleming: the sad story of their sons and the lack of any grandsons...!
~O) While my morning pot of tea is brewing, and as I butter some piping hot toast, allow me to digress with a bit about something I am rather inexplicably fond of: hansom cabs
Perhaps it is just the heady atmosphere of Victorian England that Sherlock Holmes stories are steeped in, perhaps it is my love of horses, but for whatever reasons I find these old fashioned carriages and early "cabs" very appealing.
And I'm now adding this video from YouTube. I've always loved the opening titles scene from the Jeremy Brett Holmes series. A great slice of London life, cabs and all. (This is an entire episode, by the way - The Adventure of The Naval Treaty; a good one). Just watch the opening if you'd like; I think it is well done.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Ou5ZBdoCADc
And this morning I stumbled upon a great website that has a fascinating, detailed article about the hansom cab in Holmes stories. Here is that website: http://www.sherlockpeoria.net/Hansom_pages/HansomCabs.html
And here are just a few parts from that website (bolding and italics are mine).
In its popular form, the hansom was a magnificent vehicle. The passenger would ride directly between the large, wooden-spoked wheels, with the driver up behind on a seat that was level with the cab's roof. The driver's reins were threaded through supports on the front of the roof, and a small trap-door near the rear made driver-passenger communication easier. The view from a hansom was immeasurably superior to that afforded by the side windows of a four-wheeler. In addition to the side windows placed conveniently just over the tops of the wheels, the entire front of the cab was open, save for two angled folding doors that covered the passenger's lower limbs. In case of rain or a need for privacy, leather curtains could be drawn across the front at the passenger's discretion.
Use of such hindrances to vision were probably rare when Mr. Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street hired one of the cabs. The splendid view of the jostling masses of London had to have been one of the hansom's drawing points to Holmes's observant nature. Certainly another of its attractions to the detective was its speed. The cab's small size gave it an ability to move through traffic that made the hansom the fastest way to get about town.
...
Once the hansom was summoned, be it first, second, or third, the small matter of fare came up. Cabs could be hired by distance or time, sometimes at the passenger's choice. The fares for distance at the turn of the century were a shilling for the first two miles, then a sixpence for each mile or part of a mile after that. To travel further than the four-mile radius from Charing Cross, the cost rose to a shilling a mile. Items such as luggage and waiting time cost extra, at a fixed scale of charges.
For such a price, one got not only a ride in a hansom, but the services of that savvy professional known as the cabman. The experienced cab-drivers in the tales of Sherlock Holmes could find you a decent hotel, guide you through an ancient college town, or help you to catch a train. There were benefits to having a cabman as a confidant, Holmes once said, speaking in terms of information to be gained. But he also said that at times it can be an advantage to get about without taking a mercenary into your confidence. When hiring a cab in Holmes's world, your driver could be anything from a murderer to a Pinkerton detective.
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Oh do head over to that website for lots of more great information regarding this picturesque mode of transportation. (Okay and sometimes smelly. Horses everywhere on the streets meant lots of steaming heaps of ... well, you know what.) ;)
When I think of Holmes and Watson, I often picture them in a hansom cab. The article concludes with this lovely bit:
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Like the deerstalker cap and the curved pipe, the hansom is a trademark of the Sherlock Holmes legend. Unlike those other two, however, it actually appears in his recorded cases. From the initial promise of A Study in Scarlet ("and we started off together in a hansom") to the reassuring reappearance of "The Adventure of the Empty House" ("I found myself seated beside him in a hansom"), and even up to the last case his chronicler would tell us, "The Adventure of the Creeping Man" ("a smart hansom swept us past a row of ancient colleges") the hansom has always been there. Like the irregulars, like Toby and Pompey, it has a tradition of faithful service to the master of detectives. Such service has made the hansom cab oblivious to progress, as it has earned a place in that realm where time holds no meaning, where, as Vincent Starret has written, "It is always eighteen ninety-five."
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Cheerio! I hope you enjoy your own breakfast (lunch, supper, dinner, or tea) -
Here are some more photos for you to enjoy as you ponder Victorian England and the many horse-drawn cabs on its streets .
From 1895 London
[Re the above photo:] Marie Studholme, the lady in the postcard, was an actress and singer in the Victorian and Edwardian theatres. Her career spanned from 1892 until 1915 and she was one of George Edwardes’ famous Gaiety Girls. The postcard was posted from Glossop possibly in 1905 or 06 to Miss Meredith, Ivydene, Glossop and reads ‘Will this do? With love. John. If its like this next Tuesday what oh, I hope it is’.
...
Hansom cabs were not particularly easy to get into and for ladies often resulted in them loosing their hats due to the overhanging reigns or dirtying their garments due to the nearness of the wheel. They were however ideal for privacy as with the doors closed and the blinds lowered no one would know who was inside. They began to decline around 1890’s due to the improvements to public transport such as the Omnibus and the arrival of motorised cabs and taxis.
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I also found some interesting photos on the following website. There are no hansom cabs in these next 2 photos, but they show the change in transportation in London, 1912 to 1932.
http://www.ltmcollection.org/museum/object/link.html?_IXMAXHITS_=1&IXinv=2001/1450&IXexpand=design
In 1903 there was only one motor taxi licensed in London, but nearly 11,500 horse cabs. Ten years later there were more than 8300 licensed taxis, and fewer than 2000 horse cabs. By the 1920s horse cabs had almost disappeared from the streets, but the number of motor taxis remained at around 8000 up to 1939.
No hansoms for hire. There are plenty of new motor cabs in this view and only two surviving 'growler' horse cabs, Piccadilly Circus, 1912.
Piccadilly Circus again twenty years later, with buses, cars and cabs but no horses, 1932.
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London during the 1890's and early 1900's was rather crowded ...
modern times
I'm glad we still have some hansom cabs to enjoy these days!
Later this week I'll be looking at the transportation museum of London and the rest of England ... so in addition to a further look at Doyle's family, traveling by train with Holmes and Watson will come up in the near future. Cheers!
Just a quick update about the Klinger vs Doyle Estate. Yesterday the Supreme Court of the USA denied the petition by the estate regarding the "Free Sherlock!" case. Sherlock remains free and it looks like this time is for good ;)