Historical Figures – The John H Watson Society

15 December, 201715 December, 2017

On December 15th…

The Sherlockian and Watsonian world received many gifts from a man born on this day in 1884. Already a Business Law Professor at the University of Chicago with several books and articles to his credit, he discovered the joy of playing The Game after reading Profile by Gaslight in 1944. He wrote a 16-page response to Anthony Boucher’s essay, “Was the Later Holmes an Imposter?”

He soon became acquainted with Vincent Starrett, who invited him to join the Hounds of the Baskerville (sic), which Starrett himself founded in 1943.

Among our Mystery Man’s Sherlockian publications were An Irregular Chronology of Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street (1947) and An Irregular Guide to Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street (1947, with supplements in 1947 and 1948).

It was the latter volume that introduced his most enduring and outstanding gift, one that almost every Sherlockian writing on the Canon uses nearly every day around the world. We use it whenever we post quotes or events from the Canon. It is an obvious convenience to use this rather than spelling out “The Hound of the Baskervilles” every time we refer to that book. It is, of course, Jay Finley Christ’s system of abbreviations of all 60 Canonical tales:

ABBE The Abbey Grange
BERY The Beryl Coronet
BLAC Black Peter
BLAN The Blanched Soldier
BLUE The Blue Carbuncle
BOSC The Boscombe Valley Mystery
BRUC The Bruce-Partington Plans
CARD The Cardboard Box
CHAS Charles Augustus Milverton
COPP The Copper Beeches
CREE The Creeping Man
CROO The Crooked Man
DANC The Dancing Men
DEVI The Devil’s Foot
DYIN The Dying Detective
EMPT The Empty House
ENGR The Engineer’s Thumb
FINA The Final Problem
FIVE The Five Orange Pips
GLOR The “Gloria Scott”
GOLD The Golden Pince-Nez
GREE The Greek Interpreter
HOUN The Hound of the Baskervilles
IDEN A Case of Identity
ILLU The Illustrious Client
LADY The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax
LAST His Last Bow
LION The Lion’s Mane
MAZA The Mazarin Stone
MISS The Missing Three-Quarter
MUSG The Musgrave Ritual
NAVA The Naval Treaty
NOBL The Noble Bachelor
NORW The Norwood Builder
PRIO The Priory School
REDC The Red Circle
REDH The Red-Headed League
REIG The Reigate Squires
RESI The Resident Patient
RETI The Retired Colourman
SCAN A Scandal in Bohemia
SECO The Second Stain
SHOS Shoscombe Old Place
SIGN The Sign of the Four
SILV Silver Blaze
SIXN The Six Napoleons
SOLI The Solitary Cyclist
SPEC The Speckled Band
STOC The Stockbroker’s Clerk
STUD A Study in Scarlet
SUSS The Sussex Vampire
THOR The Problem of Thor Bridge
3GAB The Three Gables
3GAR The Three Garridebs
3STU The Three Students
TWIS The Man with the Twisted Lip
VALL The Valley of Fear
VEIL The Veiled Lodger
WIST Wisteria Lodge
YELL The Yellow Face

Our thanks to A Curious Collection of Dates: Through the Year with Sherlock Holmes, by Leah Guinn (JHWS “Amber”) and Jaime N Mahoney (JHWS “Tressa”) for including Professor Christ’s birthday (and the note that his surname rhymes with “list”) among many other fascinating tid bits!

11 December, 201714 December, 2017

Arsene Lupin Contre Herlock Sholmes

French author Maurice-Marie-Émile Leblanc was born on December 11, 1864, in Rouen, France. A novelist and journalist, he is best known today as the creator of Arsène Lupin, the gentleman thief featured in more than sixty stories.

Lupin’s first appearance – “L’Arrestation d’Arsène Lupin” – was published in Je Sais Tout on July 15, 1905, and the character quickly gained a following. The following year, Je Sais Tout published the story “Sherlock Holmès Arrive Trop Tard” (“Sherlock Holmes Arrives Too Late”). That story came to the attention of Arthur Conan Doyle, who objected to the violation of his copyright. When the collected Lupin stories were published in book form in 1910, it was under the title Arsène Lupin Versus Herlock Sholmes. For the UK edition, the name was Arsène Lupin versus Holmlock Shears.

A century later (give or take a few years), Lupin and the now-public-domain Holmes met in digital format in the computer game Sherlock Holmes versus Arsène Lupin (Frogwares, 2007 (original) and 2010 (remastered)). In the game, Lupin tries to steal five valuable items in order to humiliate Britain, and it is up to Holmes (and some other characters) to stop him.

Sources: A Curious Collection of Dates: Through the Year with Sherlock Holmes, by Leah Guinn and Jaime N Mahoney; Encyclopædia Britannica

6 December, 20177 December, 2017

On December 6th…

Dr E W Pritchard and Family. Carte-de-visite from the Howarth-Loomes collection at National Museums Scotland.

Dr Edward William Pritchard was born in Southsea on December 6, 1825. He trained as a physician’s apprentice and served as a ship’s surgeon before eventually settling in Glasgow in 1860. His medical career, however, was of less interest to Holmes than was the murder case which made the papers in 1865.

“Holmes,” I cried, “I seem to see dimly what you are hinting at. We are only just in time to prevent some subtle and horrible crime.”

“Subtle enough and horrible enough. When a doctor does go wrong he is the first of criminals. He has nerve and he has knowledge. Palmer and Pritchard were among the heads of their profession. This man strikes even deeper, but I think, Watson, that we shall be able to strike deeper still. But we shall have horrors enough before the night is over; for goodness’ sake let us have a quiet pipe and turn our minds for a few hours to something more cheerful.” (SPEC – Sherlock Holmes: The Ultimate Collection. Maplewood Books, Kindle Edition)

Chips writes: I had often wondered about this doctor when reading of that case but had not taken time to look him and his criminal activity, which included the murders of both his wife and his mother-in-law. I suggest that anyone interested in the life of this notorious murderer look into the fabulous volume that Selena and I have been using as our secondary source for this column: A Curious Collection of Dates: Through the Year with Sherlock Holmes, by Leah Guinn and Jaime N Mahoney. Their write-up includes the most fascinating details.

17 November, 2017

On November 16th…

In a diary entry on November 16, 1898, Arthur Conan Doyle recorded his clothed weight as 219 pounds. As he approached his 40th birthday, his rather sedentary lifestyle was catching up with him. To get back into shape, he adopted the fitness regimen prescribed by famous strong man Eugen Sandow.

Nothing, in my opinion, is better than the use of the dumb-bell, for developing the whole system, particularly if it is used intelligently, and with a knowledge of the location and functions of the muscles. (Eugen Sandow, Sandow on Physical Training: A Study in the Perfect Type of the Human Form, 1894)

He was the fitness guru of the day, perhaps something like a Richard Simmons without television appearances.

Sources: A Curious Collection of Dates: Through the Year with Sherlock Holmes, by Leah Guinn (JHWS “Amber”) and Jaime N Mahoney (JHWS “Tressa”); The Man Who Created Sherlock Holmes: The Life and Times of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, by Andrew Lycett

“Chips” notes that if you don’t have a copy of the fabulous A Curious Collection of Dates, you might want to suggest it as gift for an upcoming holiday.

8 July, 20178 July, 2017

On July 8th…

On July 8, 1837, Mary Josephine Foley was born. She grew up with a strong role model in her mother, Catherine Pack Foley, who supported her young family after being widowed when Mary was three. Catherine taught in Ireland and in Edinburgh, where she also opened a governess placement service. [Shades of Miss Violet Hunter in COPP –Chips]

In Edinburgh, to make ends meet, Mrs Foley took in boarders. One of those boarders was Charles Altamont Doyle, then seventeen years old. In 1885, Mary Foley and Charles Doyle were married.

Arthur Conan Doyle was their third child, and first son. Charles was a talented artist, but he was unstable and developed a problem with alcohol. He was eventually committed to a mental institution.

Arthur took his role as “man of the family” quite seriously, supporting his mother and sisters. He and his mother – he called her “the Ma’am” – remained close, exchanging letters that reveal a loving relationship in which he continued to look to her for advice.

Source: A Curious Collection of Dates: Through the Year with Sherlock Holmes, by Leah Guinn (JHWS “Amber”) and Jaime N Mahoney (JHWS “Tressa”)

9 May, 201718 September, 2018

On May 9th…

Portrait of J M Barrie by Herbert Rose Barraud (1892)

James Matthew Barrie, novelist and playwright, was born May 9, 1860, in Kirriemuir, Angus, Scotland. He met Arthur Conan Doyle in 1891, and the two men co-wrote the play Jane Annie, or The Good Conduct Prize in 1893. The comic opera’s brief run at the Savoy was unsuccessful. George Bernard Shaw called the play “the most unblushing piece of tomfoolery that two respectable citizens could conceivably indulge in public.”

Among the many authors of Sherlock Holmes pastiches, only one had his story included in Arthur Conan Doyle’s autobiography. J M Barrie’s short work, “The Adventure of the Two Collaborators”, is included in Arthur Conan Doyle’s Memories and Adventures. In it, two gentlemen come to call on Holmes and Watson at Baker Street, and Holmes’s first observation is, “They are two collaborators in comic opera, and their play has not been a triumph.”

Before Barrie and Doyle met, Barrie wrote an anonymously-published pastiche called “My Evening with Sherlock Holmes”, in which a Mr Anon persuades Arthur Conan Doyle to take him to meet Holmes. During their conversation, Mr Anon preempts Holmes’s deductions so often that Holmes leaves in a huff. [Is a Huff a new kind of British car? –Chips] [Very punny –Selena Buttons]

Source: A Curious Collection of Dates: Through the Year with Sherlock Holmes by Leah Guinn (JHWS “Amber”) and Jaime N Mahoney (JHWS “Tressa”)

8 May, 201719 September, 2018

On May 8th…

Sir Henry Duncan Littlejohn was born May 8, 1826 in Edinburgh.

He studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh, graduating in 1847. He was Edinburgh’s first Medical Officer of Health, the city’s Police Surgeon, and co-founder of the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Edinburgh. He acted as an expert witness in Scottish criminal cases. He was also a teacher of forensic medicine when Arthur Conan Doyle was studying at the University of Edinburgh.

He was knighted by Queen Victoria in 1895.

While many Sherlockians are familiar with the role Dr Joseph Bell played in the creation of Sherlock Holmes, in a 1929 speech, Arthur Conan Doyle also recognized the influence of Dr Bell’s colleague, Henry Duncan Littlejohn.

Source: A Curious Collection of Dates: Through the Year with Sherlock Holmes by Leah Guinn (JHWS “Amber”) and Jaime N Mahoney (JHWS “Tressa”)

12 April, 201719 September, 2018

On April 12th…

Portrait of Constantin Meunier by Max Liebermann

Sherlock Holmes had, in a very remarkable degree, the power of detaching his mind at will. For two hours the strange business in which we had been involved appeared to be forgotten, and he was entirely absorbed in the pictures of the modern Belgian masters. He would talk of nothing but art, of which he had the crudest ideas, from our leaving the gallery until we found ourselves at the Northumberland Hotel. [HOUN]

Constantin Meunier, Belgian painter and sculptor, was born April 12, 1831 in Brussels. Could he be the Oscar Meunier mentioned in the Canon?

Meunier trained at the Academie des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, beginning in 1845. On the advice of Charles de Groux, he focused on painting before returning to sculpture later in his career. More information about his life can found in A Curious Collection of Dates by JWHS members Leah Guinn (“Amber”) and Jaime N Mahoney (“Tressa”).

More information about the wax bust credited to Oscar Meunier may be found at John A Lanzalotti’s site: Williamsburg Sculpture:

In the sixty reminiscences of Dr. Watson better known as the Sherlock Holmes stories, there are two references to a wax bust made in the likeness of Sherlock Holmes by a French sculptor. The first reference is in the Return of Sherlock Holmes. The credit of the execution is due to Monsieur Oscar Meunier, of Grenoble, who spent some days in doing the molding. It is a bust in wax. ” The second reference is in the Mazarin Stone. Sherlock Holmes tells his assassin that the wax effigy was made by Tavernier, the French modelier. These names however, are either pseudonyms or the individuals were so obscure that history passed them by with no other reference. It seems odd that Sherlock Holmes would have two life-sized busts made in his image by two different sculptors. Both busts were said to be the identical image of Holmes.

10 April, 201721 September, 2018

On April 10th… Louisa “Touie” Hawkins

Louisa “Touie” Hawkins was born April 10, 1857. She married Arthur Conan Doyle in 1885; they had two children – Mary and Kingsley.

Conan Doyle was brought in by a fellow physician, William Pike, to consult on on a case of suspected meningitis. The patient was 25-year-old Jack Hawkins. Jack stayed at Doyle’s Home/practice so that Doyle could treat him, though the illness was incurable, and Jack only survived a short time.

While treating Jack and speaking with his family, Dr Doyle met Jack’s sister, Louisa (nicknamed “Touie”). They were engaged in April and married in August of 1885.

In October of 1893, Louise was diagnosed with what appeared to be a fast moving case of tuberculosis. Arthur devoted himself to caring for her, taking trips to Switzerland and Egypt, and he built his estate home in Surrey, at a higher altitude to allow Touie and their family to stay in England. Touie lived nearly 13 years past her diagnosis, until July 4 , 1906.

(I urge anyone interested to research and read and the literature about the relationship. There is so much more to the story then can be listed here. . You will find it quite interesting and worth the time. -Chips)

For more information, check out A Curious Collection of Dates by JWHS members Leah Guinn (“Amber”) and Jaime N Mahoney (“Tressa”).

9 April, 201721 September, 2018

On April 9th… The Trial of Drouet

The trial of Bartholomew Peter Drouet for manslaughter began on April 9, 1849.

He was a son of that Rodger Baskerville, the younger brother of Sir Charles, who fled with a sinister reputation to South America, where he was said to have died unmarried. He did, as a matter of fact, marry, and had one child, this fellow, whose real name is the same as his father. He married Beryl Garcia, one of the beauties of Costa Rica, and, having purloined a considerable sum of public money, he changed his name to Vandeleur and fled to England, where he established a school in the east of Yorkshire. His reason for attempting this special line of business was that he had struck up an acquaintance with a consumptive tutor upon the voyage home, and that he had used this man’s ability to make the undertaking a success. Fraser, the tutor, died, however, and the school which had begun well, sank from disrepute into infamy. The Vandeleurs found it convenient to change their name to Stapleton, and he brought the remains of his fortune, his schemes for the future, and his taste for entomology to the south of England. I learn at the British Museum that he was a recognized authority upon the subject, and that the name of Vandeleur has been permanently attached to a certain moth which he had, in his Yorkshire days, been the first to describe.

The trial of Drouet was about the kind of schoolmaster that Rodger Baskerville probably was. It was not uncommon in the 19th century for private boarding schools of varying quality to be set up and attract pupils.

In the 1840s, one such school was set up by Drouet. It first prospered by taking pupils from overcrowded workhouses and training them for a fee. Although unannounced inspections brought up issues of poor conditions and unsanitary food, nothing was done until a cholera outbreak at the school killed 100 children and one adult. The nature of cholera made it hard to prove that the children died because of the school’s conditions, and Drouet was acquitted.

See the excellent A Curious Collection of Dates by JWHS members Leah Guinn (“Amber”) and Jaime N Mahoney (“Tressa”) for more information.

19 March, 201721 September, 2018

On March 19th… Vamberry, the Wine Merchant

“First Edition Wines” from 221B Cellars (photo courtesy Ashley Polasek)

“They are not all successes, Watson,” said he, “but there are some pretty little problems among them. Here’s the record of the Tarleton murders, and the case of Vamberry, the wine merchant, and the adventure of the old Russian woman, and the singular affair of the aluminium crutch, as well as a full account of Ricoletti of the club foot and his abominable wife.” [MUSG]

In A Curious Collection of Dates, Leah Guinn (JHWS “Amber”) and Jaime N Mahoney (JHWS “Tressa”), dedicate this day to Arminius Vamberry, born March 19, 1832 (possibly). They write:

“According to Leslie Klinger’s New Annotated Sherlock Holmes, Arminius Vamberry (German: Hermann Bamberger) was a wine collector. But the Hungarian language professor, who may or may not have been born on this date in 1832, was so much more.”

Their concise account of his adventurous life (including the reason he is featured on the day that might not have been his actual birthday) ends with this interesting speculation:

“In 2005, the British National Archives released a collection of late 19th-century secret service documents. There were several revelations, one being that Vamberry had served for over a decade as a foreign agent, providing information about the Turkish government and its relations with Austria-Hungary and Russia. Records reveal that he frequently asked for cash and was known for being ‘alarmist.’ One has to wonder if it was in this capacity that he ended up as one of Holmes’s ‘pretty little problems,’ sent to 221B by way of the Diogenes Club and a particular minor government official.”

Source:
Information provided by A Curious Collection of Dates by Leah Guinn (JHWS “Amber”) and Jaime N Mahoney (JHWS “Tressa”)
Posted by The Dynamic Duo Ron (JHWS Chips) and Beth (JHWS Selena)

17 March, 201721 September, 2018

On March 17th… Denis is Born

Denis Stewart Percy Conan Doyle was born on March 17, 1909, the third child of Arthur Conan Doyle, and the first child of his marriage to Jean Leckie. Arthur Conan Doyle originally suggested the name James Denis Pack Conan Doyle, honoring the baby’s maternal grandfather (James Blythe Leckie) and paternal grandmother’s family (the Packs). Arthur’s mother, however, insisted on the name Percy.

Arthur later wrote to his mother, “I have never seen so bright and intelligent a child. His head too is wonderfully formed. He will do deeds if he lives.”

Denis did live, marrying Georgian princess Nina Mdivani in 1936, working with his brother Adrian in managing the Conan Doyle estate, and enjoying motor racing and big game hunting. He died on March 9, 1955.

Source:
Information provided by A Curious Collection of Dates by by Leah Guinn (JHWS “Amber”) and Jaime N Mahoney (JHWS “Tressa”).
Posted by The Dynamic Duo of Ron (JHWS “Chips”) and Beth (JHWS “Selena”)

14 March, 201721 September, 2018

On March 14th…

Jean Elizabeth Leckie was born March 14, 1874 to James Blythe Leckie and Selina Leckie in London, England.

At age twenty-three, while studying voice, she met Arthur Conan Doyle. At the time, he was thirty-eight and married with two children. His wife, Louisa, was suffering from tuberculosis.

Reportedly, Arthur immediately fell in love with Jean, but he remained faithful to Louisa until her death in 1906.

Arthur and Jean married September 18th, 1907, and had three children: Denis, Adrian, and Lena Jean. She survived her husband by ten years, passing away on June 27, 1940.

13 March, 201721 September, 2018

On March 13th… Tidbits is Born (Sort of)

Sir George Newnes was born March 13, 1851, in Matlock Bath, Derbyshire. In 1881, he founded a new magazine that would include small articles (“tit-bits”) reprinted from other publications. He called it, of course, Tit-Bits. (Or, to give it its proper full title: Tit-Bits from all the Most Interesting Books, Periodicals and Newspapers in the World.)

Leah Guinn (JHWS “Amber”) and Jaime N Mahoney (JHWS “Tressa”) write in A Curious Collection of Dates:

Tit-Bits from all the Most Interesting Books, Periodicals and Newspapers in the World, Issue 1

The new magazine entered the marketplace at the perfect time: literacy rates had grown in England thanks to the Compulsory Education Act of 1870, and an increasingly urban, commuting public welcomed interesting train reading that did not require the commitment of a lengthy serial. It didn’t hurt that Newness was an expert promoter: Tit-Bits offered train insurance, contests for everything from cash to a house – even, in 1903, buried treasure.

He went on to found The Strand Magazine in 1891, which stated in its first issue, “It will contain stories and articles by the best British writers, and special translations from the first foreign authors. These will be illustrated by eminent artists.” The July 1891 issue contained the first appearance of “A Scandal in Bohemia”.

“Chips” notes: I think this is where the name of our column came from back when I
first joined this world of 1895 at about the age of 11.

Sources:

Information provided by the volume A Curious Collection of Dates by by Leah Guinn (JHWS “Amber”) and Jaime N Mahoney (JHWS “Tressa”). Digitized copy of the first volume of The Strand: An Illustrated Monthly held by the University of California available via Google Books.

Posted by The Dynamic Duo: Ron (JHWS “Chips”) and Beth (JHWS “Selena Buttons”)

12 March, 201721 September, 2018

On March 12th… A Model for Moriarty

Quotation from “The Outlook for the Flying Machine” by Professor Simon Newcomb [The Independent, 22 October 1903]

Simon Newcomb was born on March 12, 1835, in Wallace, Nova Scotia, Canada.

One hardly knows where, in the history of science, to look for an important movement that had its effective start in so pure and simple an accident as that which led to the building of the great Washington telescope, and went on to the discovery of the satellites of Mars. [Simon Newcomb, The Reminiscences of an Astronomer, 1903

Who was Simon Newcomb?

[Illustration by Sidney Paget for “The Final Problem”, The Strand Magazine, December 1893]

Is he not the celebrated author of The Dynamics of an Asteroid – a book which ascends to such rarefied heights of pure mathematics that it is said that there was no man in the scientific press capable of criticizing it? [VALL]

In A Curious Collection of Dates, Leah Guinn (JHWS “Amber”) and Jaime N Mahoney (JHWS “Tressa”) note:

Several men have the dubious honor of being considered models for James Moriarty, and eminent American astronomer Simon Newcomb is one of them.

Newcomb was a gifted mathematician who, like Moriarty, applied his genius to the field of astronomy. In 1861, his paper “On the Secular Variations and Mutual Relations of the Orbits of the Asteroids” was published in the Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. It is possible that Arthur Conan Doyle came across Newcomb’s work in his own wide-ranging studies.

Another side of Newcomb

Also like Moriarty, Newcomb appears to have had a darker side. He studied mathematics under Benjamin Peirce at Harvard, later becoming friends with him. Newcomb did not become friends with Peirce’s son, Charles, a fellow mathematician four years Newcomb’s junior. In Charles Sanders Peirce: A Life, biographer Joseph Brent credits Newcomb with no less than the “successful destruction of” Peirce’s career. Among other moves to sabotage Peirce, and perhaps motivated by his profound disapproval of Peirce’s recent divorce and marriage to his mistress, Newcomb played a major part in the denial of Peirce’s 1902 application for a Carnegie grant.

It is highly unlikely that Conan Doyle was aware of these facts: however, the story of a mathematical genius with a dark side doing battle with an unconventional genius dedicated to logic sounds familiar all the same. [from A Curious Collection of Dates]

Sources:

Information from the volume A Curious Collection of Dates by Leah Guinn (JHWS “Amber”) and Jaime N Mahoney (JHWS “Tressa”). Additional information from the Encyclopaedia Britannica and Charles Sanders Peirce: A Life by Joseph Brent.

Posted by The Dynamic Duo, Ron (JHWS “Chips”) and Beth (JHWS “Selena Buttons”)

9 March, 201721 September, 2018

On March 9th… A Loss

On March 9, 1955, Denis Percy Stewart Conan Doyle (born 1909), son of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, died in India. He was the first child of Arthur Conan Doyle’s marriage to Jean Leckie, and the eldest surviving son after the death of his half-brother, Kingsley, in 1918.

From information provided by the volume A Curious Collection of Dates by by Leah Guinn (JHWS “Amber”) and Jaime N Mahoney (JHWS “Tressa”), we find this note in E W Smith’s “From the Editor’s Commonplace Book” in the July 1955 issue of the Baker Street Journal:

[Denis was n]ever too sympathetic with the doings of the Baker Street Irregulars — he found the profound pseudo-scholarship angle a little baffling — [but] Denis was nevertheless an interested and sometimes charming observer.

Denis Conan Doyle attended the 1949 BSI Dinner and was perhaps somewhat miffed that Holmes and Watson, rather than his father, were getting all the attention. Smith goes to recall:

And then, a few minutes later, he got to his feet, at Chris Morley’s invitation, and gave a simple and very moving little talk on ‘My Father’s Friend, Mr Sherlock Holmes’.

Posted by The Dynamic Duo (JHWS Chips) aka Ron and (JHWS Selena) aka Beth

25 February, 201721 September, 2018

On February 25th… An Execution

Charles Peace, English burglar and murderer, was executed on February 25, 1879.

Why is this important to us? Because of the following quote from the Canon:

“A complex mind,” said Holmes. “All great criminals have that. My old friend Charlie Peace was a violin virtuoso.”

The case the quote is from ______________________. Please fill in the blank or ask us and we will tell you.

Charles Peace embarked on a life of crime after being maimed in an industrial accident as a boy. After killing a policeman in Manchester, he fled to his home-town of Sheffield, where he became obsessed with his neighbour’s wife and shot the husband dead. Settling in London, he carried out multiple burglaries before being caught in the prosperous suburb of Blackheath, wounding the policeman who arrested him. He was linked to the Sheffield murder and tried at Leeds Assizes. Found guilty, he was hanged at Armley Prison.

Sources
This information is from Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia.
The idea to use this story came from the volume A Curious Collection of Dates by Leah Guinn (JHWS “Amber”) and Jaime N Mahoney (JHWS “Tressa”). Their story is more detailed and interesting. Look it up. You will enjoy. Leah and Jaime speculate that Holmes as a young man may have been one of the visitors that Peace entertained before Peace was hanged. Since they both had crime interests and violins in common.

Posted by The Dynamic Duo Co-columnists Ron (JHWS “Chips”) Beth (JHWS “Selena”).