22 May 2023
On This Day
22 May 2023 Cheryl

22 May 1859: Arthur Conan Doyle is born

Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson

Arthur Conan Doyle’s baptism register at St Mary’s Cathedral, Edinburgh, gives ‘Arthur Ignatius Conan’ as his given names and ‘Doyle’ as his surname. Shortly after graduating from high school, he began using ‘Conan’ as part of his surname, but technically his last name is simply ‘Doyle’.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was a British writer and physician. He is probably best known as the creator of Sherlock Holmes.

Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle was born on 22 May 1859, in Edinburgh, Scotland, the second of Charles Altamont and Mary Foley Doyle’s 10 children. His childhood was not easy. His father, an artist, was an alcoholic and unable to support his family, but he was very close to his mother who was a vivid storyteller. Young Arthur found solace in his mother’s imaginative tales and in the local libraries, where he developed a deep love for storytelling and literature.

With the financial help of various uncles, Doyle was sent to a Jesuit boarding school when he was nine and then to Stonyhurst College, where he received a classical Jesuit education. Although he didn’t quite enjoy his time at these schools, the rigorous training in logic, observation, and attention to detail likely influenced his creation of Sherlock Holmes in his later years.

His experiences after graduating from school range widely. While studying medicine from 1876 to 1881 at Edinburgh University, the young medical student met a number of future authors who were also attending the university, including J.M. Barrie and Robert Louis Stevenson. His professor was Dr Joseph Bell whose keen powers of observation would later inspire Doyle to create Sherlock Holmes.

A Study in Scarlet Cover illustration of 'Beeton's Christmas Annual,' 1887

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As a young doctor Doyle was short of patients and hence short of money, so at this time, he started writing and publishing short stories. Realising from readers’ reactions that he could write tales that were life-like and credible, Doyle set about creating characters who could solve mysteries. These characters evolved into Sherlock Holmes and Dr John Watson, and in 1887 his first Holmes story, A Study in Scarlet, appeared.

Doyle continued his medical career until the late 1880s when he gave up medicine altogether to focus on writing and his faith. In August of 1885, he married Louisa Hawkins, the sister of one of his patients. Their daughter Mary was born in 1889 and a son Kingsley in 1892. Louisa was diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1893, at that time frequently a death sentence, and he nursed her until she died in 1903.

The literary canon of Sherlock Holmes eventually reached 56 short stories and four novels, with The Hound of the Baskervilles being the most popular. Doyle also wrote thoroughly researched historical novels set in the Middle Ages and it was for these books that he really wished to be remembered.

Arthur Conan Doyle was a gifted sportsman, a cricketer, boxer, golfer, and one of the first Englishmen to enjoy skiing. He died from a heart attack on 7 July 1930, aged 71.