A man who needs no introduction, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle found fairies and fictional inspiration in Minstead, his final resting place.
Born in Edinburgh of Irish parentage, Arthur was the second of ten to Charles and Mary, and a nephew of Richard Conan Doyle (1824-83), the caricaturist, watercolourist and book illustrator. Our man is normally referred to as Conan Doyle as though it’s a compound surname, but it wasn’t. He was born Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle, Conan one of his middle names. Part-educated in Germany, he also studied medicine in Edinburgh where he qualified as a Doctor of Medicine, then launched into an unsuccessful venture as a young practitioner in Southsea.
Arriving in Portsmouth in June 1882 with less than £10, he established his practice at 1 Bush Villas, Elm Grove, Southsea. He also studied at the Portsmouth Eye Hospital so he could perform eye tests and prescribe glasses and was a staunch advocate of compulsory vaccination, denouncing the antics of anti-vaxxers.
Whilst waiting for non-existent patients, Conan Doyle ran out of patience and began writing fiction. He also used his spare time to play football. Architect Arthur Cogswell (1858-1934), who did a lot of work in the Portsmouth area, had formed an amateur soccer team, Portsmouth AFC for whom Conan Doyle played in goal using a pseudonym, ‘A.C. Smith’. That amateur side was disbanded in 1896 but Cogswell may have gone on to play some part in the formation of today’s Portsmouth Football Club, established two years later in 1898.
If this was Conan Doyle’s first foray into Hampshire, well, it would certainly not be his last. His lack of success at general practice and being an oculist in London persuaded him to try his hand at authoring. He debuted in Chambers’ Journal in 1879 whilst his first book introduced a receptive public to his sleuth Sherlock Holmes together with his good-natured if not always brilliant sidekick Dr. Watson, who also acted as narrator.
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes were serialised in Strand Magazine (1891-93) when Conan Doyle decided to kill off his creation, sending him plummeting over the Reichenbach Falls. He’d perhaps be amused to learn there are still people out there who think Holmes was/is a real person (I know for a fact that a major UK building society once owned the block that included 221 Baker Street, and therefore the entirely fictional 221B, and had to employ a full-time member of staff to fend off all the correspondence arriving for ‘Mr. Sherlock Holmes, 221B, Baker Street’).
Sometimes when a popular character is killed off it doesn’t sit well with fans (take Bobby Ewing in Dallas, 1985) and faced with a kickback of recrimination the person or persons responsible will reluctantly try and wriggle out of the dilemma. He didn’t really die or maybe someone was just having a dream (in Ewing’s case). Anyway, Holmes returned to great relief among his legions of fans, revived almost miraculously by the author in 1903.
Holmes books were published: The Sign of Four (1890); my personal favourite and The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902). Conan Doyle though rated his historical romances more highly, a clue perhaps as to why he wanted to kill off his commercial success, the popular but not particularly highbrow Holmes and Watson. The books he preferred were Micah Clarke (1887); The White Company (1891), a tale of the Hundred Years’ War which features Christchurch (then in Hampshire) and the New Forest; Brigadier Gerard (1896) and Sir Nigel (1906). They do have greater literary merit to be fair.
Conan Doyle was an enthusiastic boxer and Rodney Stone (1896) was one of his better novels, whilst The Lost World (1912) and The Poison Belt (1913) are essays into the pseudo-scientifically fantastic.
Having served as a physician in the Second Boer War, his polemic The War in South Africa (1902) sought to call out enemy propaganda and justify Britain’s actions; a case perhaps of defending the indefensible, but it nevertheless won him a knighthood in 1902. He also used his fictional crime knowledge to try and solve some true ones, those of Edaljee (1903) and Slater (1909). You might have seen Martin Clunes portraying Conan Doyle, and battling with a Scottish accent, in a dramatization of the Edaljee case, Arthur & George (2015).
Conan Doyle married Louisa Hawkins in 1885 (until her death in 1906) and Jean Leckie in 1907 (until his death in 1930). There would be five children in total.
Conan Doyle became converted to spiritualism in later life, a subject he wrote on. He also believed in fairies which brings me to the New Forest, as the little people are alleged to climb the trees at Minstead (or so I’ve heard). The author bought a country residence, Bignell Wood, as a retreat in 1924 and would remain associated with it until his death in 1930. It was while he was researching that book The White Company, that he found the New Forest which eventually led to him buying Bignell Wood for second wife Jean as a birthday present, and for them to use as a rural bolthole.
This spectacular residence, named from the adjacent woodland, sits in its own six-acre plot. Minstead, on the other side of the A31 from the house, featured in the book and would ultimately be Conan Doyle’s final resting place.
As well as being a keen pugilist, Conan Doyle was a capable cricketer, turning out for the MCC (Marylebone Cricket Club) in first-class matches, even bowling out the renowned W.G. Grace. He also played for what’s believed to have been the first celebrity cricket team, the inspiration of Peter Pan author J.M. Barrie, which featured other literary luminaries such as H.G. Wells, G. K. Chesterton, Jerome K. Jerome, A.A. Milne, P.G. Wodehouse and the slightly lesser-known E.W. Hornung, creator of Raffles and Conan Doyle’s son-in-law. The New Forest would have been a nice place to stage a charity fundraiser.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle died at his Crowborough home on July 7, 1930 of a heart attack and was originally buried there. He was later reinterred in the churchyard of All Saints, Minstead, in 1955, along with his beloved second wife, Jean, the pair a short distance away from their New Forest retreat.
CHRONOLOGY
1859 – Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle born in Edinburgh (May 22).
1882 – Conan Doyle arrives in Southsea where he sets up an unsuccessful medical practice.
1885 – Marries for the first time to Louisa Hawkins (until her death in 1906).
1891 – Publication of The White Company which features the New Forest.
1902 – Conan Doyle becomes Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
1903 – The resurrection of Sherlock Holmes who’d previously been killed off by Conan Doyle.
1907 – Marries for a second time to Jean Leckie.
1924 – Conan Doyle buys Bignell Wood in the New Forest for his second wife Jean.
1930 – Death of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in Crowborough, Sussex (July 7) aged 71.
1955 – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s remains reinterred at All Saints, Minstead.
