Arthur Conan Doyle

Arthur is best known as a novelist and as the creator, in 1887, of the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes. He was most successful as an author during his lifetime and is famous today for his imaginative fictional stories of crime, horror, fantasy and science.

A medical student in the 1870s, Arthur was taught by Dr Joseph Bell, a senior surgeon at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, and witnessed Bell’s ability to deduce a patient’s illness, employment and origins based purely on observations. Bell also used scientific methods to help solve crime and it was these abilities that shaped Arthur’s model for Sherlock Holmes.

In 1880, Arthur served as doctor on a whaling ship, ship surgeon in 1881 aboard the SS Mayumba on the West African coast and briefly shared a medical practise in 1882 in Portsmouth. In 1900, he served as a volunteer field surgeon in the Langman Field Hospital at Bloemfontein during the second Boer War.

An advocate for justice, in 1906 Arthur gave his personal assistance to lawyer George Edalji, who was unfairly accused of a crime, using deduction techniques to prove his innocence. His other interests included sports, spiritualism, politics and architecture.