Sir A. Conan Doyle Dead (The Londonderry Sentinel)
Sir A. Conan Doyle Dead is an article published in The Londonderry Sentinel on 8 july 1930.
Obituary of Arthur Conan Doyle.
Sir A. Conan Doyle Dead
Creator of Sherlock Holmes
Passing of Noted Spiritualist.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle died at his Crowborough (Sussex) residence yesterday morning. He celebrated his 71st birthday on May 22 of this year. Lady Conan Doyle and their two sons and one daughter were at the bedside. Sir Arthur had lived at Crowborough for the past 22 years.
He took a great interest in local sports, specially cricket and billiards. He had been ill since November last, and his illness is attributed to his arduous work in Scandinavia in October, when he gave series of lectures on Spiritualism.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle would wish his fame to rest upon his beliefs in communication between the living and the dead. It is more likely, however, that "Sherlock Holmes" will be the medium of his immortality.
Sir Arthur wrote his first book of adventure at the age six, and illustrated it himself, but his literary career dated more correctly from nineteen years of age, when his first short story was published in "Chambers's Journal."
After leaving Stonyhurst College (Lanes) he studied medicine at Edinburgh University, and it was the inductive methods of his professor, Dr. Bell, that led to the creation later on of the most famous detective in fiction. He was an enthusiastic and useful cricketer in his younger days, and once took the wicket of the great "W.G." He was caught behind the stumps, and Sir Arthur well remembered that he got some runs himself in that match.
In those days there was a famous bowler named Sherlock. "I cannot really certain," he said a little while ago, "but it is possible that the name of the bowler Sherlock stuck in my mind, and Homes also may owe its origin to cricket.
In later years his hobbies were golf, motoring, and billiards.
After taking his degree as M.D. at Edinburgh, Doyle was in medical practice for 8 years at Southsea, and later was senior physician of the Langman Field Hospital, South Africa.
At 28 he introduced Sherlock Holmes in "A Study in Scarlet," and a few years later produced his masterpiece, "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes." In all he wrote over sixty books and plays.
THE SLATER CASE.
Sir Arthur vigorously espoused the cause of Oscar Slater, who was sentenced to imprisonment for life for the alleged murder of Marion Gilchrist. Believing that there had been a grave miscarriage of justice, he conducted a strenuous campaign for the reopening of the case. In this he was ultimately successful, and Slater was acquitted.
A little later, however, Sir Arthur sued Slater for part of the costs for his defence, but the matter was eventually settled amicably.
In a remarkable open letter written in June last year, Sir Arthur said, "We are about to die, you and I. My age is just 70, and I suppose an actuary would give me five more years, it may be ten, it may be only one. Who can tell? Perhaps this may have been pre-vision by one who was a firm believer in Spiritualism and the power.
Mr. Adrian Conan Doyle, one of Sir Arthur's sons, paid one of the most remarkable tributes to his father ever made by a son in an interview yesterday.
"He was a great man and a splendid father," he said, "and was loved, and was happy because he knew it, by all of us. He had had heart trouble for six or eight months, but recently it had been easier, and he had suffered less pain. Then two days ago came a sudden turn for the worse, and he died peacefully at 9.30 today.
"My mother and father were lovers after thirty years, as they were on the day they were married. Their devotion to each other at all times was one of the most wonderful things I have ever known. She nursed him right through his illness to the end.
"His last words were to her, and they show us how much he thought of her. He simply smiled up at her and said, 'You are wonderful.'"
"He was in much too much pain to say a lot. His breathing was very bad, and what he said was during brief flashes of consciousness.
"Never have I seen anyone take anything more gamely in all my life. Even when we all knew he was suffering great pain he always managed during the time he was conscious to keep a smile on his face for us."
Sir Arthur claimed to have had conversations with the spirits of Cecil Rhodes at his grave in the Matoppo Hills, and also with Lord Haig and Joseph Conrad
"I pledge my honour that Spiritualism is true," said Sir Arthur a few months ago, "and I know that Spiritualism is infinitely more important than literature, art, or politics, or, in fact, anything in the world."
In the Psychic Museum which he established in Victoria-street, London, are shown many photographs and records of the phenomena in which he was so deeply interested.
In 1900 Sir Arthur contested Central Edinburgh as a Liberal Unionist and Hawick Burghs as a Tariff Reformer in 1906. He called upon all Spiritualists to oppose the Conservative Government in the General Election of 1929.
He led a bitter tirade against organised Christianity, the principal attack being levelled against the sacraments and the ritual of Church services. In one of his books he asked:—
"Has any heathen tribe anything more fantastic than this in its ritual, and can we expect the affairs of this world to be normal while we profess to hold views in religion which no sane man could justify? If such things have come from the priesthood, then it is time that all priesthood should be swept away and that the community should take their religious affairs into their own hands."
"You know that Lord Haig was a spiritualist," he told his audience. "Within two days of his death, or it might have been three, he sent me a long message which had every sign of being evidential and truthful. It was a message that would only appeal to his relatives. I sent it to them."
There has been no nobler tribute to the valour and achievements of the Ulster Division at the Somme on 1st July, 1916, than Sir Arthur Conan Doyle paid in his "British Campaigns in France and Flanders." His descriptive account of that mighty struggle in the Thiepval area, in which the men of Ulster performed the seeming impossible, glows with whole-hearted admiration. Having described the battle in detail, Sir Conan wrote that in this splendid of arms the 36th Division left half its number upon the battlefield. The instances of gallantry were innumerable, and so equally distributed that General Nugent, when asked to name a special battalion, could only answer that the whole twelve had done equally well.
Many messages of sympathy were received last night by Lady Conan Doyle and members of the family.
Sir Arthur was twice married. His first wife died in 1906. He leaves a widow, two daughters, and two sons.
