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The former pupil of Repton School Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes, the role for which he became most-celebrated

The Derbyshire bowler William Mycroft whose name was said to have inspired Doyle to christen his character Mycroft Holmes, the older and smarter brother of Sherlock

SHERLOCK HOLMES is a fictional consulting detective who first appeared in publication in 1887. He is the creation of the Scottish author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

The study of the 'life and times' of Holmes and his creator has become a worldwide phenomenon. One of the diversions enjoyed by Sherlockian enthusiasts is to establish links between Holmes and Doyle and particular locations. The following is the case for Derbyshire. Please add anything that you think has been missed.

When Doyle conceived the idea of Sherlock Holmes in 1886 it is said that he was inspired by real people in choosing his character's name. It has been postulated that the name HOLMES was taken by Doyle from that of the famous Derby coachbuilding firm of that name, managed in Doyle's time by ARTHUR HOLMES, whose family name lived on locally into the next century in the Sanderson and Holmes motor repair company on London Road. Holmes coaches were nationally known and Doyle almost certainly travelled in one at some time. He would have seen the nameplate affixed to the cab's interior, so it is a feasible but unproven theory that he plucked the name out of the blue during the course of one of his journeys. If true, Sherlock Holmes is a Derbeian by birth!

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was a keen devotee of cricket and the theory has been advanced that he turned to the game for inspiration in giving his detective the unusual Christian name Sherlock. It is said to have been an amalgam inspired by the Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire bowler FRANK SHACKLOCK (1861-1937), who was born in Crich, and his one-time colleague at Nottinghamshire, the wicketkeeper Mordecai Sherwin. Since Doyle once faced Shaclock's bowling as a batsman himself, and since the scorebook often read 'caught Sherwin bowled Shacklock' it is an alluring theory.

Sherlock Holmes also had 'an older and smarter' brother named MYCROFT HOLMES. It has been said that Doyle again gave a nod to cricket in selecting the unusual name - from the Brimington-born brothers WILLIAM MYCROFT (1841-94) and THOMAS MYCROFT (1848-1911) who were both well-known players for Derbyshire County Cricket Club.

Doyle's first big break as a writer was given to him by the publisher GEORGE NEWNES - born in MATLOCK BATH - when his company agreed to publish a series of six Sherlock Holmes stories in their famous Strand Magazine in 1891. It was also George Newnes who persuaded Doyle to bring Holmes 'back from the dead' some years after the author had controversially killed off his detective in an incident at the Reichenbach Falls in 1893. But for Newnes' persuasive chivvying Holmes might yet lie in a watery grave.

Doyle name-checked Derbyshire in a number of his stories as follows:

In his 1903 tale The Adventure of the Priory School Holmes and Watson travel to the lonely moors near Chesterfield to investigate the disappearance of the son of the Duke of Holderness from his school in what Watson describes as 'the cold, bracing atmosphere of the Peak country.'

Chesterfield again features in the short story The Man with the Twisted Lip in which a mysterious and hideously disfigured beggar is unmasked by Holmes as the wealthy businessman Neville St. Clair, son of a Chesterfield schoolmaster and a former pupil of 'a respected Chesterfield school'.

In The Valley of Fear an elusive cyclist for whom police scoured the country was reported to have been seen in Derby.

In The Adventure of the Three Gables Holmes is called to a house in Middlesex to investigate a mysterious character who wishes to buy not only the property but all of its contents. 'Have you some rare valuable in your home?', Holmes asks of the lady owner. 'No, nothing rarer than a Crown Derby tea-set,' she replies, to which Holmes comments with just the hint of an insult to one of Derby's finest manufacturing traditions: 'That would hardly justify all this mystery'.

In the short story The Adventure of Silver Blaze Doyle introduces the mystery character William Darbyshire and his wife Madame Darbyshire who both turn out to be fictitious creations central to the subterfuge.

Doyle also included a Derbyshire location in his non-Holmes story The Terror of Blue John Gap. When Dr. James Hardcastle dies in London a strange account comes to light of his terrifying visit to the Blue John cavern in CASTLETON some time earlier. He had been so disturbed by the eerie noises he had heard there, including the 'footsteps of a huge beast', that he never fully recovered and died within a year of his horrifying Derbyshire experience.

The actor BASIL RATHBONE, whose screen portrayal of Sherlock Holmes is considered one of the most definitive, sharpened his acting skills as a youngster during his time at Repton School. He was a pupil there from 1906-10, a fact marked by the existence of a plaque on the exterior wall of his former dormitory 'Mitre' situated near Repton Cross.

Finally, back to the real world of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the village of COMBS, near CHAPEL-EN-LE FRITH, in Derbyshire. When Herbert Frood set up a workshop there in his garden shed at Rye Flatt House in 1897 he could not have conceived that his invention of the brakelining for cars would lead to him founding the internationally-known Ferodo company. And nor could he have envisaged that in 1916 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, fresh back from a horrifying visit to the World War One front, would instruct Ferodo to use their technology to manufacture bullet-proof vests. The prototypes sent to Doyle's home in Sussex were well-received by him and the Prime Minister Lloyd George but, at the front, Commander Sir Douglas Haig insisted 'my men won't wear them'. How many lives might have been saved if a Derbyshire firm's technology and Conan Doyle's vision had been properly harnessed.

So ends this Doyle and Holmes trail around Derbyshire, at least for the present. Further links may well be discovered now that 'the game is afoot'.

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County:  Derbyshire

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