It is our belief that in order to get the most out of our fascinating London walks it is always good to know a little about the subject beforehand. To that end we are the only one of the companies offering London walks that provides you with detailed information about the subject, which you can read and study as much or as little as you like, in order to furnish you with a thorough grounding in the theme of the London walks you choose to take with us.
In our previous installment on Sherlock Holmes and his creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, we told you how Conan Doyle brought Holmes back from the dead. In this installment we tell you how a series of personal tragedies encouraged Conan Doyle to become more involved in Spiritualism and how he became one of its greatest exponents in the aftermath of the First World War.
The Life of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Continued.
On 4th July 1906 Louisa died in his arms, and Conan Doyle was plunged into a period of depression and despondency. However, her death meant that after nine years of clandestine courtship he was now able to publicly acknowledge Jean Leckie and on 18th September 1907 the two of them were married at St Margaret’s Church in Westminster.
With his his son, Kingsley, and daughter, Mary - his children by Louisa - the couple moved into a new house called Windlesham, in the Sussex town of Crowborough. This would remain his residence for the rest of his life, and from then on he would keep a small flat near Victoria Station for any necessary prolonged visits to London.
Walks in the countryside, along with rounds of golf and other sports were a daily delight. He also threw himself in to extending and improving the new family home and he found himself reveling in what Dr Watson had referred to as the “home centred interests” of a newly married man.
As a result of this new found domestic bliss, his literary output slowed and he decided that from then on he would write only when inspiration seized him.
With the outbreak of World War One in 1914, the fifty-five-year-old Conan Doyle was eager to enlist, but was turned down on the grounds of his age. He contented himself with making suggestions to the War Office as to how the lot of British sailors and soldiers could be improved and protected. He urged them to provide “inflatable rubber belts,” and “inflatable life boats” for sailors and suggested providing “body armor” to protect soldiers on the front. The majority of government ministers viewed him as meddlesome and irritating, with the notable exception of Winston Churchill, who was then First Lord of the Admiralty, who wrote to thank him for his ideas.
The First World War, however, impacted tragically on Conan Doyle’s personal life since he lost his son Kingsley, his brother, Innes, his two brothers-in-law and his two nephews during the conflict.
Conan Doyle had, however, publicly embraced the Spiritualist movement and his faith sustained him during this trying time.
In 1918 he published The New Revelation: or, What Is Spiritualism? Thereafter his deep involvement with the occult meant that he published very little fiction, but rather wrote arduously about Spiritualism. He also undertook a series of grueling public speaking tours in England, America, Australia and Africa that were effectively crusades on behalf of the movement.
Later, following the death of his mother in 1921, he demonstrated how important his Spiritualist beliefs were to him: “Thank God,” he wrote “that I have since found that the gates are not shut, but only ajar, if one does show earnestness in the quest.”
He was relentlessly attacked by the Clergy and in the press for his support and championing of Spiritualism. The Times, for example, in a review of The New Revelation accused him of demonstrating an “incredible naivete,” whilst The Nation concluded that “The book leaves one with a rather poor opinion of the doctor’s critical abilities.” James Douglas, meanwhile, writing in his weekly book column in the Sunday Express, posed the simple question “Is Conan Doyle Mad?”
Interestingly, Conan Doyle himself seems to have been at pains to keep Sherlock Holmes well away from the furor over his creator’s beliefs. In The Sussex Vampire, published in 1924, having disproved that a young woman, caught in the act of sucking blood from her child’s neck, is emphatically not a vampire, Holmes is dismissive of the supernatural: “This agency stands flat-footed upon the ground,” he informs Watson. “The world is big enough for us. No ghosts need apply.”
The final installment of our Life and Times of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle will be published tomorrow. In the mean time you can learn about the large variety of different London walks that we offer by clicking on a category that appeals to you.
