ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE, LIBERAL UNIONIST
On this day, 7 July 1930, one of Britain's most famous authors, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle passed away. He was born on 22 May 1859 in Edinburgh to Charles Doyle, who was English of Irish Catholic descent, and his mother, Mary (née Foley), an Irish Catholic.
In 1887 he created Sherlock Holmes, when he published this first work, "A Study in Scarlet".
He modelled Holmes partially on his former Edinburgh University Medical School lecturer Joseph Bell. In 1892, Doyle wrote to Bell, "It is most certainly to you that I owe Sherlock Holmes...round the centre of deduction and inference and observation which I have heard you inculcate I have tried to build up a man".
He had 2 children with his first wife Louisa. When she died, he married Jean and had a further 3 children.
He stood for Parliament twice as a Liberal Unionist. In 1900 he stood in Edinburgh Central and in 1906 in the Hawick Burghs. He was not elected in either.
He died of a heart attack at 71. His last words were toward his wife: "You are wonderful."
He is buried with his wife in Minstead Churchyard in the New Forest, Hampshire. The epitaph on his gravestone reads:
"Steel True
Blade Straight
Arthur Conan Doyle
Knight
Patriot, Physician and Man of Letters"
Pic of his statue in Crowborough, East Sussex, where he spent the last 23 years of his life, having moved to the area where Jean's family were from
