5 - Church

Phil: So this is where Mary Conan Doyle was baptised.  

Emma: Yes 

Phil: Well, but... in the other one... 

Anne: In the other one. 

Phil: Yes 

Emma: Equivalent of... 

Anne: In the old church.  

Phil: in the old church, yes. 

Emma: Yes. [...] But, I do wonder why this church was chosen. 

Anne: I wonder, because of where they lived. 

Emma: It wasn't close to where they lived though, was it? 

Phil: No.  

Anne: I did expect it to be something like st Jude's, or... because that was only around the corner. 

Phil: Oh, they were next to a church.  

Anne: Well, they've got the other one, yes, but we don't know what happened with that one, do we?  

Emma: Interestingly...  

Anne: What religion was it, perhaps? 

Emma: Well, he didn't get along with the vicar of st Jude's that much I do know.  

Anne: You do know that? Oh, well, that's why, then.  

Phil: Yeah. 

[...] 

Emma: But back in the day, if this new church, 1913, was built to accommodate an expanding population... 

Anne: Yes, yes. 

Emma: In the 1880s this may have been quite a well to do, middle class and rural...  

Phil: I was gonna say rural. Yeah, 

Emma: ... area, yes.  

Anne: It’s.... there were a lot of fields and things. My house was built in 1935 so that tells you, you know, you've seen where it is.  

Emma: Yes.  

Anne: So that's a lot later, isn't it? That's 40, nearly 50 years later than their time was. So these... there were fields and that all there. 

Emma: Yes.  

Anne: So, and there was also bogs and things, because it was very boggy around this area. 

Emma: So we know that Mary Louise Doyle, or Mary Louisa Doyle, was baptised here in 1887, so Doyle and Louisa had their child... Oh, was it 1889; it was 1889, I think. 

[...] 

Phil: Well, he married in 1885, so 1887 sounds about right. 

Anne: But I have a feeling she... 

Phil: [Reading]. Oh no, she was born in 1889, and baptised at St James church, Southsea.  

Emma: Ah... 

Phil: So 1889, so four years after they married.  

Emma: Yes, a nice, respectable length of time. 

Phil: Exactly.  

Emma: So they were a young couple. I’d like to think they were in love. I mean, he certainly says he was devoted to Louisa throughout their short marriage. She died in 1906... [...] They got married in 1886, so they had 20 years together.  

Phil: No, she died. Yes ... [general chatter], and then he met her in... met Jean in 1897, nine years before Louisa died. 

Anne: Yes, that's about, right, 

Phil: But they had a ‘platonic affair’ for 10 years. 

Anne: Well, we don't know. 

Phil: Yeah, that's why I said platonic [Laughter]. Do we believe that? 

Emma: [Sighs]. 

Anne: Possibly, the first bit yes, but not the whole nine years, no.  

Emma: No.  

Anne: But then things were different in those days. [...]  

Phil: [...] Louisa was diagnosed with TB in 1893, so she was poorly... 

Emma: Yeah, 

Phil: .... and... but, you know, he took great care of her...  

Anne: But he'd had a few years... 

Phil: So she lived another 13 years after that. And I know they went to Egypt and place like that for her health, didn't they? 

Emma: Yes, yes. 

Phil: His devotion to her doesn't square with him seeing another woman. 

Anne: I don't know, because if you go back to that first bit, they had a wonderful time, that first bit before the child was born. After the child was born, as well. He had two children, didn’t he? 

Phil: Yeah, Mary and Kingsley.  

Anne: Yeah. So if you look at that, and she's occupied with the children and everything, and she started to feel unwell. He just had needs. And so, I should think that possibly he was... [Jean] became a friend, and it just developed. 

Phil: Yeah, I mean, he'd spent a lot of time in London with the writings after he became a famous author. He spent a lot.... They probably spent a lot of time apart as well. 

Anne: And it would have been a different... a whole different way of living, wouldn't it? So I can see how... in our day and age, we wouldn't think two minutes, you know, all right, so he did, but back at that time, he would have been very careful, because of being a doctor 

Phil: His reputation would be at stake.  

Anne: Yes, even though he was an author as well... 

Phil: But he was still a name.  

Anne: But didn't he care more about his other books than he did Sherlock Holmes?  

Phil: Yeah, he... 

Anne: So it would be his scientific, his séance – not séance, what's the word I want? – The spiritual side of him, and his sportsman side of him, very much a man's man, that he would have been... that would have come out more than, you know, going after women. 

Phil: Yeah, I mean, I don't think he necessarily went after Jean.  

Anne: No, I think it just happened.  

Phil: It just happened. But it's... it doesn't... he, you know, he... you think of him as being a family and devoted to his wife, and then he's got this other woman on the side. The two don't really add up to me. 

Anne: Where did she come from? 

Phil: Jean Leckie? Erm...  

Emma: She lived in Blackheath. 

Anne: That's South London.  

Emma: Yeah, 

Anne: So that's posh area. That's where my granny lived. 

Phil: [Reading]. Yeah, a striking young woman with whom he fell passionately in love. 

Anne: Oh. 

Phil: But they remained discreet friends and had a platonic affair for ten years. So if he’s passionately in love with her, I can't see him being platonic – them being platonic. 

Anne: But at the same point, was he passionately in love? Because he had been so in with love with Louisa, that would he have felt guilty? 

Phil: Oh, I would imagine probably did. But... 

Emma: There's different kinds of love though.  

Phil: Yes exactly.  

Anne:  There’s different kinds of ‘platonic’, isn't there? 

Emma: Yes. And when you consider that, when he met Louisa, he was a doctor, a medical man, and he didn't know the way... 

Phil: And very young. 

Emma: He was young, and he didn't know how his life was going to go, and he was picking a wife to be a doctor's wife.  

Phil: Yes.  

Anne:  Caring 

Emma: Well, Jean Leckie...  

Phil: ... wasn't a doctor's wife.  

Emma: No.  

Phil: She was a society woman. 

Emma: Yes. 

Phil: But by the time they met, he wasn't a humble GP anymore.  

Anne: No. 

Phil: He was a noted literary giant. 

Emma: Yes.  

Phil: So would Jean Leckie have looked at Dr Conan Doyle? 

Anne: No.  

Emma: Most likely not. 

Anne: I doubt it. 

Phil: Exactly. And was he the sort of man that would be turned by the attentions of an attractive young woman? 

Anne: I would have thought so [Laughter]. As he aged, yes.  

Phil: Yes.  

Anne: Because he would have seen another side of the way of living, because he'd be living totally different to what he lived down... when he was down here. And I think this is where you see the personality of him. He's got his basic personality, but he does change. And writing the books he becomes... I think he thinks more about himself as time goes on. 

Emma: It would be hard not to have a larger ego, wouldn’t it? When the world is telling you...  

Phil: ... that you're amazing.  

Emma: Yeah, you’re a literary genius.  

Phil:  And I think he comes across as someone who cares about public opinion, but would also would have his head turned by it. Would believe the publicity. 

Anne: Until somebody squashes him a bit, which... 

Phil: But then he'd fight back – the falling out with Houdini, differences of opinions and stuff like that.  

Anne: Yes, yes.  

Phil: So, he stands by his beliefs and has... and the Cottingly Fairies. It's like, well, you know, ‘do you know who I am? Look if I believe in them, they must be real’. That's the impression I get.  

Emma: Even when the evidence was to the contrary.  

Phil: Exactly. But he also, because of his pride, potentially, he wasn't going to back down. Do you think? 

Emma: Ah, I hadn’t considered that.  

Anne: Hmmm.  

Phil: That, even though all the evidence was there – because he'd gone out so strong and said they're real, his pride wouldn't let him go, “Oh, actually, I've made a mistake”... 

Emma: Yes.  

Phil: ... because of his ego.  

Anne: Yes, that’s a possibility. What did his son think of all this? You see, that's another thing that hasn't cropped up. 

Emma: Well, the two boys, the younger boys, they maintained an interest in spiritualism. 

Anne: No, I meant Kingsley. 

Phil: Well, he died.  

Emma: Kingsley, he died. 

Anne: Yes, but how old was he when he died? That I can't remember.  

Emma: Well, he died of Spanish Influenza. 

Phil: He must have been quite young, because Mary had their first child in 1889. 

Emma: Yes. 

Phil: And he died in 1918.  

Anne: 1918. Oh right.  

Phil: So say he was born a couple of years after Louisa. He could only be 17 or 18. 

Emma: He was old enough to fight but far too young to die.  

Anne: Yeah, but old enough to point his views out to his father.  

Phil:  He can only have been about 18, can’t he? 

Anne: Old enough to point his views out.  

Phil: Because even if he was born the year after... Oh no, 20, 24. If he was born the year after Mary in 1890, he would have been 20, 24.  

Emma: Yeah.  

Phil: You know, very young. But the later children were much more spoiled and brought up to have money and to live a much more lavish lifestyle. There are letters from, I think it was Adrian, you know, to dad, you know, “I've crashed the car again. Can I have another one?” You know, that kind of thing. Dad was a money pit. They just spent money. 

Anne: But if you think about... 

Phil: They had no sense of money.   

Anne: If you think about Kingsley, and if he'd seen this... if he knew about the other woman, you don't know how he would have been affected with all this, and you don't know whether Conan would have hidden the relationship, or – we don't know much about any of that, do we? 

Phil: Well, yeah, it talks about it being a discreet relationship, a discreet friendship.  

Emma: Yes.  

Phil: So, he obviously managed to keep it under wraps. 

Emma: There would have been an adjustment. I think, for Mary, it would have been hard, losing her   mother... 

Phil: Yes, and then suddenly, a year later, her dad's married somebody else, and then two, three more children come along. 

Emma: Yes. [...] And I think she was away for her education as well. And so, she would have come back and had a new stepmum.  

Phil: But I wonder how close a relationship she had with her dad. 

Emma: Well, being the first child, you would think close. 

Anne: She would have been... I would have thought she’d have been daddy’s girl. 

Phil: Because he was away so much... 

Emma: Yeah.  

Anne: Daddy’s girl at the beginning.  

Emma: You would think, wouldn’t you? But then, of course, he had another daughter, Lena Jean.  

Anne: But that was later. 

Phil:  Later on, yeah.  

Anne: It was a lot later on though. I know, I think the first child... going back, I’m the eldest and my father was... my sisters don't like it, but they always thought that, you know, there was something extra, because, you know, I had him on my own. 

Emma: Yeah. 

Phil:  But then you always... they usually say it’s the youngest that is the one that's doted upon. I don't believe it because I am the youngest, so I don't believe that at all. So I think wherever you sit in the... 

Anne: ... pecking order. 

Phil:  Pecking order, yes, you think the other one gets it better.  

Anne: But talking about here, I wonder how much he came here to have chosen this church because it is a beautiful church as it is now, and obviously in the days gone by, the original church would have been a good church, from what the vicar said. So that's a nice font. So, therefore there was money in this part, and it is sad that it had to go, but at the same point, the daughter’s on the register being christened or baptised. I don't know what they called it in those days... 

Phil: Baptised.  

Anne: Baptised  

[...] 

Emma: I wonder if it was just a progressive vicar, because, of course, Doyle was a spiritualist. The spiritualist church movement was in its ascendancy.  

Phil: When did he leave Portsmouth? 

Anne: 1890 

Emma: ’90, yes. 

Phil: So, it could be Kingsley was born after they left. 

Emma: I think that's possibly true.  

Phil: So then he wouldn’t have been... 

Anne: Wouldn’t have been baptized here.  

Emma: It would have over towards Hazlemere where he was baptized.  

Phil: Exactly.  

Anne: So as regards here, it was his local... this is the church he chose, yeah, for his daughter – or did she choose it? We don't know who chose it. It might have been his wife who chose it.  

Emma: It could have been his wife who chose it.  

Anne: Thinking about it, because of how... what we've learned about him and talking about him today, I'm not convinced it was him who chose the church. 

Emma: And we don't know much about Louisa. The reason we don't know is he didn't write much about her out of respect for his second wife, so she has a very bit part in his memoirs.  

Phil: And he didn't keep the letters or anything like that. Or the letters would were lost. 

Emma: Yes.  

Anne: Conveniently.  

Emma:  So we don’t have much of a sense of her character. We have one letter from the British Library, don't we, which is really lovely, and they... there's a shared letter that they're writing to his mother.  

Phil: Yeah, the alternate handwriting.  

Emma: Yeah. And so they obviously had a close connection, as you'd expect from newlyweds, but we don't have much of a sense of her character beyond that. 

Phil: No, because that's the only content, the only evidence we've got of her. 

Anne: Was Innes the only brother? 

Emma: Yes.  

Phil: And he was a lot younger, wasn’t he? 

Emma: He was. I mean, he was 10 when he came to Portsmouth.  

Anne: Came down here. 

Emma: So he must have been quite a bit... 

Anne: So he much have been quite a bit... 

Emma: Younger, yeah... 

Anne: About 15 years younger then. 

Emma: Yeah, thereabouts. And he also lost his life in the First World War, but he was much older than Kingsley, obviously.  

Phil: I mean, that must have been a terrible blow for Arthur, losing, you know, his beloved brother, who he'd helped bring up. 

Emma: Yeah. 

Phil: And then his first son.  

Anne: Do we know when the mother died? Do we know when his mother died? 

[...] 

Emma: Yes she died on the 30th of December 1920, at the age of 83. 

Phil: Oh good, she lasted long.  

Emma: Buried in Greyshott, Hampshire. 

Phil: Which is where they lived.  

Emma: [...] Yes, so she died 10 years before him, she had a much longer life than he had. So, but, sadly, she lived long enough to see the passing of her grandchild.  

Anne: And her son. Yes, that would have been hard. 

Emma: That must’ve been... yeah. So what's the verdict, then? What's the verdict? Was he a good family man? Did he make good choices? Or...? 

Phil: I think he was as good a family man as a lot of people were in that age. I think he was a man of his age.  

Anne: I like that. That's a very good term.  

Emma: Yeah.  

Phil: Because you can't put today's views of parenthood on what it was like that back then. You know, there was often a distance between fathers and sons. They lived very separate lives. It wasn't a cosy relationship. 

Anne: There was expectations. 

Phil: Exactly. So I think I would say he was as good a father as anybody of that time, and the meeting of... with Jean Leckie was just an added element, really, because – I mean, we don't know, do we? We’re just speculating. But I kind of think he was, you know, typical of a lot of men of his time.  

Anne: I think Portsmouth did... He chose the right city. Or don't think it was a city at that time, was it?  

Phil: No. 

Anne: But he chose the right town then, or right port...  

Phil: Yeah. 

Anne: .... to progress his life, having moved from Plymouth, I think he did the right thing. And I think – okay, so he had to start writing about Sherlock and that, and it changed the type of articles he was writing by having to write those books. But I still don't think it hurt him. I think he was learning from it. He learned from his mistakes as well. And he was interested in a variety of subjects. I think he was a man I would have quite liked to have met. I don't know how well I'd have got on with him, but I am impressed. 

Phil: He was certainly an interesting man. 

Anne: Interesting is a very good word.  

Phil: And if you think about it, he’s had an incredible impact on our society, with the Sherlock Holmes books. You know, you think how many series and films and... 

Anne: Television. 

Phil: Television there has been. But also we talked about the other week, about the Court of Appeal. He was instrumental in setting that up, and that’s been a massive thing, that's a massive thing. So he was an important man. And still, the echoes are there now, if you look at, you know, popular culture, and the proliferation of crime and detective stories on every media. And, you know, who's to say, without him, would there be that popularity? 

Anne: One thing I like about it is the fact that he's still remembered in Portsmouth. The school children learn about him at school, and still tourists come – not so much now, unless they're Sherlock Holmes fans, which then is more for that reason, and it's good for our city. It's good for us to remember that we have had some good people... Portsmouth, at times, gets downgraded to ‘it's a bit of a dump’ at times. You know, they moan about things about Portsmouth in the newspapers, and it is rather nice to know that we've had some very well-known people in the town, and it became a city. And we should honour them really. 

Phil: Agreed.  

Emma: Agreed [Fades out].