Did the Annotated Sherlock Holmes Introduce you to the World of Sherlock Holmes?

As a youngster, at about the age of seven or eight, I was mesmerized by the Sherlock Holmes stories being read to me by my cousin Maryjane.  I purchased The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, my first book, shortly thereafter.  I satill have it — a 1920 A. L. Burt edition that is today quite fragile, as the cover is tattered and worn, hanging by threads to the yellowed pages. I have kept it all these years.  Soon this copy will be 100 years old, but the shabby volume will remain on the shelf, because it was the first of my collection.  My study of Sherlock Holmes remained, as did the book on the shelf, dormant for many years of school, and through College.  Then I detected William S. Baring-Gould’s The Annotated Sherlock Holmes.

To be honest, to the seasoned Sherlockian, this tome added little to the literature of Sherlock Holmes.  Many had written about these narratives; The Baker Street Irregulars, and their scions had been meeting for years; and Chronology has been a major area of study since the first adventure appeared in print.  However, to the world outside this tight little circle, where the secrets were confined to meetings — often by invitation only — it was invaluable.  The dream of finding like minded individuals to share my ideas with seemed remote so remote in 1972; but now years later, the scion that found its roots in Baring-Gould’s Annotated, has held over 38 years of monthly meetings. In short, he opened a world to people like myself that we doubted we could join.  However. I am pleased to report, I was wrong. 

Baring-Gould’s efforts were a revelation to the uninitiated devotes who, heretofore, had no outlet for their keen interest in the world’s first consulting detective.    The unflattering criticisms of Baring-Gould’s efforts were varied.  He suggests many facets of Holmes’s early life that are not reenforced by Dr. Watson’s narratives to the point that it is declared fictional.  However, to active minds: the fact that Holmes may have personally known Jack the Ripper; or that Moriarty may have been his tutor; or he may have had an affair with Irene Adler, etc, were proportionate to references to works of other scholars.  In short, he opened the floodgate to those who did not know of their very existence.

In an article entitled “A Singular Set of People,” Baring-Gould bears witness to the existence of The Baker Street Irregulars of New York.  He individually lists the names of early scion societies, founded by members of the parent society.  He discusses some of their activities.  In short, to those in the remote, rural communities throughout the world, he gave encouragement that they did not stand alone.  Such was the case of “The Occupants of the Empty House,” formally formed on 22nd  January 1977.  We had read the “Buy Laws” of the Baker Street Irregulars, and decided to hold our first meeting as per these sanctified scrolls.  To our surprise, those 22 individuals who gathered that evening voted to meet once per month, contrary to the laws established by Elmer Davis.  We formed our society without realizing the condition that many of these early scion societies were established by an existing member of the parent organization.  In truth, we did not care.

The first time I read 221b by Vincent Starrett was from the pages of The Annotated.  They are 14 verses of pure ecstacy.  There has never been a more complete and definitive description of devotion to the 60 cases.  One shudders to think that what may have been had my eyes never seen these immotal words about the “two men of note.”  Thus, it was Baring-Gould who introduced me to Vincent Starrett.  Notwithstanding, he also introduced me to Knox, Bell, Morley, and many others who have become life long friends.

Long live William S. Baring-Gould.

William R. Cochran

Holmes and the Inscrutable Chinese of London

by Janet Bensley

In “The Adventure of the Dying Detective,” Watson tells us, and Mr. Culverton Smith, that Holmes has contracted an illness while “… in some professional inquiry, he [Holmes] has been working among Chinese sailors down in the docks.”  This little snippet, along with another referring to “the Chinese in the East End,” hints at the cosmopolitan nature of the population of London at the time.      William S. Baring-Gould places the tale as occurring on November 19, 1887, although the literary agent Sir Arthur Conan Doyle did not have it published for Watson it until November, 1913.  So what was the Chinese community like during 1887?  And how did it change from 1887 until 1913?  (Since we do not know for certain exactly when Watson penned the tale, and since he often used more current scenarios in his works in order to “blur” distinctive details, we should cover all contingencies.)

The first Chinese immigrants in London arrived in the 1780s.  Most were sailors who worked for the East India Company and the Blue Funnel Line, often as cooks.  In 1856 the “Strangers’ Home for Asiatics, Africans, and South Sea Islanders” was established on West India Dock Road, providing one area around which a growing Chinese community would form.  The 1881 census records 22 residents of the Home, including eleven who gave their place of birth as China and two as Singapore. Of the rest, six came from India or Sri Lanka, two from Arabia and one from the Kru Coast of Africa.

It is impossible to know the exact number of Chinese migrants in London, but census figures suggest that the Chinese presence grew steadily during the nineteenth century.  The 1861 census for London records only 78 Chinese-born residents, but by 1911 there were over 247.  To help put this into context, in 1881 census figures indicate a total of 224 Chinese in Britain.  Census records of 1891 indicate 582 Chinese-born residents in Britain.  By 1896 the census records indicate a decline in the number of Chinese-born residents to 387, of whom 80% are single males between 20 and 35, the majority being seamen.  After the turn of the century the numbers begin to increase once again with the 1911 census indicating 1,319 Chinese-born residents in Britain and 4,595 seamen of Chinese origin serving in the British Merchant Navy. (These census figures errs on the conservative side, as the Chinese living in Britain tended to treat all agents of the British state with suspicion and hide themselves from census officers.) 

Chinese immigrants settled predominantly in the East End of London, particularly in the boroughs of Poplar and Stepney, near to the docks and the “Strangers’ Home.”  In 1881 sixty percent of Chinese-born Londoners lived in the two boroughs. By the 1920s a significant number of Chinese had moved westwards, settling in Westminster, St Pancras, and Marylebone, while small communities could also be found in Hampstead, Kensington and Wandsworth.
    By the turn of the twentieth century social commentators were beginning to talk of London’s “Chinatown” located along  the narrow streets of Limehouse Causeway, Pennyfields, West India Dock Road, Birchfield Street and North Street Lower.  Although this community was relatively small, the Chinese presence had a disproportionate impact on visitors and commentators. Writers such as Oscar Wilde and Charles Dickens the Younger wrote of the enigmatic Chinese shops and restaurants they encountered along Limehouse Causeway.  Other authors, such as Sax Rohmer and Thomas Burke, created popular fictionalized accounts of the exploits of shadowy Chinese immigrants intent on world domination. As a result, Limehouse came to possess a dangerous and sinister reputation where Chinese men fraternized with young white women and smoked opium.  In its full form, the East End Chinese “opium den,” with its trappings of drug addiction and easy sexuality, only really existed in the imaginations of excitable novelists and hopeful social investigators.  But in this area Chinese shops and restaurants, laundries and lodging houses sprang up to cater for the needs of a growing community, including the social consumption of opium.  Once such dens were mixed along the streets of Limehouse with the brothels catering for the maritime trade, all the ingredients of a dangerous and titillating reputation were in place.

Although the majority of Chinese migrants were involved in seafaring, census data suggests that the Chinese in London were employed in a wide range of occupations. A large number were employed as cooks and waiters in the numerous restaurants and public houses of the East End, and a similar number worked in laundries.  A smaller proportion were employed as clerks, firemen, carpenters and interpreters.  Chinese restaurants and cafes were the main social hub of the local community, providing a venue in which to conduct business, and serving secondary functions as informal post offices and banks.

Many of the Chinese migrants did not find the streets of the East End a warm and welcoming place. Stranded in a foreign country with little local knowledge and limited English, many struggled to make ends meet. In 1812 the government ordered the East India Company to provide satisfactory food, clothing and accommodation for the seamen, and a parliamentary committee was established to investigate what could be done to improve the conditions. The “Stranger's Home,” founded in 1856, provided some assistance.  Nevertheless, even at the end of the nineteenth century, Limehouse figured largely in the comprehensive enquiries into London poverty and squalor done by Charles Booth (philanthropist and social researcher) .

However, not all Chinese immigrants were poor or uneducated.  From the late 1880's until the early 1900's a steady flow of students from China arrived in Britain to study at Cambridge.  Many of the graduates stayed on in Britain, rather than return to China.  As an interesting note, the first Chinese student to graduate from a British university was Wong Fun who received his MD in 1855 from Edinburgh.  It is interesting to note that a mere thirty years later, in 1885, Arthur Conan Doyle also received his MD in Edinburgh.

References

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Chinese

http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/static/Chinese.jsp

http://www.zakkeith.com/articles,blogs,forums/chinese-in-britain-history-timeline.htm