Sherlock Holmes and the Ned Kelly Connection [Sharon Hollingsworth]

Recently I have been watching and enjoying the new Sherlock Holmes series starring Benedict Cumberbatch. It is set in our modern times and is very well done and worth a look if you have not seen it yet. It got me thinking about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, and his letter to the newspapers in which he mentioned the Kellys and suggested the use of armour to protect British troops. I first heard about this in "Australian Son" by Max Brown (1948 edition).

From the book:


In the days that followed, reports of the siege of Glenrowan appeared wherever the English language was spoken. The authorities heaved a sigh of relief. According to the aristocratic principle, "To him who has, shall be given," the Chief Secretary and Commissioner Standish received complimentary telegrams from Lord Normanby in Melbourne and Lord Augustus Loftus, Governor of New South Wales.
A spate of messages leapt across the continent. From London came a comment from a young medical student, Arthur Conan Doyle, who praised the imagination of the outlaws and recommended armour for use by infantry....


Here is the text of Conan Doyle's letter to the newspaper concerning the Kellys and armour:


SIR CONAN DOYLE AND ARMOUR.

"As an advocate of armour in modern warfare for the last twenty-five years, I am interested to see a column of The Times devoted to the subject. When Ned Kelly, the bushranger, walked unhurt before the rifles of the police clad in his own hand-made armour he was an object-lesson to the world. If the outlaw could do it, why not the soldier?

 "It has always seemed to me extraordinary that the innumerable cases where a Bible, a cigarette case, a watch, or some other chance article has saved a man's life have not set us scheming so as to do systematically what has so often been the result of a happy chance. "Vital body-plates, however, should be used in the every-day equipment of a fighting soldier." — Sir Conan Doyle.



Ok, after reading what Max Brown wrote in the first quote, does that not make it sound like Doyle made the comment regarding the use of armour soon after the gang's capture? I did some checking and seems that it is not exactly the case.

Arthur Conan Doyle was born in May of 1859 (same year as Jim Kelly). In 1880, yes, Doyle was a medical student (he graduated in 1881), but the letter quoted above from The London Times regarding the Kellys and armour was published in 1915 (35 years later) when he was 56 years old. Note in the letter he says he had been an advocate of armour in modern warfare for the last twenty-five years, which would make the beginning of his advocacy to be around 1890. Ten years after the siege of Glenrowan.

I remember how confused I was when I read what Brown said and then when I had found the letter that was dated so many years later. I wondered if there had been something we missed in the papers in the previous years? A while back Brian Stevenson contacted a Doyle/Holmes expert (this gentleman was really on the ball and knew his stuff) and asked him the question and he said the only time Ned or the Kelly Gang were mentioned by Doyle was the 1915 letter.

Nevertheless, even if the timeline regarding it is a bit off, I am still glad that Max Brown gave me the nudge to go and seek out the Doyle letter. And I am glad that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was such a brilliant and imaginative writer!