In
October 1876, Conan Doyle entered the Medical School at Edinburgh
University. Seeking to make the most of the long recess at the end of
each academic year, and following the birth of his youngest sister,
Dodo, meaning that his family was in financial difficulties, in 1878
Conan Doyle advertised for a temporary opening as a doctor's
assistant. He undertook two such placements in 1878 and one in 1879.
(In 1880, he took the decision to become surgeon on the whaling ship
'Hope'
sailing from Peterhead).
Over
the past year I have visited all three practices where Conan Doyle
worked as an assistant. For ease, I have placed my accounts in the
order that the placements were undertaken by Conan Doyle, rather than the order
of my visits.
07/09/2019
- 86 Spital Hill, Sheffield, Yorkshire.
Conan
Doyle's first placement was in April 1878, when he was taken on by
Dr
Charles Sydney Richardson, an Irishman who had done part of his
training in Edinburgh, and now worked as a general practitioner on
Spital Hill, an inner-city area of Sheffield. It seems that Conan
Doyle did not get along with Dr Richardson or Sheffield patients, and
he left after three weeks, glossing over a serious clash of
personalities, blaming his youth, later writing:'These
Sheffielders would rather be poisoned by a man with a beard than
saved by a man without one.'
He
did at least appear to have ventured out of the city into the Peak
District, where his memory of the eerie limestone caves in the Penine
hills later provided material for one of his most spine-chilling
stories – 'The Terror of Blue John Gap'.
The
site of the practice was a building on the
corner of Spital Hill and Hallcar Street, which is now the New Roots
Café and Burngreave Ashram. I visited the building as the last stop
on a tour of locations used in Series 11 of 'Doctor
Who',
carried out with a friend.
27/09/2019
– Cliffe House, Big Walls, Ruyton-XI-Towns, Shrewsbury.
Having
left Sheffield, Conan Doyle was resigned to returning to Edinburgh
and taking a lowly, but salaried job as a hospital dresser. However,
at the last minute, he was offered a temporary position with another
former Edinburgh graduate, Dr. Henry Elliott, who had a general
practice in the exotic-sounding village of Ruyton-XI-Towns, in
Shropshire (eleven miles outside Shrewsbury). He began this job in
July 1878, living in Cliffe
House.
He later recalled Ruyton in his 'Memories
and Recollections' (1923)
as:
“not
big enough to make one town, far less eleven".
However,
he again had problems with his employer, a man in his thirties, who
turned out to be coarse and bad tempered. Elliott exploded when his
young assistant dared argue against capital punishment, saying that
he would not have such things said in his house. Conan Doyle calmly
replied that he had a right to voice his opinions when and where he
wanted, and it would seem that during his time with Dr. Elliott, he
discovered an ability to stand up for himself, and his self-esteem
grew appreciably. However, he spent only four months in this
position, returning to his studies in Edinburgh in October 1878.
I
made my pilgrimage following several days visiting Cardiff, Southerndown,
Monmouth and Hay-on-Wye, catching a bus from Shrewsbury. Due to a
lack of regular buses, I chose to get off at a stop just inside the
village, and walk to Cliffe House. The first point of interest that I
passed was the parish's World War I war memorial, which is an 8ft
carved cave within the sandstone cliff of the Brownhill, and is
unique to Shropshire. It was conceived by the London architect
Stanley Vaughan after a visit to Ruyton. It was created by local
father-and-son stonemasons Warwick and Len Edwards. The benches
within the arch and the cross are all carved out of rock. The
memorial was unveiled in October 1920. The names of fallen from both
the First and Second World Wars are listed on plaques within the
archway.
Continuing
along, and passing the parish churchyard, after about a further
fifteen minutes, I found myself at Cliffe House. Unfortunately, at
this point the heavens opened, and I had to shelter under my
umbrella. The house is now a private residence, but as the gates to
the drive were open, I took my chance to rush up it, take a few
photos of the house, then rush back down again.
Walking
further on, I reached The Cross, sensibly at a crossroads. This gave
some of the history of the town, and also indicated that it had been
named in the Domesday Book. The village acquired its unusual name in
the twelfth century when a castle was built, and it became the major
manor of eleven local townships,
leading to the Roman numerals for
eleven being included in its name. The eleven were Ruyton, Coton,
Shotatton, Eardiston, Wykey and Shelvock
(a
possible source for a certain detective’s first name) which remain
in the parish; and Felton, Haughton, Rednal, Sutton and Tedsmore,
which are now in the parish of West Felton.
I
decided to retrace my steps to the original bus stop as it was the
only one with a shelter. On the way back, I decided to pop into the
churchyard. Parts
of the parish church date from the 1130s. Lying in the Welsh Marches,
Ruyton castle was destroyed in 1202 by the Welsh. It was rebuilt by
1313 but was destroyed again by Owain Glyndwr. Its ruins stand in the
churchyard.
Catching a bus back
into Shrewsbury, I spent the rest of the morning touring Shrewsbury Prison (near the site of the Dana Gaol, a medieval prison), decommissioned in 2013, and undertaking some of the Charles Darwin town trail, Shrewsbury being his birthplace, before catching a
train to Coventry where I was to attend Coventry Comic Con the next
day.
01/06/2019
- 63 Aston Road North, Birmingham, West Midlands.
In
May 1879, Conan Doyle was ready for a further period of hands-on
medicine as an assistant to Dr. Reginald Ratcliff Hoare in the
Midlands. Conan Doyle had hoped that Dr. Hoare's surgery, Clifton
House in Aston Road North, Birmingham, would be located in a
semi-rural suburb, but was instead on a busy thoroughfare, with
tramlines and shops on either side. However, this was an eye-opener
for Conan Doyle as he saw for himself that an inner-city general
practice could be a lucrative business, with Dr. Hoare earning £3,000
per year. Conan Doyle is also said to have become friends with one of
the first surgeons in charge of the Thimble Lane dispensary (a branch
of the main city one), whose name was David Holmes (possibly
inspiring a certain detective's surname). It
was also around this time that he sold his first story to Chambers
Journal
-
'The
Mystery of Sasassa Valley'.
I
visited Aston Road North, which has a plaque commemorating its
previous occupant, following attending Collectormania 2019 at NEC
Birmingham (where I had met Vernon Dobtcheff who has played Holmes,
and bought some very unofficial 'Sherlock' miniatures). Catching a
train from Birmingham International to Birmingham New Street, I
undertook the half-hour walk to the site of the former practice,
finding it difficult to negotiate the 'busy thoroughfare' to reach my
destination.
Photos taken of the building, and I retraced my steps,
catching the train back to Birmingham International and then home.
