Jack Prendergast
From The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia
Fictional character.
In the Sherlock Holmes stories
- Jack Prendergast was a man of good family and great ability, but with incurably vicious habits (GLOR 285).
- By an ingenious system of fraud, he obtained huge sums of money from the leading London merchants (GLOR 285). He possessed nearly a quarter of a million pounds, most of which was never recovered (GLOR 291).
- He was one of the convicts being transported to Australia in 1855 aboard the ship "Gloria Scott" (GLOR 253). His hidden fortune allowed him to bribe and recruit much of the ship's crew before departure (GLOR 298).
- He orchestrated a violent uprising in which soldiers and loyal crew were overpowered or killed (GLOR 304). After the mutiny, he insisted on killing all surviving loyal crew to eliminate witnesses. He allowed James Armitage, Evans, and six others to leave in a small boat when they refused to participate in the killings (GLOR 358).
- He was still aboard when the ship exploded — presumed killed along with his remaining followers (GLOR 368).
