Our British Cousin
Our British Cousin: Highlights and Attitudes of Arthur Conan Doyle in America is an article written by Alvin E. Rodin & Jack D. Key published in the A.C.D. - The Journal of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society (Vol. 3, 1992).
This article surveys Arthur Conan Doyle's four North American tours (1894, 1914, 1922, 1923), tracing his evolving attitudes toward the United States and Canada — from literary celebrity and imperial commentator to ardent missionary of Spiritualism. It highlights his public reception, press interactions, sporting enthusiasm, and prophetic political views, portraying him as an energetic and affectionate "British cousin" to America.
Our British Cousin
ACD trying his hand at baseball during a visit to Jasper National Park, 1914. (Picture courtesy of Western Canada Pictorial Index).
Our British Cousin: Highlights and Attitudes of Arthur Conan Doyle in America
Trans-Atlantic visits by cousins came to the notice of Americans in 1865, when Abraham Lincoln was assassinated (1) whilst watching Our American Cousin (2). This comedy, written by Tom Taylor in 1858, is otherwise not particularly noteworthy. Asa Trenchard, the American from Vermont, was quite unsophisticated in comparison to his British relatives, but he had enough homespun commonsense to foil the villainous lawyer who was trying to ruin his English uncle and cousin. Arthur Conan Doyle was a traveller in the opposite direction across the Atlantic, and we may also consider him a cousin in view of his many ties with, and positive attitudes towards, America.
Trenchard's motivation for his trip was the inheritance of some land in England. Only one of Conan Doyle's four visits to America, the first in 1894, had a monetary motivation a lecture tour undertaken to promote his literary works. His second visit, in 1914, was more of a paid vacation at the invitation of the Canadian Government. The last two visits, in 1922 and 1923, were for the express purpose of proselytising for Spiritualism, the religion of his mature years.
Recently, several accounts of Conan Doyle's American tours have been published. Chris Redmond's book (3) discussed the 1894 trip, and deals with places, people, and newspaper stories, as well as accounts of what Conan Doyle might have seen or done. Howard Lachtman's book includes all four tours, having as its primary orientation relationships to the Holmesian canonical works. The latter book does not, however, mention the Canadian component of the 1923 tour.
1894
Conan Doyle was 35 at the time of his first visit to America in 1894, some three-and-a-half years after he had left medical practice. He had already gained some attention in the United States as an established author whose published works included short stories and novels, amongst which where eighteen Sherlock Holmes adventures. The popularity of the latter made it likely that a lecture tour of the United States would be profitable or so it appeared to the American entrepreneur, Major J.B. Pond, who initiated and organised the expedition.
Conan Doyle's companion on this trip was his younger brother Innes, who had lived with him for several months during his first trip as a Doctor in Southsea. At the time of the American trip Innes was a subaltern in the Royal Artillery. The two brothers arrived in New York, for a two month visit, on 2 October 1894. Redmond's map of the tour illustrates that it only went as far as Chicago and Milwaukee to the west, Toronto and Saranac Lake to the north, and Washington and Baltimore to the south. (3) The author's presentations contained readings from various British authors and from his own works, which of course included the Sherlock Holmes adventures. There were also humorous accounts of his own experiences as a doctor, whaler, author, and sportsman.
Conan Doyle's behaviour during the 1894 tour exhibited his attitudes on various subjects. His crossing, on the German liner Elbe, exposed him to the hatred
(to use his own word) of Germans towards the British. When only German and American flags were displayed on a holiday, Conan Doyle, the staunch imperialist and activist, drew his own Union Jack and displayed it prominently. (5) His distrust of Germany was increased, some seventeen years later, by the arrogant and rude behaviour of some of the German participants in an Anglo-German car race in which he participated in 1911. Conan Doyle complained that 'the hospitality which the whole party received before we reached England was negligible.
'
These two untoward experiences may well have set the stage for his 1913 article. 'Great Britain and the Next War' (6) and his 1914 short story 'Danger!. (7) Both warned about the decisive role that German submarines could play in wartime. (8) For this he was criticised in England for giving Germany the idea, and, conversely, praised in Germany.
One of the major stops on this visit was Detroit, where Conan Doyle made a presentation at the Church of Our Father. There was considerable newspaper coverage, with one headline calling him 'The Assassin of Sherlock Holmes'. (9) He was described as 'A big, wholesome boyish man... making no pretentious oratory, and displaying a partially disguised diffidence... His powerful hands gripped the side of the pulpit to see if it could be trusted, and then confidence seemed restored.
An interviewer quoted Conan Doyle as saying that 'I have never seen a woman's character treated successfully... I am not satisfied with anything in that line within the entire reaches of literature.
' (3) This comment could be either a positive or negative opinion of the female sex. However, other activities of Conan Doyle indicate an overall favourable attitude, as evinced by his short story 'The Doctors of Hoyland' (10) which was published six months before his American trip.
During the 1894 visit Conan Doyle expressed a very positive view of the United States — despite the fact that 'Our visit was marred by one of those waves of anti-British feeling which sweep occasionally over the States.'
(5) Contrary to this prejudice, he wrote to his mother that 'The [American] race as a whole is not only the most prosperous, but the most even-tempered, tolerant, and hopeful that I have ever known.
' In fact, he indicated that it was British politicians who were largely to blame for the coolness in Anglo-American relations. The 1894 visit included less political events: he played golf with Rudyard Kipling in Vermont, and laid a wreath at the grave of Oliver Wendell Holmes, the poet-physician whose works he greatly respected and who had died several months previously. (11)
In all, Conan Doyle's first American tour was quite successful. His manager, Major Pond, stated that 'there was something about him that fairly charmed his audiences.' Contributing to this may have been what one Detroit reporter described as his 'fierce animal energy, exhibited during an interview. While he was talking... he ran around the room at times, at others he looked nervously at his watch; but he was not guilty of discourtesy; it was his method, for which he has nothing to blame except splendid physique with its overflowing spirits.' (12)
The energetic lecturer was overwhelmed by the hordes of people who pressed to see him after his presentations. Conan Doyle left for England on 8 December, having netted $5,000 during his ten week tour.
1914
Conan Doyle was 55 at the time of his second visit to the American continent in 1914. He came, at the invitation of the Canadian Government, to promote the opening of the new Grand Trunk Pacific Railway which ran through western Canada, and to publicise Jasper National Park in the province of Alberta. On this visit he was accompanied by his second wife, Jean, and he had prepared for the tour by reading Sir Francis Parkman's history of England and France in North America. (4) The couple arrived in New York City on 23 May.
The 1914 trip was, again, the occasion of an unpleasant event: on being interviewed from a Press launch off Ellis Island, Conan Doyle indicated his dislike of suffragettes who were agitating for the right to vote. He stated that they would be lynched by an angry mob if they kept disrupting London. (4) Headlines in New York newspapers proclaimed: 'Lynching is Conan Doyle's Stuff' and 'Conan Doyle says: 'Let the Militants die of Starvation.
'
The reference to 'window breaking Furies', made by Baron von Herling in 'His Last Bow' (1917) (13) probably relates to suffragettes. It does not, however, represent a change in Conan Doyle's supportive attitude towards women, but rather a negative reaction to their demonstration of masculine-like militancy. Conan Doyle's continuing sympathy towards women is evidenced by his presidency of the Divorce Law Reform Union, whose mission was to grant women equal rights in obtaining divorces. (5) This sympathy is also expressed in a Sherlockian story of 1904, 'The Abbey Grange', (14). in which Lady Brackenstall reveals her utter anguish at being irrevocably tied to a brutal, alcoholic husband.
In New York City, Conan Doyle could escape neither the Press nor Sherlock Holmes: one headline proclaimed 'Sherlock's Here' (4), and crowds jammed the lobby of the Ritz Hotel where he was staying. At a luncheon given in is honour he expressed his love for America, as he had done twenty years before; and he showed further tolerance for Americans by justifying his 'harassment by the ubiquitous and energetic American reporter[s]' on the basis that they were only doing the job expected of them. He was duly impressed by a baseball game, especially the hard and accurate pitching as compared with that of cricket; and he also demonstrated a considerable interest in jails, visiting Sing Sing at Ossining in south east New York, where he sat in the electrocution chair.
On 3 June Conan Doyle travelled from New York to Canada which was still, at that time, a British Colony. At Montreal he lectured on 'Literature and the Literary Career' to the Canadian Club, as he also did in Winnipeg. From there the Conan Doyles travelled to Edmonton and to Jasper National Park.
In Jasper, Conan Doyle spent much time touring the surrounding area of the Rockies, and was duly impressed with the scenic splendour. On 18 June, during the course of one of his hikes, he wrote the poem 'The Athabasca Trail' (16), the last four lines of which summarise his enthusiasm for Canada:
- Mother of a mighty manhood, land of glamour and of hope,
- From the eastern sea-swept islands to the sunny western slope,
- Ever more my heart is with you, ever more till life shall fail
- I'll be out with pack and packer on the Athabasca Trail.
Even in the backwoods Conan Doyle engaged in sports, opening a baseball game in Jasper by taking the bat: 'I got it [the ball] fairly in the middle and it went... whizzing past the ear of a photographer, who expected me to pat it.' (15) Such success during his first attempt at a new sport is not surprising, given his active involvement with ball games of varying sorts: cricket, billiards, golf, and soccer. (17)
Conan Doyle also laid the comer-stone for a church while he was in Jasper. This was quite unusual, considering the fact that he had been an agnostic for many years. The church survives today as a Baptist Church. Conan Doyle's account of the ceremony provides one reason why he had left the established church: (15)
- The whole function, with its simplicity and earnestness, carried out by a group of ill-clad men standing bareheaded in a drizzle of rain, seemed to me to have in it the essence of religion... Jasper can give some lessons to London.
Conan Doyle moved on from Jasper to spend three days at Algonquin Provincial Park, north of the Great Lakes in Ontario, where he engaged in yet another sport: fishing. It was his wife Jean, however, who landed an eight-pound trout.
ACD and his wife sailed from Montreal on 4 July to return to a Britain confronted by the imminent likelihood of war with Germany — a war which Conan Doyle had anticipated in his fictional work 'Danger!' It would be a further eight years before our British cousin again crossed the Atlantic, and by then his purpose would be far different from that of his previous trips.
1922 and 1923
Conan Doyle's two further visits to North America were motivated by his complete and absolute acceptance of The New Revelation's (18) — Spiritualism. He became an apostle for what he considered to be the only hope for mankind. and devoted the remainder of his life to promoting his beliefs. His crusade was not for personal gain, but was an altruistic compulsion to have everyone achieve the peace and happiness of knowing that there is a life after death; that loved ones are not gone forever; and that there need no longer be a fear of death. His promotion of the cause had already involved him in travels and lectures in Australia and New Zealand (1920) (19) and France (1921), and was to do so later in South Africa (20) and Scandinavia.
The 1922 speaking tour lasted from April until June, and included New York, Boston. Washington. Detroit. Toledo, and Chicago. Conan Doyle was accompanied on this visit by his wife and three youngest children, and after disembarking in New York City he delivered a series of six lectures at Carnegie Hall. Newspaper headlines were flamboyant and even sarcastic: 'Do Spooks Marry?', 'High Jinks in the Beyond'. (4) Despite this, however, there were full houses for the lectures.
On his return to New York City at the end of the tour, Conan Doyle visited the Magicians Club. There he watched Houdini, who had been bound and bagged, perform his phenomenal escape from a locked trunk. Conan Doyle believed that Houdini accomplished his astounding feat by means of spiritualist powers. In turn, he captivated the magicians by showing realistic movie clips of dinosaurs from the not yet released film The Lost World, which was based on his science fiction novel. (21) The audience was amazed, not having any indication as to whether the clips were faked or taken from real life.
Before returning to England Conan Doyle met Houdini in Atlantic City, and it was on this occasion that Lady Jean felt the psychic presence of Houdini's mother, who had died two years previously. (22) In their hotel room she was 'seized by a spirit' which began to write through her. The result was a four page message to Houdini from his mother. It began, 'Oh my darling, thank God, thank God, at last I am through... and ended 'I have bridged the gulf — That is what I wanted, oh so much — Now I can rest in peace.' Houdini questioned the veracity of the message on the basis that his mother could only speak broken English and could not even write it. This negative reaction became a thorn of contention in his relationship with Conan Doyle.
By the end of his 1922 American tour Conan Doyle had achieved considerable exposure for both himself and Spiritualism, and had earned £25,000, all of which he donated to the cause. (3) He was not satisfied, however, because he had neglected the western part of the United States, and he therefore visited North America again in the spring of 1923.
The family arrived in New York on 3 April to begin their last and most extensive American tour. Carnegie Hall was again the venue for a lecture on Spiritualism, and on this occasion the meeting was notable because a woman in the audience fell into a trance. Conan Doyle visited Rochester and the nearby Hydesville, where the young Fox sisters had initiated the modern era of Spiritualism in 1848 by their report of strange rappings. (22) From New York, his speaking tour took him to Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Columbus, Toledo, and Chicago. At each site he lectured and attended seances. In Chicago he also visited a jail. as he had in 1894, and reacted strongly against its inhuman conditions.
Next stop on the tour was St. Louis, where Conan Doyle gave a lecture at the American Theatre, which was sold out. He also did a considerable amount of sight-seeing (23), and in Kansas City was captivated by the bronze life-sized statue of an Indian Scout, which he called 'a supremely fine work of art. Whilst in Kansas City, Conan Doyle interviewed a Mrs Randall, who had returned to life after dying in hospital. She could remember floating out of her body, meeting her dead sister and father, flying above the city to a factory where her brother worked, and then returning to her body feeling 'strong and well. Today this would be labelled as a near death or out-of-body experience, and it was accepted by Conan Doyle as a manifestation of Spiritualism.
The tour moved on, stopping at Colorado Springs, Denver, and Salt Lake City, where Conan Doyle was impressed with the cordial reception accorded him by the Mormons who he had adversely depicted in A Study in Scarlet. (24) He now felt able to list points of commonality between Spiritualism and Mormonism — for example, both had their origin in New York State, and Mormonism's founder, Joseph Smith, had trances which Conan Doyle interpreted as being mediumistic. From Salt Lake City the party journeyed to Los Angeles, with side trips to Catalina Island, San Diego, Oceanside, and Ventura. There was even time to visit Hollywood, where Sir Arthur and Lady Jean were photographed posing with Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks.
The next stop was San Francisco and, contrary to general opinion, he did not stay at 2151 Sacramento Street, despite the plaque on the house stating that This house. built in 1881, was once occupied by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. However, Doctor Abrams, who lived at that house, was visited by Conan Doyle, who was very impressed with the doctor's claim that he could diagnose all diseases by means of his electric gadgetry. Conan Doyle actually stayed at the downtown Clift Hotel, only a few blocks from today's modern thirty-storey Holiday Inn, on the top floor of which is a huge and magnificent re-creation of 221B Baker Street.
Whilst in San Francisco Conan Doyle again praised the Press, calling reporters 'very enterprising and very intelligent
' in spite of their 'cross-fire
' of questions which left him with a dazed and aching head. (23) He was practical enough to note that 'it is all excellent propaganda.
' He was not as tolerant of the so-called 'intellectuals of San Francisco, who ventured quite negative statements about the validity of Spiritualism. He labelled their views as being 'mental arrogance and intolerance the kind of thing which every new advance in knowledge had to face.
'
Following San Francisco he lectured in Portland, Tacoma, and Seattle, and in the latter city was greatly impressed by Doctor Littlefield's observation that the power of thought could make blood minerals seen under the microscope take any shape imagined. It was in Seattle that some residents objected to his demonstration of locally taken psychic photographs. such as spirits seen in photographs of an old woman in her coffin, which they considered to be fraudulent. (23)
After Seattle the tour moved to Canada, visiting Victoria, Vancouver, Edmonton, and Calgary before reaching Winnipeg on Dominion Day, 1 July. Conan Doyle's first activity was to watch a baseball game between Winnipeg and Minneapolis, but one of his main reasons for visiting Winnipeg was to attend a seance at the home of Doctor Thomas Glen Hamilton, a prominent surgeon and spiritualist. (25) The seance was held in a converted bedroom on the second floor of Hamilton's home. Hamilton's daughter Margaret, then fifteen, remembers Conan Doyle's firm handshake and his hearty booming voice, as well as hearing the seance table bouncing around upstairs. Conan Doyle gave Hamilton an inscribed copy of the book of the 1922 American tour (15) as a memento.
The public address which he delivered at the spacious Walker Theatre in Winnipeg on 3 July was widely reported in local papers. One headline reported 'Crowded House Hears Conan Doyle Speak. Brings Message of Immortality to Audience that Packed Theatre.' (26) Another report succinctly summarised his stance on Spiritualism:
- Whatever may have been the opinions of the majority of those present as to the genuineness of the spiritualist doctrines advanced by Sir Arthur, nobody could have any doubts of the sincerity of the speaker. He, it was evident, believes most certainly in the claims of the cult and, moreover, he is impressed with the idea that he has a mission to perform in setting forth what he believes to be the facts to a waiting world.' (27)
Conan Doyle closed that lecture by showing slides of photographs of ectoplasm.
The journey to Montreal, where he gave two lectures and investigated a case of poltergeist haunting which he authenticated (23), was by way of Fort William and Port Arthur. Before departing for Britain the family spent three weeks at Loon Lake in northern New York State. Conan Doyle had given forty lectures and travelled about 15,000 miles in a little over three months. When the family departed from New York City on 4 August 1923, Conan Doyle was clutching a gift under his arm — a new form of the Ouija-board. That was to be the final visit to America by our British. cousin before his death in 1930.
Summary
It is not surprising that Americans flocked to hear Conan Doyle, given such varied and almost universal exposure to his literary works. His four tours, and their published accounts, also served to publicise Conan Doyle the man, with all his personality traits, attitudes, and beliefs. The foremost attitude demonstrated during his two last visits was a fervent dedication to a cause which he had accepted in toto, both emotionally and intellectually.
Conan Doyle did not totally reject the teachings of established religions, but only the misapplication of their basic principles. Thus he stated that 'The ethics of Christ seem to me to be final, though one could hardly imagine such a change of heart in the world as would ever allow them to be practiced.
' (23) Similarly, in his account of the 1922 trip, he characterised Americans as being 'intensely practical and [Spiritualism] would appear to them to be visionary. They are immersed in worldly pursuits, and this cuts across the path of their lives.
' (15) Nonetheless, he evinced affection for Americans and tolerance even for their reporters.
He went so far as to predict that 'the time will come, and that soon, when there will be no frontier through a closing-up by common consent of the English-speaking States and their dependencies under some such title as the United States of Africa, America, Australia, Canada, England, Ireland, New Zealand, Scotland, and Wales.
' This prophecy was no better than his prediction that Canada would always remain at British colony; that the striving of Quebec for independence would soon disappear and that worldwide acceptance of Spiritualism was imminent. (5)
Although the great majority of Americans did not accept Spiritualism. Conan Doyle proved himself to be an enthusiastic and tolerant British cousin. He was warmly accepted, even by those who did not accept Spiritualism, and he in his turn warmly accepted them — if, that is, they were not too vocal in their disbelief. It is a moot point as to whether the packed houses that came to hear him were more interested in Spiritualism or in the creator of Sherlock Holmes.
Our British Cousin, Conan Doyle, certainly had a much wider exposure and impact in America than did Our American Cousin, Asa Trenchard, in England. Conan Doyle saw the play Our American Cousin twice. The first time was in Edinburgh as a young boy, and the second was when, at the age of fifteen, he was taken to the Haymarket Theatre in London by his uncle James Doyle. (28) He thought it a very funny comedy.
Conan Doyle's character may be summarised by an analogy made by Our American Cousin. Wal, I guess shooting with bows and arrows is just about like most things in life, all you got to do is keep the sun out of your eyes, look straight — pull strong — calculate the distance, and you're sure to hit the mark in most things as well as shooting. Our British Cousin is considered by many to have missed the mark in his absolute acceptance of Spiritualism and all of its ramifications but this is overshadowed by the many bull's eyes which he did make during his four North American tours.
References
1. Brooks, S. M.: Our Assassinated Presidents. The True Medical Stories; New York, Bell. 1966, p. 16.
2. Taylor, T. Our American Cousin, New York. Samuel French, 1869.
3. Redmond, C: Welcome to America. Mr. Sherlock Holmes; Toronto. Simon and Pierre, 1987.
4 Lachtman, H.: Sherlock Slept Here, Santa Barbara, Capra Press, 1985.
5. Conan Doyle, A.: Memories and Adventures, London. Hodder and Stoughton, 1924.
6. --------: Great Britain and the Next War, Boston, Small, Maynard, 1914.
7. --------: 'Danger!'. The Strand Magazine: Vol. 48, 1914, pp. 3-20.
8. --------: Introduction in Danger! and Other Stories: London, John Murray, 1918.
9. 'Conan Doyle's Lecture. The Assassin of Sherlock Holmes'. The Evening News [Detroit]. 23 October 1894, p. 2.
10. Conan Doyle, A.: 'The Doctors of Hoyland'. Round the Red Lamp, London, Methuen, 1894
11. Hoyt, E. P.: The Improper Bostonian. Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes. New York, William Morrow, 1979.
12. 'Dr. Doyle: Author of Sherlock Holmes is Here', Sunday News [Detroit]. 21 October 1894, pp. 1.7.
13. Conan Doyle, A.: His Last Bow; London, John Murray, 1917.
14. --------: 'The Adventure of the Abbey Grange'. The Strand Magazine; Vol. 28. 1904, pp.
15. --------: 'Our American Adventure': London. Hodder and Stoughton, 1923.
16. --------: 'The Athabasca Trail'. The Guards Came Through and Other Poems; New York, George H. Doran, 1920, pp. 60-62.
17. Spencer, F. J.: 'Crime, Cricket, and Conan Doyle More on the Sporting Doctor', Virginia Med. Monthly, Vol. 96, 1969, pp. 697-699.
18. Conan Doyle, A.: The New Revelation; London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1981.
19. --------: The Wanderings of a Spiritualist; London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1921.
20. --------: Our African Winter, London, John Murray, 1929.
21. --------: The Lost World, London. Hodder and Stoughton, 1912.
22. Brandon, R.: The Spiritualists: London, Weidenfield & Nicolson, 1983.
23. Conan Doyle, A.: Our Second American Adventure; London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1924.
24. --------: A Study in Scarlet, Beeton's Christmas Annual; 1887.
25. Rodin. A. E.: Kerr, A. M., and Key, J. D.: 'Arthur Conan Doyle's Winnipeg Adventure': 1923. Sherlock Holmes Review, Vol. 2, 1989, pp. 79-86.
26. Crowded House Hears Conan Doyle Speak. Brings Message of Immortality to Audience that Packed Theatre, Manitoba Free Press, 4 July 1923, p. 5.
27. 'Conan Doyle Lectures on Spirit Phenomenon'. Noted British Author Convinces Audience of Sincerity of his Beliefs, Winnipeg Evening Tribune; 4 July 1923, p. 8.
28. Carr, J. D.: 'The Life of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle', London, John Murray, 1949, p. 25.
- Article courtesy Christopher Roden, founder of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society (1989-2003).
