Owen Dudley Edwards: The Society's New President
Owen Dudley Edwards: The Society's New President is an article written by Christopher Roden published in the A.C.D. - The Journal of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society (Vol. 9, june 1999).
This article is a warm tribute to Owen Dudley Edwards, presenting him as a brilliant, wide-ranging historian, broadcaster, and biographer whose work has deeply enriched Arthur Conan Doyle studies. It also announces his acceptance of the presidency of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society, emphasizing both his longstanding support for the Society and his exceptional importance in Holmes and Conan Doyle scholarship.
Owen Dudley Edwards: The Society's New President
The last thing with which I would associate Owen Dudley Edwards is the computer-for he seems to me to abhor to such modern technology. I, on the other hand, use the computer for more hours in a day than seems good for my health, and it was natural, therefore, to search the World Wide Web for references to Owen. Not surprisingly, I found his name listed in the University of Edinburgh's History Department. He appears, too, in many references to the Edinburgh Festival, and in listings issued by Celtic bookshops. The Web also tells us that 'Owen Dudley Edwards, academic, broadcaster and polymath, wrote and presented this series [Seven Deadly Virtues for BBC Radio 4 (1996)] of seven programmes on the catastrophic consequences in history and literature of being nice. His seven programmes looked at the damage to individuals and nations caused by Loyalty, Humility, Temperance, Charity, Chastity, Honesty, and Industry, and the witnesses for the prosecution called by Owen in his scripts ranged through P. G. Wodehouse, George Orwell, Jesus Christ, W. Gordon Lilly, Cicero, Rose Kennedy, Bonnie Prince Charlie, Gore Vidal, H. L. Mencken, Oscar Wilde, and Greyfriars Bobby'. Quite a wide-ranging list of personalities, and something of an indication of the diversity of the enigma which is Owen Dudley Edwards.
Continuing my Web search, I noted that in 1959, University College Dublin were winners of the John Smith Memorial Mace (this information provided by the web site of The English-Speaking Union Centre for International Debate and Communication Training), and that one of the University's two speakers was Owen Dudley Edwards. Apart from these snippets of information, however, all one generally reads about Owen Dudley Edwards, the man, is that he was born in Dublin in 1938, is married (to the delightful Bonnie), and has three children, that he is a Reader in Commonwealth and American History at the University of Edinburgh, where he has been on the teaching staff since 1968, and that he is the author of many highly acclaimed books, including biographical studies of P.G. Wodehouse, Oscar Wilde. Burke and Hare, and, of course, Arthur Conan Doyle.
It is fitting that Owen, an Irish Roman Catholic living in Edinburgh, should be a biographer of Conan Doyle: his expertise, both in History and Edinburgh, brings an interesting dimension to his interpretation of Conan Doyle's roots and upbringing that may not even occur to southern, non-Celtic (non-British even), non-Catholic commentators. Such dimensions were shown in The Quest for Sherlock Holmes (Mainstream, 1983), the biography of ACD's early life, which was ground-breaking in its approach to the subject, and so inspirational in the Quest for the true Arthur Conan Doyle. Since then, of course, Owen has developed his ideas in regular articles for ACD, occasional Society publications, and The Case Files of Sherlock Holmes series; and, as the moving force behind The Oxford Sherlock Holmes, he enabled the appreciation of the stories against a wider-context background of Conan Doyle's life and works.
His regard for The Arthur Conan Doyle Society, and his help on all matters since the Society's debut, is, to put it in wholly inadequate fashion, very much appreciated. When the late Julian Symons decided to step down as our President in 1993, my first choice as his successor was Owen. At the time, he felt he could do no more in an official capacity than he could in the capacity of an Honorary Member, which he had been since the time of the Society's founding in 1989. I quietly hoped that I would, one day, persuade him to change his mind, and that day came towards the end of last year. I am delighted to announce officially, therefore, that Owen Dudley Edwards has accepted the Society's invitation to be its President, and I can have confidence in saying that we all look forward to working with him in the years to come.
Our President will encourage us, admonish us, and inspire us-as he does in his contribution to this Journal-but one thing is certain, we shall go away the richer for the experience.
It may surprise Owen to know that the most frequent references to him on the World Wide Web are in connection with web sites related to Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes. Though he may choose to ignore our technological gadgetry, this should confirm to him that no man could be better suited to fill the position he has now assumed. I offer my grateful thanks to him for accepting our invitation.
- Article courtesy Christopher Roden, founder of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society (1989-2003).
