Who invented Sherlock Holmes?

Welcome back to History's Not Boring by Kidopoly.com with your hosts Mira and Finn! Have you ever wondered how the world's greatest detective came to be? Grab your magnifying glass and join us in 1880s Edinburgh, where a young doctor named Arthur Conan Doyle is super bored waiting for his patients. To pass the time, he starts writing stories about a brilliant detective who spots tiny clues nobody else can see! He even bases him on his real-life medical professor, Joseph Bell, who could guess a stranger's job just by looking at them!

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson quickly take over the world! People loved the stories so much that when Arthur tried to kill off Sherlock in 1893, readers actually cried in the streets until he brought him back to life! Meanwhile, real detectives at Scotland Yard were just starting to figure out how to solve crimes, inventing cool things like fingerprint analysis, mugshots, and real forensic science! Tune in to discover the thrilling true story of how a fictional hero and real-life police officers changed crime-solving forever! Get ready for a massive mystery!

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to History's Not Boring by Codopoly.com. I'm Mira. And I'm Finn. Before we begin, we have a very special listener shout-out today. This episode goes out to Maddy. She asked for a Sherlock Holmes episode because she wants to be a detective when she grows up.

SPEAKER_00 0:16

That is the coolest job ever. Maddy, I bet you'll be an amazing detective.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

You sure will, Maddy! And to get you ready, we're travelling back to the foggy streets of Victorian London. Finn, close your eyes and picture December 1893. A famous legend says the streets were packed with people wearing black armbands, crying and mourning the death of a famous British hero.

SPEAKER_00 0:42

Oh no, that's so sad. Who died? Was it the Prime Minister or a famous general?

SPEAKER_01 0:49

That's the craziest part! The man they were mourning wasn't even real. He was a completely made-up character in a magazine.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

Wait, what? People were supposedly crying in the streets over a fictional person.

SPEAKER_01 1:02

Yep, that's the legend. And over 20,000 furious people really did cancel their magazine subscriptions. Today, we are talking about the creation of the world's greatest detective, Sherlock Holmes, and how a bored young doctor named Arthur Conan Doyle accidentally changed the way real-life police solve crimes forever.

SPEAKER_00 1:26

This is going to be epic. Let's get out our magnifying glasses.

SPEAKER_01 1:29

To understand how big of a deal this was, we have to talk about how police actually solved crimes in the 1880s. Finn, do you know how they did it back then?

SPEAKER_00 1:39

Did they use DNA or look for fingerprints?

SPEAKER_01 1:43

Nope. Neither of those things existed in police work yet. If the police didn't have an eyewitness who actually saw the crime happen, or if they didn't catch the bad guy right there on the spot, they were usually completely stuck. That's terrible. So anyone could just get away with it. Pretty much. It was a very frustrating time to be a detective. But meanwhile, in Edinburgh, Scotland, a young medical student named Arthur Conan Doyle was learning a different way to look at the world. He was born in 1859, and in the late 1870s, he met a professor named Dr. Joseph Bell.

SPEAKER_00 2:22

Was Dr. Bell a detective?

SPEAKER_01 2:24

No, he was a surgeon at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, but he had a superpower. Dr. Bell could look at a total stranger and guess their job, where they lived, and their secret habits just by noticing tiny concrete details. Whoa! Like what kind of details? Well, Dr. Bell could tell a man was a cobbler just by looking at the specific wear and tear on his trousers. Or he could spot a retired soldier from a specific Highland regiment just by the way the man walked and the slight tilt of his hat.

SPEAKER_00 3:01

That is exactly like Sherlock Holmes. He just looked at clues nobody else noticed.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

Exactly! Young Arthur Conan Doyle was absolutely mind-blown by his professor. He realised that science and close observation could solve almost any mystery in the world. So Arthur Conan Doyle graduated and became a doctor. In 1882, he set up his own medical practice in a town called Southsea, near Portsmouth. He put up his shiny new brass sign, opened his doors, and waited for the patients to rush in. Did they? I bet he was a great doctor. Well, he might have been, but almost nobody showed up. He was sitting in his waiting room day after day, completely bored out of his mind. He had virtually zero patients and hardly any money to pay his bills.

SPEAKER_00 3:53

Oh man, that's rough. What did he do all day while he waited?

SPEAKER_01 3:58

To pass the time, he started writing stories. He remembered his old professor, Dr. Joseph Bell, and thought, what if a detective used those exact same powers of observation to catch criminals? And just like that, Sherlock Holmes and his trusty friend, Dr. John Watson, were born. Did the stories get popular right away? Not instantly. His first Sherlock Holmes novel, called A Study in Scarlet, was published in 1887. But the real explosion happened a few years later, in 1891, when he started writing short stories for a new publication called The Strand Magazine.

SPEAKER_00 4:37

How popular did it get? Are we talking like a few thousand readers? Try hundreds of thousands!

SPEAKER_01 4:44

The stories were an absolute sensation! When a new issue of The Strand magazine was delivered, crowds of people would literally line up down the street to buy it. The magazine was soon selling nearly 300,000 copies.

SPEAKER_00 4:59

300,000? That's like filling six massive football stadiums with people reading about Sherlock.

SPEAKER_01 5:06

Yep. Arthur Conan Doyle was suddenly incredibly famous and very rich. But there was one huge problem.

SPEAKER_00 5:14

He hated it. Wait, why would he hate it? He's rich, he's famous, and people love his stories.

SPEAKER_01 5:21

Because he wanted to write serious history books. He thought the Sherlock Holmes detective stories were just cheap, silly fiction taking up all his time. He wrote to his mother and complained. He takes my mind from better things.

SPEAKER_00 5:36

Uh-oh. I have a bad feeling about this. What did he do?

SPEAKER_01 5:41

In December 1893, Conan Doyle published a story called The Final Problem. He had Sherlock Holmes face off against his greatest enemy, the evil criminal mastermind, Professor Moriarty. Oh no! What happened in the story? The two men had a massive fight at the edge of the Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland. That's a real waterfall that drops a terrifying 820 feet. That's as tall as a 70-story skyscraper.

SPEAKER_00 6:09

Tell me they didn't fall. Please tell me they didn't fall.

SPEAKER_01 6:13

They plunged right over the edge. Both of them. Gone. Conan Doyle completely killed off Sherlock Holmes. No! He can't do that! That's exactly what the public said. People were absolutely outraged. Rumour has it that young men in London even wore black armbands to mourn the fictional detective. Angry readers wrote letters calling Conan Doyle a brute, and over 20,000 furious people cancelled their subscriptions to the Strand magazine.

SPEAKER_00 6:44

20,000 people cancelled? The magazine publishers must have been freaking out.

SPEAKER_01 6:50

They were. They begged him to bring Holmes back, but Conan Doyle refused for an entire decade. It wasn't until 1903 that an American publisher offered him an absolute mountain of money, equal to over a million dollars today, to officially resurrect the detective.

SPEAKER_00 7:08

Thank goodness he brought him back. But what about the real police? Did they ever learn anything from the Sherlock Holmes stories? They sure did. This is the most amazing part.

SPEAKER_01 7:20

While Conan Doyle was writing these fictional stories, the real Victorian detectives at Scotland Yard were actually reading them and taking notes.

SPEAKER_00 7:29

No way! The real police learned from a made-up detective.

SPEAKER_01 7:33

Yes! In the stories, Holmes was always complaining about police trampling all over the crime scene and ruining the footprints. So, real police started roping off crime scenes to preserve the evidence. Holmes used magnifying glasses and studied cigar rash. And soon, real cops started using forensic science too.

SPEAKER_00 7:56

That's brilliant! When did they start doing the really cool stuff, like fingerprints?

SPEAKER_01 8:01

Right around the time Holmes came back. In 1901, Scotland Yard officially set up its first fingerprint bureau. And over in France, a man named Alphonse Bertillon invented the mugshot, photographing criminals from the front and the side so they could be identified later.

SPEAKER_00 8:20

So Arthur Conan Doyle's bored imagination actually changed how crimes are solved around the entire world.

SPEAKER_01 8:27

Exactly! He ended up writing 60 original Sherlock Holmes stories in total. Four full novels and 56 short stories. And here's a crazy fun fact to blow your mind. In all 60 of those original stories, Sherlock Holmes never actually says his famous catchphrase, elementary, my dear Watson. Wait, he never said it? Not even once. Not once! He said elementary, and he said, my dear Watson, but he never put them together in the original books. That iconic phrase was invented later for movies and plays. Alright, Finn, it's quiz time! Let's see how much you remember about the world's greatest detective.

SPEAKER_00 9:10

Okay, my magnifying glass is ready. Lay it on me.

SPEAKER_01 9:14

First question. What was the name of the real life medical professor who inspired the character of Sherlock Holmes? Next one. What was the name of the magazine where the Sherlock Holmes short stories became incredibly popular? Question three. How tall was the Reichenbach Falls where Holmes and Moriarty had their big fight? Here's number four. Exactly how many angry readers cancelled their magazine subscriptions when Conan Doyle killed off Holmes. Last question. Great job! Let's see how you did. The first answer is, Dr. Joseph Bell was the professor who could guess someone's job just by licking at them. For question 2. The stories were published in the Strand magazine selling nearly 300,000 copies. Number 3. The answer is the Reichenbach Fools are a terrifying 820 feet tall. Question 4. Over 20,000 furious people cancelled their subscriptions. And the final answer is Scotland Yard started their fingerprint bureau in the year 1901.

SPEAKER_00 10:47

That was such an awesome story. Maddy is going to have the best time becoming a detective.

SPEAKER_01 10:53

She definitely is. All you need is a sharp eye for details, just like Dr. Joseph Bell.

SPEAKER_00 11:00

Haha, and maybe a cool magnifying glass.

SPEAKER_01 11:04

If you want to be a history detective like us, we'd love it if you could leave us a five-star review. Just scroll down on your podcast app and tap those five stars.

SPEAKER_00 11:14

It helps other detectives find our show. Oh, and don't forget to check out our site kidopoly.com. We've got tons of fun learning games and activities there.

SPEAKER_01 11:24

That's right. And if you want a shout out on the show, like Maddie got, or if you just want to say hi, send us an email at hello at kidopoly.com. We love reading your messages.

SPEAKER_00 11:37

Keep looking for clues everywhere you go.

SPEAKER_01 11:40

See you next time on History's Not Boring. Bye.