--- title: Sherlock Holmes Creator Arthur Conan Doyle Used Deduction Too description: May 22, 1859: Arthur Conan Doyle, the author and physician best known for creating the character of Sherlock Holmes, is born in Edinburgh canonical: https://time.com/3856098/arthur-conan-doyle-history/ author: Jennifer Latson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-05-22T14:00:11.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T08:05:15.047Z article:section: History og:title: Sherlock Holmes Creator Arthur Conan Doyle Used Deduction Too og:description: May 22, 1859: Arthur Conan Doyle is born in Edinburgh og:url: https://time.com/3856098/arthur-conan-doyle-history/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbe1e865ecb07353d/6987ef785f570f3ab5b19951/acde.jpeg?branch=production&width=589&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 589 og:image:height: 331 og:image:alt: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Artist: Anonymous og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Sherlock Holmes Creator Arthur Conan Doyle Used Deduction Too twitter:description: May 22, 1859: Arthur Conan Doyle is born in Edinburgh twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbe1e865ecb07353d/6987ef785f570f3ab5b19951/acde.jpeg?branch=production&width=589&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Sherlock Holmes' Creator Fought Injustice with Deduction, Too > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Subscription: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition TIME is a general-interest news organization founded in 1923, reporting on the people, ideas and issues shaping the world. A TIME subscription provides full access to that journalism in print and digital, from $20 a year, and can be cancelled at any time. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-sub-2026q3/newsletters?i=bee395c0-798a-49a7-9c1b-afdbb1812d9f&cr=time-sub-2026q3-v1) * TIME Subscriptions: [time.com/subscribe-agent](/c/time-sub-2026q3/subscribe?i=bee395c0-798a-49a7-9c1b-afdbb1812d9f&cr=time-sub-2026q3-v1) ## Video: 150 Years of Sherlock Holmes [Watch (HLS stream): 150 Years of Sherlock Holmes](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/vEFURlZN.m3u8) (3:41)  _Published 2009-05-28. In celebration of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's 150th anniversary, TIME.com hears from a man who knows more than most about the writer's most famous creation._ by [Jennifer Latson](https://time.com/author/jennifer-latson/) ## Jennifer Latson May 22, 2015 2:00 PM UTC  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Library of Congress / Heritage Images / Getty Images by [Jennifer Latson](https://time.com/author/jennifer-latson/) ## Jennifer Latson May 22, 2015 2:00 PM UTC To fans of Sherlock Holmes, the setup feels familiar: A wealthy spinster is bludgeoned to death in her Glasgow dining room one foggy night while her maid is out buying the evening newspaper. The murderer is apparently someone she knows, since there is no sign of forced entry. And burglary is insufficient as a motive, since only one piece from the victim’s massive jewelry collection is missing: [a unique, crescent-shaped diamond brooch](http://www.nas.gov.uk/about/081214.asp). The police bumble the case from the beginning, latching onto the least likable suspect, a gambling-den operator with a checkered past, and sticking with him even after the key piece of evidence — a receipt showing that he’d recently pawned a diamond brooch — turns out to be a red herring. A savvy investigator intervenes to set things straight. But the investigator is not Sherlock Holmes: It’s his real-life creator, Arthur Conan Doyle. And the tale of murder and miscarriage of justice is true. Doyle, born on this day, May 22, in 1859, might have had more in common with Dr. Watson, at least on the surface. He had been a practicing physician, like Watson, before he took up writing. It was while studying medicine at Edinburgh University, in fact, that Doyle met the man who inspired the character of Holmes: the surgeon Joseph Bell, “whose specialty was diagnosis through observation and deduction,” [per TIME’s 1924 account](http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,769084,00.html). But Doyle was Holmes at heart — an enemy of injustice and a stickler for solid deductive reasoning. Like Holmes, Doyle sometimes meddled in murder cases when he believed the police had veered from the right track. One of the most famous of these was [the 1908 murder of 82-year-old Marion Gilchrist](http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/history/the%5Fcurious%5Fcase%5Fof%5Foscar%5Fslater.shtml), the wealthy spinster, and the wrongful arrest of Oscar Slater, the gambling-den operator. After reading news accounts of the flimsy evidence against Slater, Doyle decided to conduct his own investigation, according to Janet Pascal, the author of [_Arthur Conan Doyle: Beyond Baker Street._](http://www.amazon.com/Arthur-Conan-Doyle-Beyond-Portraits/dp/0195122623/ref=tmm%5Fhrd%5Ftitle%5F0?ie=UTF8&qid=1431389454&sr=8-1) He dug up contradictory clues and discovered that an eyewitness — the maid, who had seen a man running from the crime scene as she returned with the paper — had been coerced by police into fingering Slater. Ultimately, Slater was exonerated and released from prison. “Sir Conan Doyle, you breaker of my shackels, you lover of truth for justice sake, I thank you from the bottom of my heart,” Slater wrote to him, according to Pascal. While Doyle might have had the heart of Holmes, however, he didn’t quite match the fictional detective’s success rate. In his autobiography, Doyle candidly reported that his powers of deduction didn’t always trump ordinary police work. On one case he’d hoped to crack, he said, the police quickly identified the culprit “while I had got no farther than that he was a left-handed man with nails in his boots,” per Pascal. **_Read more about Doyle from 1924, here in the TIME archives_**: [An Author Tells of War, Murder, Spooks, Disease](http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,769084,00.html) ## Transcript >> Welcome to the world's most famous address, Baker Street, London, the home of Mr. Sherlock Holmes himself. We're very excited to be celebrating the 150th anniversary for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's birth. So, come on in. >> It might not actually be the most famous address in the world, but 221B Baker Street does mean Sherlock Holmes to most people who hear it. And with the recent 150th anniversary of the detective's creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, his legacy looks likely to endure. Who better than to hear from about the great man's life in times than Holmes impersonator, Stewart Quentin " Holmes ." >> Conan Doyle was born in the 1800s, the late, late 18th century. And he became a doctor, he studied at Edinburgh University, under Dr. Joseph Bell-- on whom he based Sherlock Holmes, and he based Dr. Watson on himself. Although he became an excellent surgeon, and he opened his surgery, and he couldn't find any patients. And he was wondering what to do with himself. And he started-- he thought he'd start writing stories. And the first story that he published was in the-- Mrs. Beeton's Christmas Annual. And there was " A study in Scarlet" where Sherlock Holmes met Dr. Watson. And Dr. Watson noticeably all the peculiarities of him. They decided to rent rooms at 221B Baker Street, and shared because Holmes couldn't afford it on his own. So, they-- they went into a partnership. And they moved in here about 1881, and they were here till 1904, when Sherlock Holmes retired to Sussex to keep bees, and that was the last we heard of him. He was a man who based all his reasoning on observation and logical deduction, and he will-- became the world's only private consulting detective. And he was in a [ unk ], he'll sit in an armchair and solve problems with a place-- which was happening far, far away. And this appealed to everyone because they thought they can all do the same thing. And this is why he was so popular. And he'll-- he will-- he'll never die. [ unk ] So-- and we get people coming in to the museum-- all day long. It's-- and in the summer, it's every second. We must get about 2-- 200 or 350 visitors a day. And this is a phenomenal thing. It's one of the extraordinary things in-- in all humanity. This part-- this is the study, which is the main room. And it's the most attractive room. Next door is a bedroom, which-- my bedroom, which is-- has all the old pictures on the wall and [ unk ] notorious criminals at that time. Upstairs is Dr. Watson's bedroom and Mrs. Hudson's bedroom. And upstairs, on the second and third floor, there you'll find Professor James Moriarty-- who is Holmes' archenemy. What he's doing in Sherlock Holmes' house [ unk ] there. And it's a very interesting place to be. And you're getting three floors with the full extra bits in it. Lots of knick- knacks and there's such a lot to look at in this room. 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