Rachel Ward has written about Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle in the Telegraph. I did know that one of his middle names was Ignatius, so I guess there were only 18 things I didn’t know about the knight.
From the article:
1. Doyle was one of the earliest motorists in Britain
He reportedly bought a car without ever having driven one before. In 1911, he took part in the Prince Henry Tour, an international road competition organised by Prince Henry of Prussia to pit British cars against German ones. Doyle paired up with his second wife, Jean, as one of the British driving teams.
2. Conan is not part of his surname
It is, in fact, only one of his two middle names. He is Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle. Shortly after he graduated from high school he began using Conan as part of his surname
In 1902, the writer was knighted by King Edward VII. He was also appointed a Deputy-Lieutenant of Surrey. However, he wasn’t knighted for having created Sherlock Holmes. He was made a knight for his work on a non-fiction pamphlet regarding the Boer War.
4. Doyle was on the same cricket team as Peter Pan writer JM Barrie
They also worked together on a comic opera, Jane Annie, which Barrie begged his friend to revise and finish for him.
5. He could have discussed Dracula and Treasure Island with their authors
Doyle was also friends with Bram Stoker, and Robert Louis Stevenson was a fellow classmate at the University of Edinburgh.
6. He helped to popularise skiing
He not only liked cricket and football, but Doyle helped to popularise the winter sport. Following a move to Davros, Switzerland in 1893 (the mountain air was prescribe to aid his wife’s health), he mastered the basics with the help of the Brangger brothers, two locals who had taken to practising the sport after dark to avoid being teased by the townsfolk. Together, they were the first people to make the 8,000ft pass through the Maienfelder Furka, which separated Davros from the neighbouring town of Arosa. Doyle was also the first Englishman to document the thrill of skiing: “You let yourself go,” he said. “Getting as near to flying as any earthbound man can. In that glorious air it is a delightful experience.” Doyle correctly predicted that in the future hundreds of Englishmen would come to Switzerland for the “skiing season”.
You can read the rest HERE.
From Wikipedia:
Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle DL (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a Scottish physician and writer who is most noted for his fictional stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, which are generally considered milestones in the field of crime fiction. He is also known for writing the fictional adventures of a second character he invented, Professor Challenger, and for popularising the mystery of the Mary Celeste. He was a prolific writer whose other works include fantasy and science fiction stories, plays, romances, poetry, non-fiction, and historical novels.