Dear Jeff and other Sherlockians,

The suggestion that John Hamish Watson, M.D (“late of the Army Medical
Department”) was a Scot and spoke in Scottish accent is interesting and may open
up the question whether Arthur Conan Doyle created the surgeon as a part of his
own self-projection. If so, Watson was a Scot, as was his creator, and as Jeff
has pointed out, the very middle name ‘Hamish’ sounds Scottish enough. Holmes’s
associate was, in fact, drawn on (the real life member of the Southsea Literary
and Scientific Society) Dr. James Elmwood Watson, M.D (from Edinburgh), though
Watson’s physical appearance – very briefly referred to in “The Adventure of
Charles Augustus Milverton” – was possibly resembling Doyle’s First World War
acquaintance Major Alfred Wood. Both being Scottish, it is likely that Watson
himself was a Scot and spoke Scottish. William S. Baring-Gould, in the first
volume of “The Annotated Sherlock Holmes” (New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1967),
has mentioned at least six striking
similarities between Watson and Doyle to strike home his idea that Watson was a
Scot, and Doyle’s self-projection. What do the other Sherlockians say regarding
this?

(Pinaki Roy)

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