| Sherlock Holmes’ London |
| Arthur Conan Doyle created the character of Sherlock Holmes in the late 19th-century. | Párr. 1 |
| Queen Victoria had been on the throne for 50 years when Conan Doyle published his first | |
| Sherlock Holmes novel, A Study in Scarlet. Victoria’s kingdom was a powerful, properous | |
| nation, and the upper and middle classes both affluent and opulent. London was a city of | |
| 5 | cobbled streets, clattering horse-drawn hansom cabs, swirling fog and flickering gas lamps. | |
| In London’s elegant West End, people were fashionably attired. Gentlemen wore top | Párr. 2 |
| hats and frock coats and carried walking canes. Ladies wore long formal frocks and | |
| impressive hats. Their homes were spacious, ornate and intended to impress. Better plumbing | |
| meant that there was plenty of hot and cold running water, together with basins, baths and | |
| 10 | water closets. Additionally, there was the newly introduced electric light. A plentiful supply | |
| of deferential servants attended every need. This smart, materialistic society thrived on the | |
| romantic escapism of the Pre-Raphaelites, Robert Louis Stevenson and Gilbert and Sullivan, | |
| together with fictional characters such as Dracula, Alice, Peter Pan and, of course, Sherlock | |
| Holmes. | |
| 15 | In the East End, life was very different ––a Dickensian world of squalor and grinding | Párr. 3 |
| poverty amidst overcrowded, sleazy slums and narrow allewways. Here the notorious Jack | |
| the Ripper stalked his victims before mutilating and murdering them. Reports in the popular | |
| press terrorized yet titillated the citizens, thereby creating a morbid fascination for crime and | |
| a market for detective stories –– enter Sherlock Holmes! The police proved to be singularly | |
| 20 | ineffectual in investigating the Ripper’s horrific crimes and he was never caught. This | |
| conceivably led to Conan Doyle’s perception of the police as incompetent –– Sherlock | |
| Holmes invariably proved to be infinitely superior. | |
| Sherlock Holmes’ disdain for the 19th-century police procedures could be considered | Párr. 4 |
| a trifle unjust, though. The modern Metropolitan police force had existed barely 60 years, | |
| 25 | having been established by Sir Robert Peel when he was Home Secretary between 1822 and | |
| 1830. Scotland Yard was the headquarters of the Criminal Investigation Department, which | |
| was formed in 1877, a mere decade before the fictional Sherlock Holmes began investigating | |
| crime. Few of the scientific aids now available for solving crime were present in late | |
| Victorian Britain. Fingerprinting and ballistics were only utilized by police during the early | |
| 30 | years of the 20th century and were of a fairly primitive nature. DNA, continual camera | |
| surveillance and computerized criminal records were many years in the future. So, the police | |
| floundered about in the Victorian fog, relying on informants, popularly known as ‘grasses’, | |
| sheer luck, or criminals becoming too bold and careless. | |
| Many of the most notorious crimes were commited during Sherlock Holmes’ time: | Párr. 5 |
| 35 | the so-called ‘Brides in the Bath’ murders, Jack the Ripper’s vicious vendetta against East | |
| End prostitutes, and Dr Crippen’s murder of his wife, whose headless corpse he hid in the | |
| cellar of their North London house. Crippen’s wax effigy can still be seen in the Chamber of | |
| Horrors at Madame Tussaud’s in London. Crippen was executed at Pentonville Prison by the | |
| hangman’s noose on 28 November 1910. This was followed the year after by the Sydney | |
| 40 | Street siege in London, when police and soldiers, armed with rifles, engaged in a public | |
| shootout with a gang of anarchists. Winston Churchill was Home Secretary at the time and | |
| was present at this dramatic event. | |
| If modern scientific investigatory methods did not exist in Late Victorian Britain, | Párr. 6 |
| bureaucracy and red tape certainly did. Here Sherlock Holmes enjoyed a decided advantage. | |
| 45 | As Gerald Salmon, a retired police inspector and lifelong Sherlock Holmes enthusiast, points | |
| out, ‘You cannot help feeling sorry for the Victorian police. If Inspector Lestrade began | |
| making inquiries in an inappropriate manner or stepped out of line, he would have been | |
| severely reprimanded by his superiors. Conversely, Sherlock Holmes wasn’t constrained by | |
| police procedures, rules or regulations and could be highly unorthodox. A master of disguise, | |
| 50 | he could dress as a tramp to scheme his way inside opium dens in order to seek out vital | |
| evidence.’ Of course, if all the police were super sleuths, ultra efficient and armed with wider | |
| powers, there would have been no need for famous freelance detectives – such as Sherlock | |
| Holmes. | |
| | |
| 55 | Fuente: Brimacombe, P. (2014). The World of Sherlock Holmes. Pitkin Guides: The History Press | |