Sherlock Holmes: The World’s Greatest Detective

there have been many brilliant minds who have lent their talents the committing and the solving of crime but none stands as supremely as that of Sherlock Holmes with his unequaled powers of reasoning deduction and scientific application Holmes was able to solve the cases that baffled the best of Scotland Yard with his tweed suit cloth cap and his black clay pipe the world's greatest sleuth has become familiar to a new generation through television and movie adaptations of his many adventures in this week's by graphics we have dug deep to uncover the private world of the notoriously secretive mr. Holmes Sherlock Holmes may well have been the greatest detective living or dead to investigate the criminal minds but he was an extremely private genius as a result of the study of his early years is an exercise in frustration for biographers on one of the few occasions that he did open up about his family origins he mentioned to his ever loyal sidekick James Watson that his ancestors were country Squires who appear to have led much the same life as his natural to people of their class he also revealed that his grandmother was the sister of MLG Norris Vernay the renowned French artist who specialized in military paintings his final familial revelation was that he had an older brother Mycroft who according to Sherlock himself possessed even greater powers of deduction than he did apart from those few tidbits we are left to work out the details of Holmes's early life from circumstantial evidence and deduction something of a coincidence I might think Holmes was born and raised in the county of Sussex on the south coast of England the Holmes family seat was at slim-fit a few miles from Horsham Sherlock's father gentleman named Roderick Holmes was born around 1815 Roderick was a man's man who delighted in such outdoor pursuits as fox hunting trout fishing and pheasant shooting in sharp contrast to his two sons he didn't put much credence in book-learning and affairs of the mines Sherlock's mother was 13 years younger than her husband's Charlotte hair Croft came from language origins were French from her mother's the silver neighs she inherited not only artistic leanings but a flighty self-absorbed personality the marriage it was not a happy one with such disparate personalities it could be said that it was doomed from the start their first child was born in 1846 and given the name of John Mycroft Holmes the name gives us an insight into the state of the parents mental processes Roderick hated his own name and wanted to give his firstborn son a plain uncomplicated name but Charlotte had quite the opposite view she wanted a name that was different striking and memorable of course Roderick one that Charlotte managed to squeeze her choice an amalgam of her possessive nature my with the last syllable of her maiden name Croft in as a middle name it was only because he spends more of his formative years around his possessive mother that the boy came to be known as Mycroft a name which grated on his father every time he heard it it took Roderick and Charlotte seven years to produce another child no surprise considering the deteriorating state of their union by now Roderick had given up entirely on trying to control his wife's artistic or as he saw it irrational sight he left an ending up to her and she even outdid her creativity the first time around she named a second son Sherlock the name wasn't entirely her own invention in order to escape from the increasing abuse of her husband's who had taken more and more to the bottle she began making trips to London where she would visit art galleries and theatre performances she became enamored with a father-and-son pair of English artists both who were named William Sherlock in the hopes that her second would prove to be a great artist she gave him the moniker Sherlock there was the custom of the day to send sons away to boarding school Roderick didn't believe in higher education and so the two brothers endured a succession of tutors some of whom were good while others were terrible even when they did have a good teacher the now volatile environment caused by the parents loathing for one another did not make for conductive learning however Mycroft and Sherlock educated themselves despite their environments it soon became apparent that both boys were brilliant Sherlock instantly fell in love with books later referring to himself as an omnivorous reader his brother meanwhile was obsessed with numbers even though there was a 7-year gap in age the two boys were extraordinarily close they drew up on each other for mutual support and mental stimulation Mycroft grew into an overweight child who avoided any type of exercise or physical exertion instead in his early teens he became fascinated with electricity and chemistry this soon caught the attention of his younger brother he began saving his pocket money to buy scientific apparatus Sherlock escapes the unpleasant environment at home by finding interests outside the house he developed a friendship with man who was in charge of his father's hunting house this man named Sherman was a taxidermist and Sherlock spent many hours watching him at work the boy also spent a lot of time and his father's stables where a develops a great equine knowledge unlike his brother Sherlock enjoyed sports he became a talented young boxer winning a number of matches against local boys Roderick during his sober periods tried his best to turn the boys into country Squires though they both became possible shots with fouling thisis neither of them had any stomach for fox hunting furthermore Mycroft was a poor horse rider one consolation for Roderick though was that they both took to fishing what they really relished was the quiet contemplative nature of the activity which provided plenty of time for planning overall however Roderick was disappointed in how his sons were turning out I'm surprisingly then he very rarely showed them any affection preferring to cast aspirations on their manhood and their physical prowess is like a physical display was more than compensated for by Charlotte who would shower the boys with hugs and kisses at every opportunity this only served to further strengthen Roderick's conviction that he had raised a couple of sissies when her sons were old enough took them to London where she introduced them to concerts and opera and guided them through the picture galleries of the metropolis the brothers found her chatter tiresome and her behavior sometimes embarrassing but they were grateful to get away from their father as a result of these London visits Sherlock developed a strong love of music this inspired Charlotte to hire violin teacher for the boy but the lessons they didn't last long when Roderick found out about it he put an immediate stop to the lessons Mycroft and Sherlock also didn't spend a lot of time with other boys in the community they found not to be up to their intellectual level and so spent most of their time together however they did make one great friends and that would be Charles Edward Howard Vincent's Charles was the son of Sir Frederick Vincent's rector of the parish of slim-fit this boy was just as brilliant as the Holmes boys he was sent off to boarding school his aged 12 spends most of his time during the school vacations in the company of Mycroft and Sherlock Charles Howard Vincent went on to forge a distinguished multifaceted career which fills two pages in Britain's Dictionary of National Biography Roderick refused to send his oldest son to university when Mycroft reached the age of 20 but by now the older brother had enough of his father's abusive ways and he moved to London where he secured a position as an assistant to a member of parliament when his brother moved away Sherlock was 13 years of age he spent an unhappy few years as a loner in the land happy household his only bright spots being the regular letters that he received from his brother in London unsurprisingly at age 18 Sherlock convinced his father to send him to Cambridge University during his first semester he was invited by a fellow students by the name of Victor Trevor to spend the vacation with him that his family's estate in Norfolk not games he returned to his feuding parents he gladly accepted the invitation following this visit Sherlock did not return home for future holidays that took rooms in London where he buried himself in chemical research he had his mind set on becoming a chemical analyst while the University Holmes played no part in team sports which would have required cooperation with others instead he focused on boxing the only friends he had at college was Victor Trevor just as the only friends he had as an adult was dr. Watson in the autumn of 1874 Sherlock began his third year of study at Cambridge but he left before the year was out with no degree the details have never been revealed but it is clear that some sort of trauma afflicted both sherlock and mycroft during these months and left psychological wounds on both of them biographers have speculated that the situation may have involved members of the opposite sex dr. Watson later sheds some light on the Holmes mindset his aversion to women and his disinclination to form new friendships were both typical of his unemotional character but not more so than his complete suppression of every reference to his own people Holmes himself once said I am NOT a whole sould admirer of womankind women are never to be entirely trusted not the best of them despite this Holmes was always courteous and considerate to women his hostility to the other sex was confined to the areas of love and marriage so whatever the precise nature of this emotional blow it resulted in Sherlock being a lifelong user of narcotics this addiction was in sharp contrast to his temperance and otherwise clean mode of living at the time the use of narcotics in Britain was legal still the habit was alarming to dr. Watson who on more than one occasion tried to reason with the great detective that it was a mind destroying completely wasteful and in vertical practice homes usually brushed him off about it over the years but with Watson's help he was able to have limited success in shaking off the habit whether the tragic events was separate to the death of Holmes's parents is not clear those passings surely would have been horrific in themselves they occurred in the autumn of 1874 when Mycroft was in London and Sherlock at Cambridge on hearing the news both boys returned immediately to Sussex their father had been killed by a pistol shot of the head while their mother had been strangled the police immediately ruled out murder-suicide but Mycroft and Sherlock knew better they lonely and depressed Charlotte had found release in the arms of another man on discovering the affair Roderick had strangled his wife in a frenzy and then staggered to the stables where he had turned the pistol on himself the two sons deduced all of this from a careful examination of the scene coupled with their insider knowledge of the state of their parents marriage the man who had been the subject of Charlotte's affection and therefore the indirect the tragedy was a man of privilege by the name of law a plankton he discreetly left the area after the deaths but his actions left a deep-seated resentment of titles men in the heart of Sherlock his family tragedy his Holmes at the age of 20 they left him with a deep-seated bitterness against his mother apart from his brother she was the only person who had ever shown him love and affection and from all of this what he decided he needed was a complete change of scenery from earliest boyhood Sherlock had been fascinated with the American West he wanted to travel to America and pay his way for some time so Mycroft advanced him some money from his father's estate he left for the New World in early 1875 when he arrived in New York he became fascinated by the theater scene in Manhattan it provided the escape that he needed in fact he loved the scene so much that he drifted into a theatrical troupe in the autumn of 1875 because Victorian society in America as well as in England considered acting at less than reputable occupation Holmes chose not to tarnish his family name by calling himself mr. Sherlock after a brief run in in Manhattan the troupe went on tour lands that took them as far as Chicago though his career on the American stage lasted for less than a year Holmes found the work absorbing and soon became adept at the professional skills of makeup in disguise this ability benefited him greatly in later cases where he recreated himself into everything from an Italian priest to an old woman to obtain realistic details for the working class and criminal roles he played on stage Homs ventured into dangerous neighborhoods in New York and other cities that is true visitors this often proved hazardous requiring the cooperation of the local police these excursions also gave Homs contacts and information that he was able to draw on during his later professional career as he followed police investigations in the cities he was touring he began to realize the practical value of the scientific knowledge he had games from his boyhood experiments and his Cambridge education blood stains poisons mud caked on shoes liquid left in glasses his scientific way of looking at such clues revealed forensic evidence which he was able to pass on to the police for the first time he began to seriously consider taking up detective work professionally he imagined himself something entirely new to the Victorian era a scientific detective this motive was to power him through the rest of his life after 18 months of travelling around the United States Holmes decided it was time to return to the country of his birth on return to London he found lodging just around the corner from British Museum he began running errands for private detectives carrying out such distasteful duties as gathering evidence for divorce cases but all the while he was picking up the basics of detective work to further this work he revived his study of science with a focus on chemistry botany and Anatomy after a year or so Holmes was ready to branch off and start his own detective agency his first cases were domestic and routine revolving around - civil disputes he worked hard to cultivate his relationship with the police passing on information that would help them crack a case in return the police passed clients on to him the year 1888 was a fortunate one for Sherlock Holmes a scandal had left the London police in a situation than they were open to the up-and-coming detective the case which has become known as the Musgrave ritual was his first high-profile case establishing his superior powers of deduction and Foresta investigation to a fascinated public the case got underway when Holmes was called by a university acquaintance Reginald Musgrave two of Musgraves domestic staff had disappeared following their dismissal for reading a secret family documents called the Musgrave ritual Holmes not only solved the case but uncovered crown of King Charles the first which had been missing for 200 years as a result of the fame garnered from the Musgrave ritual Holmes was invited to give a series of lectures to instruct the newly formed Criminal Investigation Department or CID the brilliant 24 year old now found himself enlightening hard-bitten career cops on Anatomy chemistry and botany he also at this point you enough about geology to identify soil on clothing and shoes more and more detectives now got into the habit of consulting with Holmes when they reached an impasse in their investigations even though they hated to admit it the young PI would invariably provide them with the breakthrough that they needed in order to crack a case in 1881 Holmes began lodging with the man who would become inextricably tied to himself dr. John Watson the address was 2 to 1 B Baker Street Watson was a young medic who had just returned from Afghanistan and was looking for a cheap place to live on the first meeting Watson was fascinated that Holmes deduced that he had recently been in Afghanistan without him having proffered that information from that moment on Watson was hooked his part Holmes seemed delighted to share his home with the affable dr. Watson the two men would go on to form a partnership that has been unequaled in the annals of Criminal Investigation as Holmes his reputation grew he attracted more and more affluent clients and was able to charge higher fees these - subsidised others in which he helps people who could only pay a small fee or no fee at all he once said that the status of my client is of less interest to me than the interest of his case what he was after were cases that challenged him his greatest challenge came in his ongoing hunt for London's master criminal Professor Moriarty in order to avoid Moriarty's criminal organisation Holmes was forced to flee Europe in late 1891 but the criminal mastermind pursued the great detective and a climactic struggle occurred top theory can mark falls in Switzerland it appears that both men fall to their death and the funeral is held for the world's greatest detective however Holmes's body was never recovered and indeed he was not dead for three years though he allowed the world including dr. Watson to believe that he was dead this period is known by biographers as the Krait hiatus in 1894 he was suddenly back on the scene explaining to a bewildered dr. Watson that he had faked his death to get Moriarty his henchmen off his back 10 years later Holmes retired to a small farm in Sussex Downs where he took up beekeeping in 1908 he came out of retirement in order to aid his government's working as a double agents he masterminded the capture of a German spy it is believed he kept busy with intelligence work during the First World War there is no record of Holmes's activities after the war so when did Sherlock Holmes die the answer is obvious just consider the plethora of TV shows movies and books on the man and he will surely agree that Sherlock Holmes had never died just as he had never lived Sherlock Holmes he's a complete work of fiction the creation of a writer by the name of Arthur Conan Doyle but if you've spent the last 20 minutes believing that you were learning the history of a real-life human being you're certainly not alone in a recent poll 21 percent of respondents thought that the great sleuth of Baker Street really did exist which just goes to show that sometimes fiction is stranger than truth lands you might notice that this video was published on April the 1st happy April Fool's to everybody so I really hope you enjoyed that episode of biographic if you did there's a couple of things you could do right now one is hit that like button below also if you want more stuff like this we put out brand new videos every Monday and every Thursday so hit that subscribe button below and subscribe button doesn't do what it used to on YouTube if you actually want to get a notification about these videos please do hit that Bell button next to the subscribe button and that'll send you a notification every time every Monday and Thursday won't put out a new video also if you or something else right now stuff from the archive over there on the right and as always thank you for watching

Channel: Biographics

Views: 439,173

Keywords: Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Holmes biography, Sherlock Holmes life, real Sherlock Holmes, who was Sherlock Holmes, did Sherlock Holmes exist, sherlock holmes movie, Sherlock Holmes books, holmes, famous detectives, famous detective series, arthur conan doyle, fiction biography, biographics, biography, simon whistler

Id: 6X6nPRm3t-k

Length: 18min 15sec (1095 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 01 2018