#prio

[dailyholmes]

"The man flew past us on the road." The Adventure of the Priory School. Published in The Strand Magazine. Sidney Paget, 1904

Source

[snaitf]

batshit theory but...

what if "Lord Holdhurst" from the Naval Treaty is also the "Duke of Holdernesse" in The Priory School?

"Evidence":

*The Duke of Holdernesse is described as "the former foreign secretary," which was Lord Holdhurst's job during NAVA.

*nepotism - the Duke ensures his bastard son has gainful employment and good opportunities. This lines up with what we know of the Lord's character, since his nephew Percy Phelps is also a clerk in his office.

*title and name. There is, of course, a great deal of difference between a duke and a lord, but. Given the sensitive nature of NAVA - and I imagine that "we lost an important treaty and the thief wasn't caught whoopsie ¯\_(ツ)_/¯" is. Not the sort of story you want your real name attached to. Also, we know that Watson DOES change things - makes up names, fudges dates, etc - to protect their clients. "Lord xxx" is enough to give a sense of importance to the man without going into detail.

it's flimsy, I'll admit, but like. It makes PRIO like 1000% funnier.

Duke's son disappears. The guy in charge of the school he was attending freaks out because oh god the DUKE'S son?? I'm ruined forever oh god damage control right NOW. And the Duke is like "right, but don't go to the police i want this done quietly and without scandal."

Dean of the school: Sherlock Holmes!

Duke (vivid flashbacks to Holmes crawling around his office and the 100 speculative side-eyes he got when the stupid story got published) NO, NOT SHERLOCK HOLMES.

Holmes: 👁👄👁 kidnapping?

Duke: stop -

Watson: your family used to be cattle thieves, you say?! 🔥🔥📃📃🖋🔥

Duke: Do nOT -

Holmes: Murder?! 😳💖😍🥰

Watson: Holmes investigating a murder? 😳💖😍🥰

Valet: hey dad, uhhhh.

Duke: GOD DAMMIT.

[missanthropicprinciple]

In The Priory School the Duke of Holdernesse cuts Holmes a check for £12,000, which is worth £1,303,661.56 ($1,662,787.07) in 2023.

[stephensmithuk]

The Priory School

Published in 1904, this is the final story we're covering from Return.

It is also our first story set in the reign of Edward VII, who was a rather different monarch to his mother to put it mildly.

So, the Duke of Holdernesse's biography. Brace yourself, because this is going to need a few points to cover:

There have been a total of 40 dukedoms created in the English peerage; some of them have been recreated over the centuries after dying out due to lack of a male heir (they are nearly always male only) or the holder ends up becoming King, in which case the dukedom "merges in the Crown" and is free for further use. For example, Prince Philip was made Duke of Edinburgh as a wedding present when he married the future Elizabeth II. When he died, Prince Charles inherited the dukedom but didn't use it as he was already Prince of Wales. King Charles III then gave the Duchy to his brother Edward as a 59th birthday present, but made it life only. I will mention Edward again later.

Not counting the Duke of Cornwall, the title being explicitly linked to the oldest son of the monarch i.e. Prince William, the oldest active dukedom is Norfolk, currently with its 18th holder, Edward Fitzalan-Howard. He also holds the hereditary title of Earl Marshal, in that capacity organising both the funeral of Elizabeth II and the coronation of Charles III, something made a good deal harder when he got a six-month driving ban for driving through a red light while on his mobile. His lawyer managed to get a good part of the hearing done in private because the mitigation stuff involved discussing sensitive coronation details.

KG stands for "Knight of the Garter". Below the Victoria and George Crosses, the latter of course not yet a thing, this is the most prestigious honour you can get in the honours system. It typically goes to royals domestic and foreign, top officials including Prime Ministers and those who have done major works for the monarch personally. However, notable other cases include Sir Edmund Hilary i.e. the Everest chap. At the time, the Government made appointments, but to stop the honour being used for patronage, since 1946, the sole appointer has been the head of the order i.e. the monarch.

I could go on about the Garter, but we'll be here all day.

PC stands for Privy Counsellor, a formal group of senior advisors to the monarch, that includes top politicans. They still have a function, including intelligence sharing and can use the title "Right Honourable" even if they aren't. Some have in fact been kicked out recently for criminal convictions.

If you have multiple titles, your oldest legitimate son is allowed to use one of the junior ones as a courtesy title. Hence Lord Saltire. Pivoting back to Prince Edward, his oldest son James, aged 15, uses the title Earl of Wessex, his father's wedding present and will inherit that from his father. As a monarch's grandson, he will have the right to call himself a prince when he turns 18.

This said, it is perfectly possible for a kid to become a Duke in his own right. The other Prince Edward became Duke of Kent in 1942 aged just six when his father died in a plane crash.

Lord Lieutenants are official deputies of the monarch in the various 'ceremonial counties' (as British local government is now rather complex). They used to have a role leading the local militias and still play a role in selecting low-level judicial officials, but their main job is giving out medals and opening stuff. They also have deputies below them, who are the people you write to if you want a royal to open something.

Hallamshire was a historical area in what is now South Yorkshire, no longer a county by this point, that covers an area roughly the same as the modern-day City of Sheffield.

Preparatory schools or "prep schools" are fee-paying schools designed to prepare children for the Common Entrance Examination to get into one of the public schools like Eton or Fettes. They are frequently, but not always, boarding schools.

Yes, 13 May 1901 was a Monday.

An Eton jacket is a short (waist-length) jacket with three buttons. Outside the military, where it forms part of mess dress, it's now far more associated with service staff.

Heidegger shares his name with a German philosopher, Martin Heidegger, who had yet to come to prominence at the time. A Nazi supporter, he has the interesting distinction of being the only then-living philospher mentioned in the "Bruces' Philosophers Song" by Monty Python.

An "ordnance map" refers to the Ordnance Survey maps. Originating in 1745, when maps of Scotland were created to assist in putting the Jacobite clans then in rebellion against the government, these have been the standard maps for ramblers, the military etc. for generations and can be used to trace changes in places over time. The ones from before 1970 are now public domain and available online.

The bicycle track deductions have been debated to death by Holmesian scholars over years; Klinger covers their analysis in some depth. Doyle himself admitted he wasn't quite right.

It was a legal requirement for the details of the landlord of a pub to have their details prominently displayed at the entrance. By tradition, that was and still is above the door. However, since 2003, you legally just need the premises licence on display.

The Capital and Counties Bank had 473 branches across the UK until its 1918 acquistion by Lloyds Bank, still the largest retail bank in the UK.

Britain had "felony murder" like the US until 1957. Since Wilder is involved in the kidnapping, he would be just as liable as Hayes for the murder of Heidegger and could face the death penalty with him.

This became a matter of huge controversy in the 1953 case of Derek Bentley, also known as the "Let him have it" case. Bentley allegedly delivered those words to his accomplice in a burglary, Christopher Craig, a 16-year-old who then shot dead a police officer. Bentley himself had mental development problems with a IQ recorded of 77. Both were found guilty of murder and Craig spent ten years at "Her Majesty's Pleasure" as a juvenille offender. A recommendation for mercy in the case of Bentley was ignored by the judge and when the appeal failed, the Home Secretary David Maxwell Fyfe (who had also overseen a major increase in the persecution of gay men) declined to commute the sentence, despite 200 MPs calling for it. Bentley was hanged, but the continuing outcry was a key factor in the 1964 abolition of capital punishment in England and Wales. Bentley would get a posthumous royal pardon in 1993 and the Court of Appeal quashed his murder conviction in 1998 on the grounds of the flawed trial.

[teaspoonnebula]

If you're wondering about the spoilers on that map, blame the editors of the Strand in 1904.

I didn't know what to do, that's the one and only map, and that's roughly where it gets put in printed editions of the story including the original Strand Magazine printing.

I did think about making a whole new map that leaves off the spoilers, but that's a little more editorial meddling than I've generally tried to do.

I guess we can just all enjoy experiencing it as everyone in 1904 did!

As a sidenote, I am delighted that the map is signed "John H Watson". That's his handwriting guys! Officially, canonically! :D

[eirinstiva]

The map of "The Priory School"

We have a map!!! Let's see... (Zooms in the image, get closer to the screen, cleans the screen and glasses) Ok, this is hard.

I like Watson's calligraphy but it's hard to understand this sketch, maybe it's due to the thickness of the pen used for this map:

For a doctor, this is nice~

Secretarial Note: While I don’t mean to cast aspersions on the doctor’s penmanship, I fear that some readers may struggle to decipher it. I have taken the liberty of producing a copy which may be clearer:  

Thank you so much, dear secretary!!! Now I understand this map. I love the details in the buildings.

Now let's see the one in my copy of Todo Sherlock Holmes:

It has some names translated (like "Fighting Cock Inn" to "Posada El Gallo de Pelea") but the rest of the map is the same, even it keeps Dr. Watson signature. That's so cute! <3

In all these cases the illustration helps a lot to understand what's happening. The map is a spoiler, tho ._.

[solarotters]

[humanrightsconnected]

Women, Peace, and Security Index

Last week the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security and Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) launched the the WPS Index-- "the first gender index which captures both peace and security and women's inclusion and justice for the first time." The index will help advance the 2030 Global Goals for Sustainable Development.