Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle assisted at a medical practice at Durnford Street and Sherlock Holmes was said to be based on his colleague, Dr Budd.Conan Doyle achieved the titles of Bachelor of Medicine and Master of Surgery in 1881 and had studied with George Turnavine Budd at Edinburgh. When Budd opened a practice in Durnford Street in 1882, he asked Conan Doyle to join him. The partnership didn't last long. Although Budd and Conan Doyle were friends, Conan Doyle found his partner over prescribed drugs for his patients, for which he charged them, and was unorthodox in the extreme. He wrote and told his mother, Mary, about Budd's ways. She had never been an admirer of his. After two months, the partnership was dissolved because Budd said that it was short of both finances and patients. Conan Doyle discovered later that Budd had found one of his letters to his mother and the real reason for the break up of the partnership was that he had been upset by what he had read.

Conan Doyle left and set up a practice in Southsea with just £10 to his name. At first, it wasn't very successful and, while he was waiting for patients, he wrote his first story featuring Sherlock Holmes, 'A Study in Scarlet.'

Conan Doyle died on the 7th July 1930 (aged 71). Today, passages from his works featuring Sherlock Holmes can be found on brass plaques set into the pavement at Durnford Street.