The Sydney Passengers

Incorporating The Sherlock Holmes Society of Australia

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The Sydney Passengers is a group of enthusiasts brought together by a common ideal - to share in the enjoyment of the life and times of Sherlock Holmes, the world's first and foremost consulting detective, and his friend and chronicler, Dr  John Watson, made famous in the splendid tales published under the auspices of Dr Watson's colleague, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, himself an author of no small repute.

 As our name might suggest, we are based in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. We take our name from the Sherlock Holmes story ‘The Adventure of the Gloria Scott (read story here) in which the survivors of a mutiny at sea are rescued by a ship bound for Australia and "after an excellent voyage the Hotspur landed us at Sydney".

 Our members are of all ages and backgrounds. A great knowledge of the stories is not needed - rather a love of the Victorian atmosphere of foggy cobble-stoned streets, hansom cabs, deerstalker caps, and the immortal scene of Holmes and Watson interviewing a client before a crackling fire in their sitting room at 221b Baker Street. We meet together 3 or 4 times a year for dinner, lunch, a picnic, or an outing to the theatre. Each get-together usually has a theme based on one of the Sherlock Holmes stories, and scholarly, or sometimes scurrilous, papers on some aspect of his adventures are often presented, and quizzes or competitions conducted.

 Our journal, The Passengers' Log, comes out 3 times a year; a meeting notice, Signals, is sent to all Australian-domiciled members prior to each function that we hold, and a calendar showing our meeting dates for the coming year is sent to all members resident in Australia. Those with email facilities can also receive our irregular news bulletin CyberSignals plus other newsletters from overseas. For information on joining, please click here.

 A slide show on the history of the Sydney Passengers can be found here:  From the Archives

Latest News

Next Passengers' Log

The editorial team regrets that due to extenuating circumstances there will not be another issue of The Passengers' Log published this year. Instead we are planning a double issue for early 2025. Any contributions already sent for the end of year Log will be held over for the double issue, and we also hope the extra time will give people a chance to put fingers to keyboard over the Christmas period. At the moment we are looking at a rough deadline of the end of January for anyone wanting to contribute an article.

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Passengers Meting Archive

Reminder that any Passengers unable to attend the Society’s Zoom meetings but who have online access, can watch them after the event on the Passengers’ YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/@sydneypassengers3476.

 Many thanks to Anchor Watch Doug Elliott for doing the hard yards editing each video for this purpose.

2023 Montpellier Award

The Carole Dukes Montpellier Award is open to all articles submitted by Passengers to the Passengers' Log over the course of the previous year and is aimed at encouraging research amongst members that enriches our knowledge and understanding of the Canon. It is named in memory of the late Passenger Carole Dukes, who was an untiring researcher, and embraces the name of the town in Southern France where Sherlock Holmes spent time carrying out research into coal-tar derivatives (referenced in 'The Adventure of the Empty House').

There were four nomnations for the 2023 Award:

The editorial team would like to extend its thanks to those Passengers who cast their vote.

Admirable Cobber Award

The Arthur Williams 'Admirable Cobber' award is periodically awarded to articles which show a high standard of Australian research and content and is named in memory of Passenger Arthur Williams, who often wrote articles for the Log with an Australian theme. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle refered to Carlyle Smith, the agent who managed his tour of Australia and New Zealand in 1920/21, as "an admirable cobber". To win the award, a nominated article needs to have Australian content and research that, in the opinion of the Crew, matches Arthur's standard. The editorial team of the Log are pleased to present the award this year to Matthew D Hall for his article 'The Passing Acquaintances of Arthur Conan Doyle Part 1: Victor Eugene Kroemer' which fortuitously also relates to Doyle's Australian tour referenced in the title of the award.

Latest BSIs

Congratulatons to Passenger Robert Sharfman, Log contributor Liese Sherwood Fabre and Daniel Friedman (presenter at our online meeting in May 2022) who were all invested into The Baker Street Irregulars this January in New York.

Also congratulations to Passenger Brian Pugh who was honoured with a Lifetime Service aware from The ACD Society at their annual awards ceremony.

Beeton's Sighting

Passenger Dan Howard was in Oxford in September and went to an exhibition at the Weston Library (part of the Bodleian) to see an exhibition entitled Gifts and Books that featured a number of famous old manuscripts and publications. “You can imagine my delight”, reports Dan, “to find on display an original Beeton’s Christmas Annual featuring the first Sherlock Holmes story A Study in Scarlet! As this was my first ever sighting of this literary treasure, I asked my wife to take a photo” (see right). So near and yet - separated by the glass display cabinet - so far away!”