#john netley

[blondie20000]

Books I have read in 2023. Rating out of 5 🌟

Drama

Lean Fall Stand by Jon McGregor. 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

Rebel Robin (Stranger Things Novel) by A.R Capetta 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

Runaway Max (Stranger Things Novel) by Brenna Yovanoff 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

The Rise of The Governor (The Walking Dead 1) by Jay Bonansinga 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

The Road to Woodbury (The Walking Dead 2) by Jay Bonansinga 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

The Fall of the Governer Part 1 (The Walking Dead 3) by Jay Bonansinga 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

The Fall of the Governer Part 2 (The Walking Dead 4) by Jay Bonansinga 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

Mrs England by Stacy Halls 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry 🌟 🌟 🌟

Palace Rogue by William Coles by 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

Romance

The Ex Hex (Ex Hex 1) by Erin Sterling 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

The Kiss Curse (Ex Hex 2) by Erin Sterling 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

Ugly Love by Colleen Hoover 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

Hex Appeal by Kate Johnson 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

Just Like Magic by Sarah Hogle 🌟 🌟 🌟

This Christmas by Emma Heatherington 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

Thriller

Take Your Breath Away by Linwood Barclay 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

Godspeed by Nickolus Butler 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

Breathless by Amy McCulloch 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

The Shadow House by Anna Downes 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

Watching You by Lisa Jewell 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

The Girls in the Garden by Lisa Jewell 🌟 🌟 🌟

The Night She Disappeared by Lisa Jewell 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

I Found You by Lisa Jewell 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

Down by the Water by Elle Connel 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

Insomnia by Sarah Pinborough 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

Home Before Dark by Riley Sager 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

The Chain by Adrian Mckinty 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

The Island by Adrian Mckinty 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

Too Late by Colleen Hoover 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

Verity by Colleen Hoover 🌟 🌟 🌟

Fool Me Once by Harlan Coben 🌟 🌟

Mystery

The Other Mother by Michel Bussi 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

The Sanatorium (Detective Elin Warner 1) by Sarah Pearse 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

The Retreat (Detective Elin Warner 2) by Sarah Pearse 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

The Christmas Killer (DI James Walker 1) by Alex Pine 🌟 🌟 🌟

Killer in the Snow (DI James Walker 2) by Alex Pine 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

The Winter Killer (DI James Walker 3) by Alex Pine 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

Darkness on the Edge of Town (Stranger Things Novel) by Adam Christopher 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

Silent Cry (Detective Gaby Darin 1) by Jenny O' Brien 🌟 🌟 🌟

Deal Breaker (Myron Bolitar 1) by Harlan Coben 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

Drop Shot (Myron Bolitar 2) by Harlan Coben 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

Fade Away (Myron Bolitar 3) by Harlan Coben 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

Coffin Road by Peter May 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

The Cove by L.J. Ross 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

Horror

This House Is Haunted by John Boyne 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

The Whistling by Rebecca Netley 🌟 🌟 🌟

Haunted by James Herbert 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

[freckles-and-books]

Some spooky and mysterious book recs for spooky season?

You can look for “October reads,” “spooky reads,” or “horror” on my blog to find more, but here are some recs off the top of my head that I think are especially good for autumn:

The Silent Companions by Laura Purcell

The Whistling by Rebecca Netley

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher

Uzumaki by Junji Ito

The Wild Hunt by Emma Seckel

The Seance by John Harwood

Gallant by V.E. Schwab

Slewfoot by Brom

The Year of the Witching by Alexis Henderson

I tend to like gothic horror for this season, so that’s what most of these are, but if you’re looking for anything specific, let me know!

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"Peguis Indians May Carry Fight to Throne, Asking Aid Of "Great, White Mother"," Winnipeg Tribune. December 9, 1933. Page 1. ---- Chief Insists on Letter of Treaty and Promises Made ---- Chief Alex Greyeyes, head of the Peguis Indians that once lived on St. Peter's reserve, with his chief lieutenant, Henry Pahkoo, came to Winnipeg Friday to get help for 17 of his band against whom prosecutions are pending for squatting on land along Netley Creek.

He went to Col. H. M. Hannesson, former Dominion member for Selkirk constituency, and told him that if he couldn't get justice from the authorities he intended to tell his troubles to "The Great Mother, the Queen."

"You mean King George," he was told.

'No, not King George," he answered. "We mean the Great Mother." He took from his pocket a copy of the treaty agreement of August 3, 1871, made at Lower Fort Garry, and pointed to the words on which he said his band relied.

Promise of Treaty "The Great Mother, the Queen, knows you are poor," the treaty said. "She will assist you all when you settle, and our Great Mother will give you 160 acres of land per five of a family. When you will be on your Indian reserve, no white man will be allowed to stop there inside the reserve, and if a white man does anything wrong inside the Indian reserve, I will punish him myself."

About 26 years ago the white man did begin to go inside the reserve and in a series of negotiations that the Indians said never was fair, St. Peter's reserve was surrenderd. The Dominion government arranged their transfer to Fisher Branch reserve, about 100 miles from St. Peter's, a location between Hodgson and Koostatak.

Started a Battle The surrender proceedings years ago started a bitter battle in political circles and at Ottawa the cause of the Indians was taken up by Senator Geo. Bradbury, then the House of Commons member for Selkirk. The surrender of the reserve was put through, and a Royal Commission investigation was forced. Some of the Indians moved from St. Peter's to Fisher Branch and others never moved at all.

When the surrender was made each family was given 16 acres of land in a part of St. Peter's Reserve or near it. This concession was a sort of compromise. but it never satisfied members of the band. A number of them sold the holding for little or nothing. In 1914 Mr. Bradbury got through parliament a bill that placed a lien of $1 an acre on the 16-acre holdings. This was intended as a trust fund for familles of the reserve. It was to bear Interest at five percent from July 1, 1913, until paid, and although registered as an encumbrance on the titles, little or no attempt has ever been made to collect it.

Lacked Local Market Things never went well for the band at Fisher Branch. There used to be a local market for their wood and hay at Selkirk, but in the northern reserve there is little or none. Members of the band who used to act as guides in the hunting marshes have no chance for this occupation at Fisher Branch. Mostly they were deprived of what chance they once had of making a little money.

Two years ago Chief Grey Eyes and some 50 families packed up their belongings at Fisher Branch and returned. Their lands on St. Peter's were gone and they pitched their tents on the north end of Netley Creek. A year after, they started to build log huts, and there they intend to stay. About nine months ago the Dominion government started prosecutions for trespass, and two members of the band, John Muningwav and Charlie Thompson, were given three-month jail sentences. Munnigway has served his time, and Thompson 's still at Headingly. Prosecutions against 17 others are pending.

Petition Government Two months ago the band petitioned the Dominion government and asked that the prosecutions be dropped and the two prisoners released. They asked that they be permitted to organize again as a band and settle on some undisposed parts of the former St. Peter's Reserve, in return for which they agree to surrender all rights in the Fisher Branch Reserve.

In the petition they also undertook to abandon all agitation to set aside the surrender, provided the government would collect the assessments under the 1914 act and distribute them among families of the Peguls band as originally constituted.

[More about St. Peter’s here.]

[dr-jwatson]

Hello there

I am Dr John Watson, but you can just call me Watson. I graduated UoL in 1878 and went to become an army surgeon in Netley. My shoulder was wounded badly in battle so I was sent home, I currently use a cane.

Unfortunately when I came back to England I didn’t have many friends and my father and brother have unfortunately passed. I did have some money, and decided to go to London and lived in a hotel for a while. I’ll be honest, it wasn’t the greatest and I was spending far more money than I should’ve been. Almost had to move to the country. Luckily I met an old friend of mine who had met another man who needed a roommate, and I was quite happy to split the rent with him, though my friend told me he’s a little “queer” but I do not mind unusualness. He also told me this Mr Homes is a rather studious man, very scientific. I quite like that in a roommate, I’m getting a little too old for rowdiness.

I hope to meet my roommate-to-be soon, I will keep this blog updated

[thefreelancehistorywriter]

From Monasteries to Palaces - Three Complexes that became homes for some of Henry VIII's courtiers ~ A guest post by Richard Taylor

From Monasteries to Palaces – Three Complexes that became homes for some of Henry VIII’s courtiers ~ A guest post by Richard Taylor

The Freelance History Writer is pleased to welcome Richard Taylor to the blog. He lives near Manchester, England and has a lifelong interest in monasteries, visiting many across the UK and Europe. Although his degree is in Aerospace Engineering, he has completed various Art History courses on-line through Oxford University Continuing Education. You can check out his blog here. On 23rd March…

[thornfield13713]

In the year 1878 I took my degree of Doctor of Medicine of the University of London, and proceeded to Netley to go through the course prescribed for surgeons in the army. Having completed my studies there, I was duly attached to the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers as Assistant Surgeon. The regiment was stationed in India at the time, and before I could join it, the second Afghan war had broken out. On landing at Bombay, I learned that my corps had advanced through the passes, and was already deep in the enemy’s country. I followed, however, with many other officers who were in the same situation as myself, and succeeded in reaching Candahar in safety, where I found my regiment, and at once entered upon my new duties. The campaign brought honours and promotion to many, but for me it had nothing but misfortune and disaster.

So begins A Study in Scarlet and the literary career of Doctor John Watson. And, as you can see, there is no shortage of ruin and disaster for this slightly more fantastical counterpart to have to worry about.

I mean, obviously they’re going to get out of this alive and make it back home, or the Holmes riff can’t happen...but just how much trauma is going to happen along the way remains an open question.

And, yes, I did choose to prioritise medicine as a skill because...dammit, if I am going to play a doctor, I am going to play a doctor. I’m still debating what I’ll go for as a secondary option - I’m leaning towards strength right now, just because it’s much more workable with the Hippocratic Oath than being a crack-shot and I tend to gravitate towards charm so often I fear it is becoming predictable.

[wildwoodgoddess]

Subverting Victorian Gender Norms: Would Female Holmes and Watson Have Crossdressed?

(This is an ongoing series about the historical case for how canon Sherlock Holmes and John Watson could have been women. It is leading up to the launch of my new web novel series on Patreon, Ladies of Baker Street—a sapphic/wlw, Victorian women adaptation of Sherlock Holmes.

As usual, I’m using the hashtag #A Study In Victorian Women for this series, if you want to follow along. If this interests you, please follow me as well as comment on/like/share this post. Thanks!)

One of the more common tropes in stories about women making their way in a patriarchal society is cross-dressing. I think that a gender-swapped Victorian Holmes and Watson would have definitely made use of this technique when it suited them. Holmes, after all, is already a master of disguise, so it would have been natural for her to take on a male persona when she felt it necessary.

And a cross-dressing Watson would also help get us over the line in terms of canon compliance when it comes to how she could have gone to Afghanistan. (There were women nurses with the army in Afghanistan at that time, but with women in Britain just recently being able to become doctors in the 1870’s, I think it’s unlikely that a woman doctor would have been accepted into the army’s medical division by 1878-1879 when canon Dr. Watson went to Netley and then on to Afghanistan.)

The New Woman fiction of the 1880’s and 1890’s and the Sensation fiction that preceded it were both genres that were focused with challenging gender norms and questioning our assumptions of gender identity. This often included heroines who crossed dressed.

For example, an 1873 Sensation novel, Revealed At Last, by Albert Eubule Evans, features a cross-dressing protagonist named Evelyn. According to Katherine Mansfield, their gender-neutral name as well as the way the story is written “serves to conflate masculinity and femininity, enabling Evelyn to occupy both binary categories simultaneously.” She goes on to say that in her opinion, the audience by the end of the story is left unsure as to Evelyn’s biological sex and even leaves Evelyn’s “true” gender (in terms of identity) ambiguous. (Go read this thesis if you want more details—it’s very interesting!)

In that same thesis, Mansfield explains that the New Woman genre of fiction often uses cross-dressing to present gender as a spectrum. This was in the 1870’s-1890’s, y’all! Anyone who says that being gender-fluid or non-binary is a “modern trend” is speaking from ignorance.

Novels such as Gloriana by Lady Florence Dixie (1890) or Sarah Grand’s The Heavenly Twins (1893) both feature cross-dressing women who challenge the notion of binary gender categories.

Here’s what Mansfield says about Gloriana, in which the main character, Gloria, takes on a male persona, Hector, in order to be elected Prime Minister and fight for women’s rights:

“Furthermore, Gloria/Hector’s dualistic gender identity reiterates that femininity and masculinity are not distinct categories but naturally combined. This is further reiterated as Dixie employs the male pronoun to refer to Gloria/Hector for the majority of the novel. There is one moment however, when both male and female pronouns are employed. Coming just before Gloria/Hector’s parliamentary speech on women’s rights, fixed gender identity is deconstructed by the depiction of two genders in one body: “now he has taken his seat. But she has risen now” (Dixie 126. My emphasis). The dual pronouns serve to destabilise gender binaries and emphasise the volatility of gender as a category. It is also interesting to note that Gloria/Hector’s gender is changed at the moment she gives the speech to parliament, implying that women can fulfil this role better than men.”

(Katherine Mansfield, "The “Ambiguous Sex”: Cross-dressing heroines in Sensation and New Woman fiction")

In an earlier Sensation novel, Florence Marryat’s Her Father’s Name (1876), the protagonist, Leona, is trying to clear her father from a murder charge. (Sleuthing! Mystery! Sound familiar?) She disguises herself as her friend, Christobal Don Valera, in order to have the freedom to investigate the murder.

Marryat explores the fluidity of gender as well as the performative nature of it by using pronouns based on how the character is dressed. So when Leona is dressed as a man, Marryat uses masculine pronouns to refer to him. When Leona takes off the male disguise, the author uses feminine pronouns.

However, even then, it’s not that simple. Consider this quote from the novel, which changes pronouns at a particularly crucial moment:

“[Leona] locked the door behind him, threw off his fashionable new habiliments with a sigh of relief, and felt that for a few hours at least he might cast aside the restrain that galled him, and be what he was—Leona Lacoste. ‘So far, so good’, she thought, as she stretched herself upon her couch.”

As Mansfield suggests, Leona is uncomfortable with being placed into either rigid gender role—she wants to simply be able to be herself.

At one point, Leona even kisses her female friend, who has fallen in love with Leona’s male persona.

“[Lizzie] lifted up a very bright face so close to Leona’s that it only seemed natural to my heroine to kiss it. The minute she had done it though, she saw by the blush that dyed her companion’s cheek, how imprudent she had been, but it was impossible to explain the action away again. She must let Miss Vereker think what she chose.”

(Marryat, p.172)

Make of that what you will!

Admittedly, most of these novels do end with the cross-dressing protagonist setting aside the male persona in order to marry a man. But even then, there are hints that these heroines have found a way to retain their own autonomy and a certain amount of independence in spite of their marriage.

But that’s the world of fiction. What about real women?

There are a lot of intriguing accounts of real-life women cross dressers. Most of these accounts come from court cases, where the woman in question was caught doing something else and the fact of their biological sex came out either because of a required prison bath or inspection or during the court hearing.

Many of these women were working class. Some cross dressed in order to earn more money in a male-only job. Others did it as a lark or simply because they wanted to. Several had wives and were viewed as husbands. These particular cases entered the historic record because they were caught doing something else that was illegal. In the court cases, the fact that they were cross-dressing was sensational, and it attracted scorn and social condemnation. But even the judges had to admit it was not actually illegal.

(Lest you be too quick to consider these folks heroes, there were a few of them who were accused of domestic violence or theft. So it’s possible to subvert gender norms and still be a shitty person.)

There were likely many other cases of women cross-dressing who were never caught or outed.

The question that always comes up is whether these women cross-dressed because it was useful or expedient to them, or if it was because they considered themselves to be men.

And the answer is…we don’t know, and it depends on the person. It seems almost certain that some of these people were what we now consider to be trans men or non-binary. Others were likely what we would now call cis women who cross-dressed because it served a purpose for them. And there are likely people for whom it may have been a bit of both.

Any or all of those reasons are legitimate, and there’s no reason at all to try to argue that they were all one way or another. People in the Victorian era (and indeed in all times past) were as varied as they are now in the way they thought and saw themselves. But one thing they all had in common was that they challenged society’s views of gender in ways that set the stage for greater freedom for everyone.

Next time: Riding in a Hansom Cab: how this iconic mode of transportation worked, and how a female Holmes and Watson could have used it for safely getting around London

The countdown has started! One week from today, on January 29, I will be posting the first chapter of A Study In Garnet—a sapphic, Victorian, canon compliant take on Sherlock Holmes. I’m so excited to share the first 10 chapters with everyone over the next few weeks, and I hope you will consider continuing the journey as a Patreon supporter. 

[a-candle-for-sherlock]

BAMF Watson and/or Reigate!

BAMF Watson I answered here, and Reigate is ours! Here, have a letter:

4th March 1887, Baker Street

My very dear fellow,

I am so sorry for your troubles. I rather wish I had turned over my few patients to Dr. Hawthorne’s care and come with you. I might have been of use after all.

In that wishful spirit, I shall tell you something. I would not have mentioned it save that it might help you now. You know I do not sleep well. Since you are gone I am worse. Our rooms are very silent, and my thoughts seem loud. On the worst nights, when I cannot rest, I go downstairs, and wrap myself up in a shawl, and settle myself by the hearth.

 Then I begin to recreate one of our evenings. I close my eyes, and see you stride across the floor. I observe your precision as you take up your instrument and begin to tune it lovingly. I watch you lift your bow. I hear you play. 

You will ask what it is you are playing. It varies night by night. There are melodies I recognize from life, but I improvise, too, as you would. I don’t know how long the uncanny concert lasts, for I am asleep when it is over. In my youth, sleepless at Netley, I did the same with babyhood memories of my nurse’s lullabies.

There: I have told you. Now you might do the same--sit in your bed, and build up an insubstantial 221B about you, with a fire in the grate, and your tea steaming upon the table. You could walk to the immaterial bookshelves and select a volume--Shakespeare’s sonnets (I am sure you know a few lines by heart); or your scrapbook, drawing its pages from memory; or you might choose some other diversion that would not occur to me. At any rate, you can be at home in your imagination, so long as you have need of it. 

Or perhaps you are laughing now at my sentimental fancies. In that case I have still helped you--laughter is good in dull circumstances. 

At any rate, directly upon finishing this I shall make you up a parcel. The cufflinks, and your muffler, and your cherrywood pipe, I think. The new Quarterly Musical. Mrs. Hudson is making gingerbread downstairs--it will be ready in an hour, and I’ll put in a piece of that too. I feel certain her cooking could make any strange room feel more homelike.

Do eat something more substantial than just the gingerbread. 

I am,

Your friend

John Watson

[victorianwhitechapel]

Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World

In the 5th episode of the 3rd season of Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World (aired on November 17th 2001), while fighting a T-Rex, Ned Malone (played by David Orth) and Professor George Challenger (played by Peter McCauley) discover a strange campsite with a macabre raptor display. When Malone picks up a nearby knife, he is transported back to the East End of London in 1888, the scene of Jack the Ripper's brutal murders, becoming John Netley, a coachman suspected to be the serial murderer. In the nightmare of his visions, Malone sees his friends playing key roles in the crimes, both as conspirators and victims.

[Pictured Jennifer O'Dell as Catherine Eddowes and Peter McCauley as Sir William Gull]

[Pictured Rachel Blakely as Mary Jane Kelly]

[Pictured William Snow as Inspector Robert Anderson]

[Pictured David Orth as John Netley]

CAST (only the ones that existed in real life)

Peter McCauley as Dr. William Gull  Rachel Blakely as Mary Jane Kelly Jennifer O'Dell as Catherine Eddowes David Orth as John Netley William Snow as Inspector Robert Anderson  John Noble as Inspector Robert Anderson Nick Tate as Dr. William Gull Watch the episode here

[harvard-art-museums-drawings]

Netley Abbey, Unidentified Artist, 18th-19th century, Harvard Art Museums: Drawings

Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gift of Belinda L. Randall from the collection of John Witt Randall Size: 19.4 x 14 cm (7 5/8 x 5 1/2 in.) Medium: Graphite on heavy paper

https://www.harvardartmuseums.org/collections/object/299272

[bookpeanutcat-blog]

A Study in Scarlet

At the beginning of the story, we followed the life of John Watson, a man who graduated from the University of London with a medical degree and was not satisfied with his diploma, entered the army doctor course and later was summoned and served in the English army during the Second Afghan War. After being injured during the conflict Watson becomes ill and his health suffers a great decline, he goes on sick leave and is sent back to England in order to recover. Without having any family, Watson decides to live in London, but in the city he ends up spending practically all his money when he stays in a hotel and worried he sees the need to live in a cheaper place. In a Watson bar, he unexpectedly encounters Stamford, an old co-worker who presents him with the solution to his problem. "In 1878, I graduated as a doctor of medicine at the University of London and traveled to Netley to take the course recommended to surgeons in the army. After completing my studies there, I joined the 5th Regiment in due course Northumberland Infantry. The regiment was then quartered in India, and before I could enlist, the Second Anglo-Afghan War had broken out [...] "p. 11. This colleague of yours says that he has another acquaintance who wants to find a partner to share the rent for a house or apartment, but he is a man of "weird" ideas. Determined, Watson goes with his colleague to the chemical laboratory of the local hospital to meet this mysterious man, but when he gets there he is curious and fascinated with this man who makes an amazing observation, he says that Watson spent time in Afghanistan. This man has no higher education degree or "formal" education, but he proves to be extremely intelligent and insightful, this man is known as Sherlock Holmes.

[18thfoot]

Royal Irish Regiment soldiers who died on 5th August

1916

2nd Bn

9735 Private John Corcoran, Dublin. Interred Netley Military Cemetery, UK.

1917

6th Bn

Commemorated on the Menin Gate, Ieper, Belgium

Major Charles Taylor (above), Wexford and Victoria, British Columbia.

3344 Sergeant Joseph Stagg MM, St. Sampson's, Guernsey.

5753 Lance Corporal Michael Dempsey, Wexford.

1900 Private Thomas Byrne, Wexford.

11813 Private Archibald Nield, Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire.

10178 Private John Hodgson, West Hartlepool.

3669 Private Joseph McFrederick, Derry.

16066 Private Albert Walker, Liverpool.

11578 Private Michael Meates, Dublin.

 Interred Potijze Chateau Grounds Cemetery

 8752 Private Patrick White, Kilcullen, Co. Kildare.

 Interred Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery

8204 Private Reardon

2912 Private Mcclintock, Derry.

[the-cumberbatchs-stupid-penwing]

What we know about John H. Watson.

(On Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s work)

Not so much is reported in Doyle's works on the life of Dr. Watson.

According to extracanonical data, John H. Watson was born on August 7, 1852. Son of Henry Watson and Ella Mackenzie, John had a brother named Henry Jr; who apparently died drunk in 1888. The Watsons were a High class and respected family. The mother died when he was just a child and his father moved to Australia, taking with him the two children. After many years he returns to England. In 1872 he began his medical career at the University of Oxford and graduated in 1878. He continued his studies at Netley, which is an essential requirement to become a military doctor.

He was added as assistant surgeon to the 5th Northumberland Fusilier Regiment, but by the time Watson arrived in the Asian country, the second Anglo-Afghan war had begun, where he joined his squad. At the Battle of Maiwand, added to the Berkshire troops, he was wounded in the left arm by an enemy arrow. For this reason, and for having contracted typhus, is sent back to England to recover.

A time is established in an important hotel in London, from which he is forced to move in 1881 due to lack of money. For that reason he found Sherlock Holmes, who had already seen rooms that were comfortable to pay, half-heartedly; they belonged to Mrs. Hudson and were located at 221B Baker Street. They were introduced by a mutual friend, Stamford, whom Watson happened to meet while passing through the St. Bartholomew Hospital, while studying Medicine. In 1884 he traveled to the United States, where he met his first wife, Constance Adams, with whom he married after returning to England in 1886, and became a widow in 1887.

In 1888 he married Mary Morstan (known in the case called The Sign of the Four), being widowed for the second time in 1892. In 1902 he married again.

-Source: Different pages including the books itself.

[acdhw]

Watson’s military service and wounds

In the year 1878 I took my degree of Doctor of Medicine of the University of London, and proceeded to Netley to go through the course prescribed for surgeons in the army. (STUD)

Some more excerpts from Holmes and Watson by June Thomson. They give more insights into Watson’s army days and contribute to building headcanons. I find dates especially helpful. For convenience, I compress the data given there for future reference:

At the end of his year's service as house surgeon [at Bart’s], Watson was faced with a crucial decision about his future career: what should he do next? In order to set up in private practice, he needed capital which he did not possess.

He could remain in hospital service although this had its own disadvantages. Hospitals then employed only four consulting surgeons and, as a consequence, promotion was slow. Watson might have to wait until he was in his forties before a senior post became vacant.

To a medical man, a military career offered several advantages. An army assistant surgeon earned £200 a year, with his keep and living quarters provided. After ten years' service, he could retire on half pay with enough money saved to set himself up in private practice.

Watson’s prep studies for the army:

The Army Medical School at Netley in Hampshire, later called the Royal Army Medical School, was first established at Fort Pitt, Chatham, in 1860 and was moved to Netley three years later when the military hospital, the Royal Victoria, was opened. One of the wards was converted into a classroom while laboratories as well as quarters and mess facilities for the students were housed in separate buildings behind the main hospital block.

(picture source 1 and 2)

There were two courses a year at Netley, each lasting five months, the first beginning in April, the second in October. 

The course, which was divided into two parts, covered such subjects as hygiene, including the burial of the dead, as well as military surgery and pathology. Field exercises were also organized during which the candidates were expected to choose suitable sites for latrines, kitchens and dressing-stations.

During their time at Netley, the candidates were expected to obey army discipline, which included the wearing of uniform and attendance at parades. Their duties also entailed caring for patients in the wards. 

In February 1880, if the suggested chronology is correct, he became Lieutenant John H. Watson, a rank he never referred to after he returned to civilian life. Assuming he embarked [to India] in March 1880, he arrived in Bombay in April, after a sea voyage lasting a month. 

Watson’s probable route to Kandahar: after travelling from Bombay to Karachi by steamer, he then went by rail to Sibi and from there by horse and camel caravan across the mountains to Kandahar, encamping at night.

In the meantime, the war had been gathering momentum. The two forces met at the village of Maiwand, fifty miles to the north-west of Kandahar, in the early morning of 27th July 1880 on a hot, dusty plain dissected by dry water courses. Watson was later to speak of seeing his comrades “hacked to pieces at Maiwand” (STUD), a possible reference to the gallant rearguard action which was fought by the survivors of two companies of the 66th who stood back to back, fighting off the advancing tribesmen until all were killed.

Watson’s injuries:

• a bullet in his left shoulder fired from a jezail rifle, one of the Afghan long-barrelled guns, which shattered the bone, presumably his collar-bone, and grazed the subclavian artery. 

• a bullet that damaged his Achilles tendon (“whence come Toby, and a six-mile limp for a half-pay officer with a damaged tendo Achillis” SIGN). 

In the face of the fierce onslaught, the defences broke and what remained of the British forces turned and fled, including the medical staff of a field hospital who abandoned their patients, leaving them lying on stretchers. The Afghans remained behind to loot the baggage and dismember all those found on the battlefield, both the living and the dead, assisted by their womenfolk.

Casualties, Watson among them, were transferred to the base hospital at Peshawar, the capital of the British north-west Indian possessions. Here Watson began to recover until he contracted typhoid.

There is no doubt Watson was gravely ill but his statement that “for months my life was despaired of" is a little exaggerated. Typhoid fever usually lasts about five weeks and the time scale will not allow for a protracted illness. No doubt the weeks he suffered seemed like months to him. In fact, he was in the Peshawar hospital for less than two months for by the end of October he was back in Bombay.

He had to make the 1,600 mile journey south by train and boat in time to embark on the troopship SS Orontes which sailed from Bombay on 31st October 1880. Having left Bombay, she called at Malta on 16th November and finally arrived at Portsmouth on the afternoon of Friday 26th November, 'bringing home the first troops from Afghanistan, including eighteen invalids.'

Watson's state of mind: He was certainly bitter. His health, as he himself states, was 'irretrievably ruined' and the prospects of beginning a new career in civilian life seemed bleak. Even his rugby-playing days were over. From the symptoms of which he was later to complain, including sleeplessness, depression, irritability and nervous tension, he was probably suffering from the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder, a condition for which today he would receive treatment.

By the way, at one point, being fresh from the university and penniless, ACD considered joining the army himself but instead grasped the opportunity of earning some money as a ship’s doctor.

When a man is in the very early twenties he will not be taken seriously as a practitioner, and though I looked old for my age, it was clear that I had to fill in my time in some other way. My plans were all exceedingly fluid, and I was ready to join the Army, Navy, Indian Service or anything which offered an opening. [...] I suddenly received a telegram telling me to come to Liverpool and to take medical charge of the African Steam Navigation Company's Mayumba, bound for the West Coast. In a week I was there, and on October 22, 1881, we started on our voyage. (Memories and Adventures)

[jakattax]

When will you reveal the truth about Jack the Ripper

It was Aaron Kominski.

But in the play it was Sir William Gull and his driver John Netley. Thanks for remembering xxxx

[historyofartdaily]

John Constable, Netley Abbey by Moonlight, circa 1833, Tate