Charles Altamont Doyle

Charles Altamont Doyle (25 March 1832 – 10 October 1893) was a British illustrator, watercolourist and civil servant. A member of an artistic family, he is remembered today primarily for being the father of author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of fictional character Sherlock Holmes.

Early life Born in London, Doyle was the son of artist John Doyle, a political cartoonist known as H.B., and Marianna (Conan) Doyle. The family had seven children, and three of his older brothers were artists: James William Edmund Doyle, Richard "Dickie" Doyle, and Henry Edward Doyle.

The family was of Irish background but Doyle was born and raised in England. Similarly to his elder brother Richard, he had no formal training, apart from lessons in his father's studio.

Career

In 1849 Doyle moved to Edinburgh, to take up a post at the Scottish Office of Works, where he was employed as an assistant surveyor.

On 31 July 1855, he married Mary Foley (1837–1920), his landlady's daughter. Doyle was not as successful an artist as he wanted, and suffered depression and alcoholism. His paintings, which were generally of fairies, such as In the shade or A Dance Around The Moon, or similar fantasy scenes, reflected his mood, becoming more macabre over time.

In 1876 he was dismissed from his job and given a pension; in 1881 Doyle's family sent him to Blairerno House, a "home for Intemperate Gentlemen". After several escapades, in 1885 he was sectioned after managing to "procure drink", and becoming aggressively excited, remaining confused and incoherent for several days afterwards.

He was admitted to Sunnyside, Montrose Royal Lunatic Asylum. While there, his depression grew worse, and he began experiencing epileptic seizures and problems with short-term memory loss due to the effects of long-term drinking. Nonetheless, he continued to paint. He completed illustrations for the July 1888 edition of his son's first Sherlock Holmes novel A Study in Scarlet. During his period at the asylum he continued to work, producing volumes of drawings and watercolours in sketchbooks with fantasy themes such as elves, faerie folk, and scenes of death and heavenly redemption. His accompanying notes featured wordplay and visual puns, described as a "sort of bucolic phantasmagoria: mammoth lilypads and leafy branches, giant birds and mammals, sinister blossoms sheltering demons and damsels alike". Doyle created these illustrations to both protest his confinement and provide evidence of his sanity. He sent the drawings to his family as proof that he had been wrongfully committed, writing "Keep steadily in view that this Book is ascribed wholly to the produce of a MADMAN. Whereabouts would you say was the deficiency of intellect? Or depraved taste?" At other times he was more contented, contributing drawings and articles to the asylum's newsletter and sketching the staff.

In May 1892 he was moved to the Crichton Royal Institution, Dumfries. He died from "a fit during the night" on 10 October 1893. In the Sherlock Holmes story "His Last Bow" (1917), Holmes uses the name Altamont as an alias. In 1924 he mounted an exhibition of his father's works at the Brook Galleries in London, where they were praised by George Bernard Shaw.

The Doyle Diary, containing a facsimile of works from a sketchbook he created from March to July 1889 while at Montrose,