Born in Edinburgh in 1859, Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle was brought up by Irish Catholic parents, Charles and Mary. Conan was a middle name that he used as part of his surname in later life.

His mother was a great storyteller, while his father was an alcoholic who eventually ended up in an asylum. Aged nine Doyle was sent to a Jesuit boarding school, thanks to wealthy relatives, but he hated life at Stonyhurst in Lancashire. His happiest memories of that time were of playing sports, especially cricket, and telling stories to the younger students.

When he left, aged 17, he rejected Christianity and became an agnostic before training as a doctor at the University of Edinburgh. Coming from an artistic, rather than medical, family it is thought that he was inspired by his mother's lodger, Dr Bryan Charles Waller, who had been taken in to help pay the bills.

At university Doyle met several future authors, including James Barrie and Robert Louis Stevenson, but it was one of his professors, Dr Joseph Bell - a master at observation, logic, deduction, and diagnosis - who provided the inspiration for Holmes. After graduating in 1881 his medical career was to take him around the world, providing inspiration for some of his books: he served in a Boer War hospital, on a ship bound for West Africa and aboard an Arctic whaler.

A change of career

He settled for a number of years in Southsea, Portsmouth, where he eventually built up a successful GP practice. In 1885, the year he won his doctorate, he married his first wife, the "gentle and amiable" Louisa Hawkins. They had two children, Mary and Kingsley. Doyle was a founder member of Portsmouth Football Club in 1884, becoming the team's first goalkeeper, and was also active in local politics.

His first Sherlock Holmes tale, A Study In Scarlet, in 1887, was published in Beeton's Christmas Annual when he was in his mid-20s and earned him £25. But despite its success, he wasn't yet confident enough to close the door on being a doctor, although he continued writing.

In 1890, feeling restless, he left England to study the eye in Vienna, returning to London with Louisa the following year to set up as an ophthalmologist. The venture wasn't a success, which gave him more time for writing (he wrote in his autobiography that not a single patient crossed his door!) and his tales was serialised in the legendary Strand Magazine.

Farewell to Holmes

Over the years Doyle went on to produce 56 short stories and four novels featuring the enigmatic detective Holmes and sidekick Dr Watson. But while the stories were a huge success, he felt the stories were a distraction. He wrote to his mother in 1891, "I think of slaying Holmes… and winding him up for good and all. He takes my mind from better things." In 1893, he killed off Holmes, in the story of The Final Problem, and his arch enemy Professor Moriarty, when during a struggle they plunged to their deaths down a Swiss waterfall.

Although his fans were devastated, he was now free to write a number of historical novels - including Uncle Bernac and Sir Nigel, and non-fiction works about the Boer War and the war in South Africa. Another subject that stirred him was injustice, and he personally investigated two closed cases which led to the release of both prisoners, George Edalji and Oscar Slater.

He was knighted in 1903 for his services to the crown, including his authorship of the 1902 pamphlet The War in South Africa.

It was around this time that Louisa's health began to deteriorate - she eventually died in her husband's arms of of tuberculosis in 1906. He had met his future second wife, Jean Leckie, in 1897, but as a man with high moral standards it is believed that he stayed loyal to Louisa, lovingly caring for her until her death, before marrying Jean in 1907. They had three children, Jean, Denis and Adrian.

In his late 40s he settled in Crowborough, East Sussex, near to Jean's family. He lived in a house called Little Windlesham - later just called Windlesham after the addition of a billiards room and other extensions! - for the last 23 years of his life, writing in the summerhouse or his first-floor study.

In 1912 he published his first and best-known of the five Professor Challenger stories, The Lost World, one of the first science fiction books. Again the main character is similar to one of his university lecturers, Professor Rutherford.

Later in life Doyle became closely interested in spiritualism and the existence of fairies - find out more here.

He died of a heart attack in 1930, aged 71, and was initially buried in the rose garden at Windlesham, along with Jean who died ten years later. Their remains were moved to the churchyard at Minstead in the New Forest, Hampshire, when Windlesham became a home for the elderly.