jan 6, 1934 - First BSI Meeting

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In late 1933, Morley noticed that the SRL would be publishing an issue on January 6, 1934, his date for Sherlock Holmes’s birthday. He called for a cocktail party at the Hotel Duane to celebrate the event. There were some birthday toasts at the party, and while Morley may have mentioned the Baker Street Irregulars, no one took any notice of it. However, three weeks later, Morley reported in the SRL:

W. S. H. [i.e., Bill Hall], secretary of the Baker Street Irregulars, has allowed us to look over the minutes of the first meeting of the club. Among other business it appears that the matter of an official toast was discussed. It was agreed that the first health must always be drunk to “The Woman.”

Following that, mention of the BSI occurred regularly in Morley’s articles in the SRL. Then, Morley printed Elmer Davis’s Constitution of the BSI. The SRL began receiving letters from people who added “Baker Street Irregular” to their names. Morley became concerned that his whimsical little idea for having meals with his friends was getting out of his control.

His brother Frank had developed the Sherlock Holmes Crossword Puzzle and sent it to Morley. Morley published it in the SRL, using it as a requirement for membership in the BSI. He asked people to mail him their completed puzzles. Men and women from all over the country did so.

Someone in the U.K. must have been reading the SRL. Morley received a letter stating that the English Sherlock Holmes Society was now formed, sends its greetings to the Baker Street Irregulars, and would hold its first dinner on June 7, 1934. Morley felt that the British had recognized the BSI’s seniority, and he did not want to lose the “first formed” status.

He was spurred to hold a BSI dinner before the London group met. Hence, he wrote a letter to all of the people who successfully (or almost successfully) completed the puzzle that the BSI would hold its first formal dinner on June 5th. He added a phrase that would haunt the BSI for nearly sixty years. “This first meeting will be stag.”

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