The Shingle of Southsea Holmesian Society
Monthly Meeting Minutes
Date of Meeting: 31st July 2019
Location of Meeting:
The Sherloft, My House, Portsmouth, UK
Attendees:
"The Entire Canon" (Paul Thomas Miller)
Apologies:
Apologies were made for "The Entire Canon" (Paul Thomas Miller) by "The Entire Canon" (Paul Thomas Miller) who was trying to be funny. He was disregarded.
Presentation:
"The Entire Canon" (Paul Thomas Miller) presented his discussion of the Staff of 221b:
The Staff of 221b
By “The Entire Canon” (Paul Thomas Miller)
Mrs Hudson
Many people are unsure whether Mrs Hudson was Holmes’s landlady or his housekeeper. It is certain that Mrs Hudson managed to keep her house from 1881 until at least 1903, whereas we have no idea whether she ever laid some land. Therefore, she was a housekeeper.
Mrs Turner
Mrs Turner pops up briefly in A Scandal in Bohemia serving the tea. It is my belief that she was temporarily performing the duties of the page boy. Therefore she would be more aptly titled Page Turner.
Billy the Page
Billy appears in The Valley of Fear and The Mazarin Stone. As a page boy it was his job to tear the pages out of old telephone directories to make toilet paper. Such home-made botty wipes were known in the 18th century as buttock-torns. Hence his other title – the boy in butt-torns.
Peterson the Commissionaire
Baker Street’s very own commissionaire was employed specifically to hang around the streets in the early hours of the morning watching drunks break windows and stealing their hats. The word commissionaire comes from the Greek for “comb’s his own hair.”
Gibletty Jenny
Many middle-class Victorian homes employed a Gibletty Jenny. It was her job to check through all the offal for anything worth keeping before feeding it to the other staff. After the events of Blue Carbuncle, Sherlock Holmes would have been certain to engage the assistance of a Gibletty Jenny.
Corner Monk
With little time to spare for his spiritual life, Holmes would have been likely to employ a corner monk. Favoured by aristocratic bachelors, the corner monk could be easily stored in a corner, due to its diminutive size, but was always ready to perform marriages, confessions or exorcisms as need and time permitted.
Dirt Orphan
A house like 221b would be incomplete without a dirt orphan. It was their job to go around the house licking the dirt and dust from furniture and carpets. A combination of unhygienic work practices and malnutrition meant that most dirt orphans died within a week of service. Fortunately, there was an ever-growing supply of new recruits to take their place.
Any Other Business:
There’s no business like any other business, no business I know. Everything about it is appealing. And so forth.
