An unfortunate milestone marked Sherlock Holmes’s 113th birthday: Rex Stout, the long-time master of ceremonies, was unable to be present. Nonetheless, the timely and timeless Sherlockian rituals and rites “were meticulously carried out.” There were the “Conanical” and the Irregular toasts, readings of the Constitution and Buy-Laws, the Musgrave Ritual, Sherlock Holmes’s prayer, and Irregular music. Missives from Sherlockian individuals and societies from around the world, including messages from Adrian Conan Doyle and the Sherlock Holmes Society of London, were read aloud. Peggy (Mrs. James) Nelson was toasted by William Baring-Gould as The Woman. Four new Irregulars were invested at the Dinner. Three papers of “unusually high calibre” were delivered by John McCabe, John Bennett Shaw, and H.W. Starr, and the festivities concluded with “much Sherlockian discussion.”
Dinner Details: January 6, 1967
Cavanagh’s Restaurant, 258 West 23rd Street, New York
Dinner Photo Information
Click on the above photo to see a larger version of it, and maximize your browser window to see the most detail.Key to People in the 1967 BSI Dinner photo (PDF)
BSI Honours List
Investitures:T. S. Blakeney as A Norwegian Named Sigerson*
J. Randolph Cox as The Conk-Singleton Forgery Case*
Karl Krejci-Graf as Baron Gruner, the Austrian*
Bryson R. Kalt as Charles Augustus Milverton
Edgar H. Lawrence as The Matilda Briggs
Stanley MacKenzie as The Man with the Twisted Lip*
Orlando Park as The Final Problem
Franklin Rhode as My Old Friend Charlie Peace*
Albert Silverstein as Professor Presbury
* received Investiture at another event during the year
What is an Investiture?
Two-Shilling Award:
None listed.
What is a Two-Shilling Award?
The Woman:
Peggy (Mrs. James) Nelson
What is The Woman honour?
"Stand with me here upon the terrace..."
(as named at this Dinner, not their year of passing)
Not listed in the 1967 BSJ report.
What is the origin of “standing on the terrace?”
Morley-Montgomery Award:
Alan H. Foster, "On the Location of Dr. John H. Watson's Tin Dispatch-Box"
The Baker Street Journal v16 n3 (September 1966) pp. 138-146 (available in the eBSJ).
What is the Morley-Montgomery Award?
Reports on the Dinner
The Baker Street Journal v17 n1 (March 1967) p. 53. (available in the eBSJ)List of 1967 BSI Dinner Attendees (PDF)
Key to People in the 1967 BSI Dinner photo (PDF)
Recordings
None available online at this time.Related Material
1967 BSI Dinner Menu (digitized image at Harvard)Two pages. Cover, interior, and back. Sequence 25-26
Previous dinner: the 1966 BSI Dinner
Next dinner: the 1968 BSI Dinner
For an index to all BSI Dinners and photos, see our BSI Dinner Summary list.
The BSI Archive is located at the Houghton Library at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Archival material may be used by any qualified scholar, subject to the normal rules and regulations of the Library. For links to a detailed finding aid and related information, see our BSI Archive at Harvard page.
Page composed on 8/30/15 by Tamar Zeffren.
Page updated 9/9/15 by Andrew Solberg.
This page last updated 4/8/19 by Randall Stock.
