Sherlock Holmes’s 115th birthday was “an even greater success than usual,” so Julian Wolff’s Commissionaire’s Report reads. All Canonical rites, including the Canonical and Irregular toasts, Sherlockian musical performances, and the recitation of the Musgrave Ritual and Sherlock Holmes’s Prayer were diligently performed. Ceil (Mrs. William S.) Baring-Gould was honored as The Woman.
Tribute was paid to Sherlockians who had passed away over the preceding year. Ten Irregulars were invested. After judges James Nelson, H.W. Starr, and Rex Stout deliberated, Lew Feldman awarded the Morley-Montgomery Award to Poul Anderson (eleven years after Anderson first won in the award’s first year of existence). Feldman then exhibited before the assembled what the Commissionaire fittingly characterized as “the Dead Sea Scroll” of Sherlockian relics: the manuscript notes made by Sir Arthur before A Study in Scarlet was written.
A special award, The Queen Victoria Medal, was given “For Outstanding Contributions to the Quartering of The Union Jack with The Stars and Stripes” to Lord Donegall (in absentia) and Lew D. Feldman.
The evening concluded with reports, speeches (Will Oursler, John Bennett Shaw, Nathan Bengis, and Lyttleton Fox), and performances of the first order, including a demonstration of magicianship by John Mulholland, “the very same exhibition of his art that had baffled Sir Arthur himself.”
Dinner Details: January 10, 1969
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 1969 BSI Dinner photo (PDF)
BSI Honours List
Investitures:Ronald B. De Waal as Lomax, the Sub-Librarian
George Fletcher as The Cardboard Box
Lyttleton Fox as The Gloria Scott
J. Hoxie Haas Jr. as Wisteria Lodge
George John as Sir Jasper Meek
Rodney Mannion as Shoscombe Old Place
David F. Musto as Dr. Anstruther
John Nieminski as Abe Slaney**
Donald A. Redmond as Good Old Index*
James B. Saunders as The Beryl Coronet
Philip Sherman as The Six Napoleons
* received Investiture at another event during the year
** in absentia
What is an Investiture?
Two-Shilling Award:
S. Tupper Bigelow
What is a Two-Shilling Award?
The Woman:
Ceil (Mrs. William S.) Baring-Gould
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 1969 BSJ report.
What is the origin of “standing on the terrace?”
Morley-Montgomery Award:
Poul Anderson, "The Archetypical Holmes"
The Baker Street Journal v18 n3 (September 1968) pp. 139-143 (available in the eBSJ).
What is the Morley-Montgomery Award?
Reports on the Dinner
The Baker Street Journal v19 n1 (March 1969) p.49, 53 (available in the eBSJ).List of 1969 BSI Dinner Attendees (PDF)
Key to People in the 1969 BSI Dinner photo (PDF)
Recordings
None available online at this time.Related Material
1969 BSI Dinner Menu (digitized image at Harvard)Two pages. Cover, interior, and back. Sequence 29-30
Previous dinner: the 1968 BSI Dinner
Next dinner: the 1970 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 9/20/2015 by Tamar Zeffren
Page updated 9/23/15 by Andrew Solberg.
Page updated 12/6/19 by Randall Stock.
This page last updated 5/1/24 by Randall Stock.
