The 132nd anniversary of Holmes’s birth included all the traditional rites and procedures. Walter Pond’s daughter, Nancy Pond, was toasted as The Woman. Philip R. Brogdon offered a splendid toast to Sherlock Holmes as Dr. Watson’s (and our) best friend. John Bennett Shaw displayed, and defended, a newly discovered life mask of Sherlock Holmes. Isaac Asimov doubled as tenor and baritone in a Canonical parody of Gilbert and Sullivan. However, the major news from this Dinner was Julian Wolff’s announcement that he was retiring from the leadership of The Baker Street Irregulars (having held the job longer than anyone else). Julian said that he decided to be the first to get out alive and that he had chosen Thomas L. Stix, Jr.as his successor.
At reception at The Grolier Club the next day, Julian celebrated his eighty-first birthday. Tom Stix’s first official act as our Wiggins was his announcement that Julian will be our honored Commissionaire Emeritus.
Dinner Details: January 10, 1986
The Regency Hotel, 540 Park Avenue, 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 1986 BSI Dinner photo (not available at this time)
BSI Honours List
Investitures:Erik Beckman as Stapleton
Robert Bisio as Shinwell Johnson
John D. Constable as The Crooked Man
Barton A. Eberman as The Hound of the Baskervilles
Joseph Fink as The Martyrdom of Man
David L. Hammer as Major-General Stoner
Andrew Malec as The Strange Old Book Collector
C. Paul Martin as Dr. Leslie Armstrong
Robert E. Robinson as The Hansom Cab
Steven Rothman as The Valley of Fear
Richard B. Shull as An Actor and a Rare One
Gordon R. Speck as Colonel James Barclay
James P. Suszynski as The Dying Detective
Richard A. Wein as Silver Blaze*
Don Werby as Old Abrahams
* received Investiture at another event during the year
What is an Investiture?
Two-Shilling Award:
Edward F. Clark Jr.
Henry T. Folsom
John B. Koelle
Theodore G. Schulz
William P. Schweickert
Philip A. Shreffler
Chris Steinbrunner
What is a Two-Shilling Award?
The Woman:
Nancy Pond (Walter Pond’s daughter)
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 1986 BSJ report.
What is the origin of “standing on the terrace?”
Morley-Montgomery Award:
No awards were given from 1981-1995.
What is the Morley-Montgomery Award?
Reports on the Dinner
The Baker Street Journal v36 n1 (March 1986) pp. 42 and 46 (available in the eBSJ).Blau, Peter, Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press (January 1986), p. 1.
List of 1986 BSI Dinner Attendees (not available at this time)
Recordings
None available online at this time.Related Material
1986 BSI Dinner Menu (digitized images at Harvard)Two pages. Cover and interior. Sequence 113-114.
"Theatre Royal Haymarket" (digitized images at Harvard)
Two pages. Sequence 115-116.
Distributed at the 1986 BSI Dinner by Michael Kean, BSI
Previous dinner: the 1985 BSI Dinner
Next dinner: the 1987 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 3/12/2016 by Tamar Zeffren
Page updated 3/25/2016 by Andrew Solberg.
This page last updated 5/1/24 by Randall Stock.
