Outrage

Outrage by Roger Oldfield

Outrage: The Edalji Five and the Shadow of Sherlock Holmes

• A great Midlands mystery: the brutal Great Wyrley animal outrages of 1903.
• A national sensation: the trial and conviction of George Edalji, son of the local vicar, for the 8th of the outrages, a savage attack on a pit-pony.
• A worldwide cause célèbre: Sherlock Holmes seemingly come to life when Sir Arthur Conan Doyle campaigned to prove George innocent.

The tale has been told many times, notably in Julian Barnes's Arthur and George short-listed for the Man Booker prize in 2005. Roger Oldfield however believes that the fame of Conan Doyle’s campaign has obscured the fascinating history of the Edalji family as whole: Shapurji, George’s father, a Bombay-born Parsi who served as an Anglican vicar for 42 years; Charlotte, George’s mother, descended from generations of English conquerors and looters of South Asia; and the three children, George, Horace and Maud, Anglo-Asians raised in an isolated English mining village. The lives of all five were haunted by the story of that dying pit-pony.

The author has an insider's perspective: he once taught in Great Wyrley and knew descendants of players in the Edalji family drama.

Published by Vanguard Press, October 2010, price £11.99.

Find out where to buy the book.

Events in 2012

10.30 p.m., Friday May 18, Cheslyn Hay Library
'Sherlock Holmes in Great Wyrley and Cheslyn Hay: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's most famous real-life case.' Part of the Staffordshire Libraries Sherlock Holmes season.

7.30 p.m., Tuesday September 18, Lichfield Library
'Sherlock Holmes in the Midlands: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's most famous real-life case.' Illustrated talk following Conan Doyle on the trail in south Staffordshire in his world-famous campaign to prove George Edalji's innocence. With Lichfield references.