The Very Beginnings

Allen Robertson, a middle-aged attorney working for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and a long-time enthusiast of Sherlock Holmes, was in Chicago and able to attend a meeting of The Hounds of the Baskerville (sic) in October of 1945. While there, he met with Vincent Starrett, who had penned The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes a few years earlier. During his conversation with Starrett, Robertson learned of the existence of the Baker Street Irregulars (BSI) and given the name of Edgar W. Smith, the BSI’s Buttons – cum – Commissionaire.


In early 1946, the BSI launched a new magazine, The Baker Street Journal, devoted to keeping green the memory of Sherlock Holmes. One of the early subscribers was Robertson.


A few months later, on April 18 (according to an April 8, 1957 remembrance penned by Robertson honoring our group’s tenth anniversary) while in New York on a business trip, Robertson found time to stop at the offices of Edgar W. Smith, the editor of The Baker Street Journal. Arriving unannounced at the General Motors Overseas Operations offices, where Smith was a senior corporate officer, Robertson camped out after being stymied by Smith’s receptionist. According to lore, Robertson uttered the words “Sherlock Holmes” as two gentlemen passed by on their way into the suite of offices.


The gambit worked, as one of the two men was Smith. Within minutes, Robertson was seated in Smith’s office and learning about the Baker Street Irregulars. When Robertson left, he had Smith’s blessing to start a Baltimore scion of the BSI.


Not knowing of any other Sherlockians in the Baltimore area, Robertson was referred to Richard Hart of the Enoch Pratt Free Library. Hart reached out to a fellow member of the relatively new Baltimore Bibliophiles group, Paul S. Clarkson and the three would have lunch at Lord Baltimore Hotel. Hart bowed out afterwards, having served as Young Stamford by introducing Robertson and Clarkson. Hart would later be recognized as Honorary Napoleon XXXIII sometime between 1954 and 1956