The 1951 Sherlock Holmes Exhibition was organized by the Borough of St. Marylebone as part of the Festival of Britain. After it closed in September 1951, some of the Exhibition's material formed the nucleus of the Sherlock Holmes Collection at the Marylebone Library, which became part of Westminster Libraries in the 1965 London Local Government reorganisation.
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Westminster Libraries originally developed this website in 2001 to celebrate the Exhibition's 50th Anniversary. That site remained online for 20 years, but became unavailable due to technical problems.
As part of the 75th Anniversaries of the Exhibition and of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London, Catherine Cooke and Randall Stock decided to resurrect the website in 2026. After getting permission from Westminster Libraries to use their material, we rebuilt the website.
The new site largely retains the look and feel of the original site. It has been updated to work better on phones, and includes some additional material that was not available when the first site was produced.
Westminster Libraries holds the Sherlock Holmes Collection, and you can locate material in the library's online catalogue.
The Sherlock Holmes Society of London was inspired by the Exhibition, founded in 1951, and remains one of the largest and most active literary and social societies devoted to Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.
The Best of Sherlock Holmes website by Randall Stock includes details on some of the rare materials in the 1951 Exhibition, and has extensive information on Conan Doyle manuscripts, Sidney Paget drawings, the best Holmes stories, and more.
Our thanks to Westminster Libraries and everyone involved in creating the original website.
If you have any comments or questions about this revised site, please Contact Us.