Air Commandant Dame Jean Lena Annette "Billy" Conan Doyle, Lady Bromet, DBE, AE, WRAF, ADC, most commonly known as Dame Jean Conan Doyle (December 21, 1912 – November 18, 1997), was the daughter of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
She served for thirty years in the WRAF, where she worked in intelligence during World War II and by the time of her retirement she had attained the rank of Air Commandant, the highest rank in the Women's Royal Air Force. Until 1966 she served as an honorary Aide-de-Camp to Queen Elizabeth II. She became Lady Bromet after marrying Air Vice-Marshal Sir Geoffrey Rhodes Bromet (1891–1983). Her husband served a term as Lieutenant-Governor of the Isle of Man.
After the death of her brother, Adrian Conan Doyle, in 1970, Dame Jean became her father's literary executor and the legal copyright holder to some of the rights to the Sherlock Holmes character as well as her father's other works. She assiduously defended Sherlock Holmes' character. Adrian, Denis and Jean, the three children of Arthur Conan Doyle and his second wife Jean, inherited the copyrights with the estate when their mother died in 1940.
In the late 1980s she was reportedly angered by the producers of Star Trek: The Next Generation when they used the characters of Sherlock Holmes, Dr. John H. Watson, and Professor Moriarty without permission.
Billy, as she was known, was not a problem as a child, unlike her brothers Denis and Adrian (known as Malcolm). A spirited child, described as a tomboy by Houdini she had difficulty determining her sexual identity, and used to sign herself "Your loving son". But on her tenth birthday she announced she had decided to be a girl after all. She then went to her Aunt Ida's school Granville House in Eastbourne, where she took after her mother in her love of nature [1]. As a schoolgirl she was a classmate and friend of actress Anna Lee, who was her father's god-daughter.
At her death, her will stipulated that any remaining copyrights she owned were to be transferred to the Royal National Institute for the Blind.[2] According to a 1990 interview, Dame Jean's eyesight was poor from an early age.[3]
References
External links
|
