Herbert Greenhough Smith


Herbert Greenhough Smith was the first editor of The Strand Magazine which published many of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories. His active support and encouragement to Conan Doyle, and the magazine's vigorous promotion of the Sherlock Holmes character, had much to do with the character's success.

Biography

Born in Stroud in 1855, the eldest of the eight children of Alfred Smith and his wife Eleanor née Greenhough, Herbert was given his mother's maiden name as a middle name and subsequently used it as a double surname. He attended St. John's College, Cambridge where he achieved a B.A., before working briefly as a private tutor. He "gave this up for journalism".
Herbert first married Beatrice Elizabeth B. Harrison in 1885, with whom he had one son, Cyril Herbert Greenhough Smith. Following Beatrice's death in 1897 at the age of 27, he married Dorothy Vernon Muddock, the daughter of James Edward Preston Muddock in 1900.
Smith began editing The Strand in 1891, retiring in 1930. He died on 14 January 1935.

Publications

He wrote the following articles in The Strand Magazine -
He wrote the following books -
In the Sherlock Holmes spoof film Without a Clue the character played by Peter Cook called Norman Greenhough was clearly based on Greenhough Smith.
He has also been portrayed on television, by Ralph Riach in Murder Rooms, and by Allan Corduner in The Strange Case of Sherlock Holmes and Arthur Conan Doyle.