The Ocular Helmsman

The Ocular Helmsman was a website titled “A Vede Mecum Upon the Personal Effects & Environs of Sherlock Holmes & John H. Watson of 221B Baker Street for the Victorian Layman”.

For those who do not speak Latin, a “Vede Mecum” is “a handbook or guide that is kept constantly at hand for consultation”. Unfortunately, the website no longer exists. It went offline around March 2016. It contained much helpful information and was often quoted by other websites and publications as a useful reference.

Archive

The Internet Archive includes a beautiful facility called the Wayback Machine. It allows you to go back to 1996 when they began archiving the Internet itself, a medium that was then beginning to grow in use. Like newspapers, the content published on the web was ephemeral – but unlike newspapers, no one was saving it. The Internet Archive has over 28 years of web history accessible through the Wayback Machine.

Not all websites are archived there, but The Ocular Helmsman is one of them!

Website Content

The website has 14 sections, and here is the front page (Index):

The Index and Contents pages are self-explanatory, but the other 12 sections are worth exploring in more detail.

The author explains that the website was continually updated, but that further work was planned.

Transport

This section covers the different modes of transport, including horses and carriages, trains, bicycles, cars and ships.

221B Suite

This section examines the exterior of 221B and Baker Street and then the interior, including the sitting room, furniture, and newspapers they would have perused.

Sustenance & Spirits

This section examines the food they might have eaten, the restaurants they visited, and the spirits, wine, and other drinks they occasionally drank.

Tobaccana

This section examines how tobacco is prepared, the variety of pipes used, and other types of tobacco, such as cigars and snuff.

Attire

Attire looks at the fashions of the day for men and women, walking sticks (typical in the Victorian Era), and the attire of Holmes and Watson.

Acquaintances

This section starts with the other residents at 221B Baker Street. It then covers family, neighbours, army acquaintances, school friends, other detectives, unofficial assistants, Watson’s early acquaintances, and mutual acquaintances and ends with Sherlock’s arch-enemy, Professor Moriarty.

Mr Sherlock Holmes

This section begins with an analysis of Holmes’s character and then details his personal effects, family, the arts and music, his writings, his travels and his pastimes.

Dr John H Watson

A similar analysis follows for Dr. Watson, including his character, family, personal effects, art and travel, and his writings.

Art in the Blood

This section covers the arts and sciences of deduction. Among the more prominent of these arts are Tracking, Handwriting Analysis, Cryptography, Studies of Paper & Watermarks, and Tobaccana (which is analyzed elsewhere on this website).

Monographs

This is one of the few empty sections where one thought Holmes’s monographs would be listed.

Lost Archives

This is a long list of the unpublished cases mentioned by Dr Watson.

Essentials

This is a list of the barest essentials of web resources relating to Holmes and Watson, though some of these may not be current.

Links

There are many links to other websites from the pages of this website, some of which are no longer working, but again, Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine still provides access to these now archived web pages.

Authorship and Future Use

I do know the author’s identity, though I do not know why the website has not been maintained. There is much helpful information there, so I plan to use it for the purpose for which it was designed—as a vide mecum.