John Francis Innes Hay Doyle

(John Francis) Innes (Hay) Doyle (‘Duff’) was the youngest child and second son of Charles Altamont Doyle (1832-1893), alcoholic civil servant and artist, and his formidable wife, Mary Doyle, née Foley (‘The Mam’). Doyle’s father was incarcerated in a lunatic asylum in 1881, when Innes was eight. That he was able to receive a public school education and to enter the army owed much to the wealth and patronage of his elder brother (by fourteen years), Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), novelist and creator of Sherlock Holmes.

Doyle was a serious soldier. He served in China (1900) and South Africa (1902) and passed staff college (1909). When the war broke out he was in command of 3rd Northumbrian Brigade RFA, a Territorial unit, but it was his staff, rather than his gunner, credentials that were at a premium.

On 28 September 1915 he took up the post of AA&QMG 24th Division, a post he held until 24 December 1917, when he became DA&QMG III Corps with the rank of brigadier-general. He held this post until the end of the war.

Brigadier-General Innes Doyle died of pneumonia in Belgium in February 1919, a victim of the great influenza pandemic. He was 44. He is buried in Halle Communal Cemetery, Belgium.

His death came only a few weeks after that of his nephew, Captain Kinglsey Conan Doyle, and from the same cause. Their deaths did much to reinforce Arthur Conan Doyle’s commitment to the spiritualist cause.