Baker Street Elementary – Resolved

by I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere January 04, 2026

“full of energy and resolution” [GLOR]

January 1st always begins with hope for the New Year: a clean slate is offered up, and it is ours on which to write our intentions for the year. These often take the form of resolutions.

It has been long posited that Sherlock Holmes and John H. Watson met on New Year's Day, 1881, as told in A Study in Scarlet. While there are no dates mentioned in the text, there are clues that lead us to believe this may be the case:

Watson runs into an old friend Stamford at the Criterion Bar; that he was at or outside such an establishment indicates he may have been trying to drown his sorrows (we later learn his brother was an alcoholic, so it's not out of the question that Watson might share some of those habits).
When they find Sherlock Holmes, he is alone in the laboratory. It could indicate that it was a holiday, since he was the only one there.
The entire purpose of Watson looking for a roommate is because he was taking stock of his finances and knew he needed "some less pretentious and less expensive domicile" than his hotel. He tells us: "On the very day that I had come to this conclusion..."
This is anecdotal, but of the 13 appearances of the word "resolute" in the Canon, five of them appear in A Study in Scarlet. Such language must have a deeper meaning, particularly of Watson's and Hope's commitments to making things happen.

Given all of those facts, it is not unlikely that Watson was making a resolution on New Year's Day to change his habits and his lifestyle.

We should be grateful for his commitment to improving himself. That fateful decision has improved the world (or at least the world of Sherlockians).

Let's see who's committed to improving the experience at Baker Street Elementary...

Baker Street Elementary follows the original adventures of Sherlock Holmes and , as they and their friends work through the issues of elementary school in . An archive of all previous episodes can be viewed at the Baker Street Elementary website.