John Watson (Sherlock Holmes)

John H. Watson
Sherlock Holmes character
Dr. Watson (left) and Sherlock Holmes, by Sidney Paget.
First appearance	A Study in Scarlet
Last appearance	His Last Bow
Created by	Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Information
Occupation	Physician
Title	Doctor
Spouse(s)	Mary Morstan
Nationality	British

John H. Watson, known as Dr. Watson, is a fictional character in the Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and was the narrator in the original stories. Watson is Sherlock Holmes's friend, assistant and sometime flatmate, and the first person narrator of all but four of these stories. He is described as the typical Victorian-era gentleman, unlike the more eccentric Holmes. He is astute, although he can never match his friend's deductive skills.

Watson has been adapted in various films, television series, video games, comics, and radio programmes, retaining his role as Holmes's friend and confidant.

In Conan Doyle's early rough plot outlines, Sherlock Holmes's sidekick was named "Ormond Sacker" before Conan Doyle finally settled on "John Watson". He was probably inspired by one of Doyle's colleagues, Dr. James Watson. In the words of William L. De Andrea,

Dr. Watson's first name is mentioned on only four occasions. Part one of the very first Sherlock Holmes story, A Study in Scarlet, is subtitled Being a reprint from the Reminiscences of John H. Watson, M.D., Late of the Army Medical Department. The preface of the collection His Last Bow is signed 'John H. Watson, M.D', and in "The Problem of Thor Bridge", Watson says that his dispatch box is labelled 'John H. Watson, M.D'. His wife Mary Watson calls him 'James' in "The Man with the Twisted Lip"; Dorothy L. Sayers speculates that Mary may be referring to his middle name Hamish (an Anglicisation of 'Sheumais', the vocative form of 'Seumas', the Scottish Gaelic for James), though Doyle himself never addresses this beyond including the initial.