The BSI was an outgrowth of Christopher Morley's informal group, "the Three Hours for Lunch Club," which discussed art and literature. The inaugural meeting of the BSI was held in 1934 at Christ Cella's restaurant in New York City. Initial attendees included William Gillette, Vincent Starrett, Alexander Woollcott, and Gene Tunney. Morley kept meetings quite irregular, but after leadership passed to Edgar W. Smith, meetings became more regular. In February 1934, Elmer Davis, a friend of Morley, authored a constitution for the group explaining their purpose and explaining that anyone who passed a certain test was eligible to join. The May 1934 issue of Saturday Review of Literature featured the aforementioned "test" which was a crossword puzzle authored by Christopher Morley's younger brother, Frank. The organization long resisted admitting women, a policy which spawned a female-centered organization, the Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes, whose founders had picketed an all-male BSI gathering. In 1991, the first female invested in the BSI was Dame Jean Conan Doyle. She was followed by Katherine McMahon, the first woman to solve the crossword puzzle. McMahon was followed by Edith Meiser, author of numerous Holmesian radio scripts for The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Members of the society participate in "the game" which postulates that Holmes and Doctor Watson were real and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was merely Watson's "literary agent".
Membership
Membership is by invitation only based on criteria unknown to the public. Members take on a name inspired by the canon with the head of the organization known as "Wiggins". Since its inception, the organization has had only 701 members. The reference volume Sherlock Holmes and the Cryptic Clues maintains an all inclusivelist of past and current members, including the year and pseudonym of their Investiture.
Notable members
Notable members of the Baker Street Irregulars include the following:
The group publishes a periodical, The Baker Street Journal. The original series of the BSJ was started in 1946, but it ceased in 1949. In 1951, Edgar Smith began publishing it again as a quarterly; it has continued publication since that time.
Scion societies
The BSI has spawned numerous "scion societies", many of which are officially recognized by the BSI. The first was The Five Orange Pips of Westchester County, New York in 1935. Independent Sherlockian groups include the Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes, the U.K.’s Sherlock Holmes Society of London, and Canada's The Bootmakers of Toronto.
