<P> Holmes was partially modelled on his former university teacher Joseph Bell . In 1892 , in a letter to Bell , Doyle wrote , `` It is most certainly to you that I owe Sherlock Holmes ... round the centre of deduction and inference and observation which I have heard you inculcate I have tried to build up a man , '' and , in his 1924 autobiography , he remarked , `` It is no wonder that after the study of such a character ( viz. , Bell ) I used and amplified his methods when in later life I tried to build up a scientific detective who solved cases on his own merits and not through the folly of the criminal . '' Robert Louis Stevenson was able , even in faraway Samoa , to recognise the strong similarity between Joseph Bell and Sherlock Holmes : `` My compliments on your very ingenious and very interesting adventures of Sherlock Holmes ... can this be my old friend Joe Bell ? '' Other authors sometimes suggest additional influences -- for instance , the famous Edgar Allan Poe character C. Auguste Dupin . Dr. ( John ) Watson owes his surname , but not any other obvious characteristic , to a Portsmouth medical colleague of Doyle 's , Dr James Watson . </P>
who inspired sir arthur conan doyle to write sherlock holmes
his former university teacher Joseph Bell