Jean Lena Annette Conan (Doyle) Bromet (1912 - 1997)

Born 21 Dec 1912 in Sussex, England

Ancestors

Died 18 Nov 1997 at age 84 in London, England

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Biography

Jean Lena Annette was born in 1912. She was the second daughter of Arthur Doyle and Jean Elizabeth Leckie.

Jean was a spirited child, described as a tomboy by her father's friend Houdini, who used to sign herself "Your loving son". On her tenth birthday, however, she announced that she had decided to be a girl after all. She attended her Aunt Ida's school, Granville House in Eastbourne, Sussex. As a schoolgirl she was a classmate and friend of future film and television actress Anna Lee, who was her father's god-daughter.

In the 1963 Birthday Honours, she was elevated to Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE, Military Division), and was known as Dame Jean Conan Doyle.

After her marriage to Air Vice-Marshal Sir Geoffrey Rhodes Bromet in 1965 in Westminster, London, England she became Lady Bromet. Her husband served a term as Lieutenant-Governor of the Isle of Man. They had no children.

Jean became her father's literary executor and the legal copyright holder to some of the rights to the Sherlock Holmes character as well as her father's other works. Her father passed away in 1930, he mother in 1940 at which time Jean and her brothers, Adrian and Denis, inherited the copyrights along with their parents' estate.

She served for thirty years in the WRAF, where she worked in intelligence during World War II and by the time of her retirement she had attained the rank of Air Commandant, the highest rank in the Women's Royal Air Force. Until 1966 she served as an honorary Aide-de-Camp to Queen Elizabeth II.

Jean passed away in 1997.

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Burial

All Saints Churchyard, Minstead, New Forest District, Hampshire, England

Sources

• "England and Wales Birth Registration Index, 1837-2008," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:2FPP-2DF : 1 October 2014), Lina J C Conan-Doyle, 1913; from "England & Wales Births, 1837-2006,"

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Conan_Doyle

• "England and Wales Marriage Registration Index, 1837-2005," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QV6M-RNQS : 8 October 2014), Jean L A Conan Doyle and null, 1965; from “England & Wales Marriages, 1837-2005,

• "England and Wales Death Registration Index 1837-2007," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QVZ6-3RHG : 4 September 2014), Jean Lena A C Doyle, Nov 1997; from "England & Wales Deaths, 1837-2006,"

• Find A Grave Memorial# 76016731 [[1]]