For many years Ian Gillies fulfilled the role, taking the name Mycroft (from Mycroft Holmes, older and wiser brother of Sherlock).
The first Sherlock Holmes story was published two years later and there is a suggestion that Arthur Conan Doyle derived the name of Mycroft the younger brother of Sherlock Holmes from William Mycroft.
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The project is named after Mycroft Holmes, the fictional older, smarter, and less ambitious brother of Sherlock Holmes, as a reference to Mycroft being based on Apple Computer's Sherlock search technology.
The plot is an original story not based on any of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Holmes tales, though it bears some similarity to "The Bruce-Partington Plans." Oscar Homolka was originally cast as Holmes's elder brother Mycroft, but for family reasons he refused and Mycroft's character was replaced by "Mr. Ahrens" played by Holmes Herbert.
This also happens to other classic novels- Uriah Heep becomes the obsequious, and generally insincere character we know, due to an accident inside the book world, and Thursday's uncle Mycroft becomes Sherlock Holmes's brother.