Sam Claflin could not reprise his role as Mycroft Holmes due to scheduling conflicts. Director Harry Bradbeer has said they really wanted him back for the sequel, and hope to have him back if there's going to be a third installment.
The opening of the film references the other great detectives of Victorian London: Detective Field, Reginald Swain, Mackenzie Macintosh & Sir Alfred Hornblower.
- Charles Frederick Field was a real founding member of the Metropolitan Police; as an aspiring actor, he had a penchant for dressing up in disguise and after he retired he became a private detective. He was a friend of Charles Dickens and served as the inspiration for the character Inspector Bucket in the novel Bleak House.
- Detective Constable Reginald Swain was a character in the long running British police series Dixon of Dock Green.
- Mackenzie Macintosh refers to Mackenzie Macintosh, a Victorian graphic designer and the wife of Charles Rennie Mackintosh.
- Alfred Hornblower may be a combination of Alfred Swaine Taylor, the Victorian toxicologist and medical writer nicknamed the father of forensic medicine, and Horatio Hornblower, the lead character in the C.S. Forester naval officer series.
The song "Where Did You Get that Hat?" was also used in the Sherlock Holmes comedy Without a Clue (1988), with Sir Michael Caine (Sherlock Holmes) and Sir Ben Kingsley (Dr. Watson).
Many of the outdoor scenes in this movie were filmed in Kingston Upon Hull. In response to this, many of the venues in the show are named after real places in Hull: The Albion pub after Albion Street (where some scenes were shot), The Paragon Theatre after Paragon Station, and The Adelphi after the New Adelphi Club.
Enola chooses "Tabitha" as her disguise name.