William Brodie
Encyclopedia
William Brodie more commonly known by his prestigious title of Deacon Brodie, was a Scottish
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 cabinet-maker
Cabinet making
Cabinet making is the practice of using various woodworking skills to create cabinets, shelving and furniture.Cabinet making involves techniques such as creating appropriate joints, dados, bevels, chamfers and shelving systems, the use of finishing tools such as routers to create decorative...

, deacon of the trades guild
Guild
A guild is an association of craftsmen in a particular trade. The earliest types of guild were formed as confraternities of workers. They were organized in a manner something between a trade union, a cartel, and a secret society...

 and Edinburgh
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...

 city councillor, who maintained a secret life as a burglar, partly for the thrill, and partly to fund his gambling
Gambling
Gambling is the wagering of money or something of material value on an event with an uncertain outcome with the primary intent of winning additional money and/or material goods...

.

Career

By day, Brodie was a respectable business
Business
A business is an organization engaged in the trade of goods, services, or both to consumers. Businesses are predominant in capitalist economies, where most of them are privately owned and administered to earn profit to increase the wealth of their owners. Businesses may also be not-for-profit...

man, member of the burgh
Burgh
A burgh was an autonomous corporate entity in Scotland and Northern England, usually a town. This type of administrative division existed from the 12th century, when King David I created the first royal burghs. Burgh status was broadly analogous to borough status, found in the rest of the United...

 council and deacon (or president) of the Incorporation of Wright
Wright
Wright is an occupational surname originating in England. The term Wright comes from the circa 700 AD Old English word "wryhta" or "wyrhta", meaning worker or shaper of wood. Later it became any occupational worker , and is used as a British family name...

s and Masons. Part of his job in building cabinets was to install and repair their locks
Lock (device)
A lock is a mechanical or electronic fastening device that is released by a physical object or secret information , or combination of more than one of these....

 and other security mechanisms and repair door locks. He also served on a jury
Jury
A jury is a sworn body of people convened to render an impartial verdict officially submitted to them by a court, or to set a penalty or judgment. Modern juries tend to be found in courts to ascertain the guilt, or lack thereof, in a crime. In Anglophone jurisdictions, the verdict may be guilty,...

. He socialised with the gentry of Edinburgh, and met the poet Robert Burns
Robert Burns
Robert Burns was a Scottish poet and a lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland, and is celebrated worldwide...

 and the painter Sir Henry Raeburn
Henry Raeburn
Sir Henry Raeburn was a Scottish portrait painter, the first significant Scottish portraitist since the Act of Union 1707 to remain based in Scotland.-Biography:...

. He was also a member of The Edinburgh Cape Club
Edinburgh Cape Club
The Edinburgh Cape Society is a convivial Edinburgh tavern-based society which was first established in the 18th century. It is one of many Convivial Edinburgh Societies which were extant in the 18th century, but the only one which survives to the present day.It was founded initially to support a...

.http://books.google.com/books?id=8buM0pK9IpMC&pg=PA26&dq=deacon+brodie+edinburgh+cape&sig=SbjAXTLocHwRzHqLDMq8tdl9oiA

At night, however, Brodie became a burglar and thief. He used his daytime job as a way to gain knowledge about the security mechanisms of his clients and to copy their key
Key (lock)
A key is an instrument that is used to operate a lock. A typical key consists of two parts: the blade, which slides into the keyway of the lock and distinguishes between different keys, and the bow, which is left protruding so that torque can be applied by the user. The blade is usually intended to...

s using wax
Wax
thumb|right|[[Cetyl palmitate]], a typical wax ester.Wax refers to a class of chemical compounds that are plastic near ambient temperatures. Characteristically, they melt above 45 °C to give a low viscosity liquid. Waxes are insoluble in water but soluble in organic, nonpolar solvents...

 impressions. As the foremost wright
Wright
Wright is an occupational surname originating in England. The term Wright comes from the circa 700 AD Old English word "wryhta" or "wyrhta", meaning worker or shaper of wood. Later it became any occupational worker , and is used as a British family name...

 of the city, Brodie was asked to work in the homes of many of the richest members of Edinburgh society. He used the illicit money to maintain his second life, including five children, two mistress
Mistress (lover)
A mistress is a long-term female lover and companion who is not married to her partner; the term is used especially when her partner is married. The relationship generally is stable and at least semi-permanent; however, the couple does not live together openly. Also the relationship is usually,...

es who did not know of each other, and a gambling habit. He reputedly began his criminal career around 1768 when he copied keys to a bank door and stole £800. In 1786 he recruited a gang of three thieves, Brown, Smith, and Ainslie.

Capture and Trial

The case that led to Brodie's downfall began later in 1786 when he organised an armed raid on an Excise office in Chessel's Court on the Canongate
Canongate
The Canongate is a small district at the heart of Edinburgh, the capital city of Scotland.The name derives from the main street running through the area: called Canongate without the definite article, "the". Canongate forms the lower, eastern half of the Royal Mile in Edinburgh's historic Old Town....

. Brodie's plan failed and Ainslie was captured. Ainslie agreed to turn King's evidence, to avoid transportation
Penal transportation
Transportation or penal transportation is the deporting of convicted criminals to a penal colony. Examples include transportation by France to Devil's Island and by the UK to its colonies in the Americas, from the 1610s through the American Revolution in the 1770s, and then to Australia between...

, and informed on the rest of the gang. Brodie escaped to the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 intending to flee to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 but was arrested in Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...

 and shipped back to Edinburgh for trial.

The trial started on 27 August 1788. At first there was no hard evidence against Brodie before the tools of his criminal trade were found in his house; copied keys, a disguise and pistol
Pistol
When distinguished as a subset of handguns, a pistol is a handgun with a chamber that is integral with the barrel, as opposed to a revolver, wherein the chamber is separate from the barrel as a revolving cylinder. Typically, pistols have an effective range of about 100 feet.-History:The pistol...

s. The jury found Brodie and his henchman
Henchman
Henchman referred originally to one who attended on a horse for his employer, that is, a horse groom. Hence, like constable and marshal, also originally stable staff, henchman became the title of a subordinate official in a royal court or noble household...

 George Smith, a grocer
Grocer
A grocer is a bulk seller of food. Beginning as early as the 14th century, a grocer was a dealer in comestible dry goods such as spices, pepper, sugar, and cocoa, tea and coffee...

, guilty
Guilty
Guilty commonly refers to the feeling of guilt, an experience that occurs when a person believes that they have violated a moral standard.Guilty or The Guilty may also refer to:-Law:*Guilty plea, a formal admission of legal culpability...

. Smith was an English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 locksmith responsible for a number of thefts, even stealing the silver mace from the University of Edinburgh
University of Edinburgh
The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1583, is a public research university located in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The university is deeply embedded in the fabric of the city, with many of the buildings in the historic Old Town belonging to the university...

.

Brodie and Smith were hanged at the Tolbooth
Tolbooth
Tolbooth or tollbooth may refer to:* Tolbooth, a traditional Scottish 'town hall' for the administration of burghs, usually providing a council meeting chamber, a court house and a jail.* Toll house, a place where road usage tolls are collected...

 on 1 October 1788, using a gallows
Gallows
A gallows is a frame, typically wooden, used for execution by hanging, or by means to torture before execution, as was used when being hanged, drawn and quartered...

 Brodie had designed and funded the year before. According to one tale, Brodie wore a steel
Steel
Steel is an alloy that consists mostly of iron and has a carbon content between 0.2% and 2.1% by weight, depending on the grade. Carbon is the most common alloying material for iron, but various other alloying elements are used, such as manganese, chromium, vanadium, and tungsten...

 collar and silver
Silver
Silver is a metallic chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal...

 tube to prevent the hanging from being fatal. It was said that he had bribed the hangman to ignore it and arranged for his body to be removed quickly in the hope that he could later be revived. If so, the plan failed. Brodie was buried in an unmarked grave at the Parish
Parish
A parish is a territorial unit historically under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of one parish priest, who might be assisted in his pastoral duties by a curate or curates - also priests but not the parish priest - from a more or less central parish church with its associated organization...

 Church in Buccleuch
Buccleuch
Buccleuch may refer to* the village of Buccleuch, Scottish Borders* Duke of Buccleuch, created in the Peerage of Scotland in 1663. The Chief of Clan Scott, and a claimant to the chieftaincy of the House of Douglas...

. However rumours of his being seen in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 circulated later and gave the story of his scheme to evade death further publicity.

Popular culture

Popular myth
Mythology
The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...

 holds that Deacon Brodie built the first gallows in Edinburgh and was also its first victim. Of this William Roughead
William Roughead
William Roughead was a well-known Scottish lawyer and amateur criminologist, as well as an editor and essayist on "matters criminous". He was an important early practitioner of the modern "true crime" literary genre.-Career:...

 in Classic Crimes states that after research he was sure that although the Deacon may have had some hand in the design "...it was certainly not of his construction, nor was he the first to benefit by its ingenuity".



The dichotomy
Dichotomy
A dichotomy is any splitting of a whole into exactly two non-overlapping parts, meaning it is a procedure in which a whole is divided into two parts...

 between Brodie's respectable façade
Facade
A facade or façade is generally one exterior side of a building, usually, but not always, the front. The word comes from the French language, literally meaning "frontage" or "face"....

, and his real nature inspired Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist and travel writer. His best-known books include Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde....

 to write The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is the original title of a novella written by the Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson that was first published in 1886. The original pronunciation of Jekyll was "Jeekul" which was the pronunciation used in Stevenson's native Scotland...

. Stevenson's father had furniture
Furniture
Furniture is the mass noun for the movable objects intended to support various human activities such as seating and sleeping in beds, to hold objects at a convenient height for work using horizontal surfaces above the ground, or to store things...

 made by Brodie.

Deacon Brodie is commemorated by a pub
Public house
A public house, informally known as a pub, is a drinking establishment fundamental to the culture of Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. There are approximately 53,500 public houses in the United Kingdom. This number has been declining every year, so that nearly half of the smaller...

 of that name on Edinburgh
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...

's Royal Mile
Royal Mile
The Royal Mile is a succession of streets which form the main thoroughfare of the Old Town of the city of Edinburgh in Scotland.As the name suggests, the Royal Mile is approximately one Scots mile long, and runs between two foci of history in Scotland, from Edinburgh Castle at the top of the Castle...

, on the corner between the Lawnmarket and Bank Street which leads down to The Mound
The Mound
The Mound is an artificial hill in central Edinburgh, Scotland, which connects Edinburgh's New Town and Old Town. It was formed by dumping around 1,501,000 cartloads of earth excavated from the foundations of the New Town into the drained Nor Loch which forms today's Princes Street Gardens. The...

, and a close (or alleyway) off the Royal Mile has been named after him. There is also a pub in Ward Road, Dundee
Dundee
Dundee is the fourth-largest city in Scotland and the 39th most populous settlement in the United Kingdom. It lies within the eastern central Lowlands on the north bank of the Firth of Tay, which feeds into the North Sea...

 named after him. A pub in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 carrying his name sits on the south side of the famous west side 46th Street Restaurant Row between 8th Avenue and 9th Avenue, closer to 9th Avenue.

In 1975 publisher Hamish Hamilton
Hamish Hamilton
Hamish Hamilton Limited was a British book publishing house, founded in 1931 eponymously by the half-Scot half-American Jamie Hamilton . Confusingly, Jamie Hamilton was often referred to as Hamish Hamilton...

 published a book by Forbes Bramble about his life: The Strange Case of Deacon Brodie.

In 1997 a TV movie of the same name was made starring Billy Connolly
Billy Connolly
William "Billy" Connolly, Jr., CBE is a Scottish comedian, musician, presenter and actor. He is sometimes known, especially in his native Scotland, by the nickname The Big Yin...

and was made in Edinburgh.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK