William Brodie (28 September 1741 – 1 October 1788), often known by his title of Deacon Brodie, was a Scottish cabinet-maker, deacon of a trades guild, and Edinburgh city councillor, who maintained a secret life as a burglar in order to support his mistresses and to fund a gambling addiction.

Life

William Brodie was the son of Francis Brodie, Convenor of Trades in Edinburgh. His father's eminent position allowed William to become the Deacon of Wrights and Masons around 1781.

In 1774, Brodie's mother is listed as the head of household in their Edinburgh home on Brodie's Close on the Lawnmarket. The family (William and his brothers) are listed as "wrights and undertakers" on the Lawnmarket. By 1787 William Brodie is listed alone as a wright living at Brodie's Close. The house was built towards the foot of the close in 1570, on the south east side of an open court, by Edinburgh magistrate William Little, and the close was known as Little's Close until the 18th century.

With 'improvements' being made to Edinburgh, the mansion was demolished around 1835 and is now covered by Victoria Terrace. (At a later date, Brodie's workshops and woodyard, which were situated at the lower extremity of the close, made way for the foundations of the Free Library Central Library on George IV Bridge.)

By day, Brodie was a respectable tradesman and Deacon (president) of the Incorporation of Wrights, which controlled the craft of cabinetmaking in Edinburgh, and this made him a member of the town council. Part of his work as a cabinetmaker was to install and repair locks and other security mechanisms. He socialised with the gentry of Edinburgh and met the poet Robert Burns and the painter Henry Raeburn. He was a member of the Edinburgh Cape Club

At night, however, Brodie became a burglar and thief. He used his daytime work as a way to gain knowledge about the security mechanisms of his customers and to copy their keys using wax impressions. As the foremost locksmith of the city, Brodie was asked to work in the houses of many of the richest members of Edinburgh society. He used the money he made dishonestly to maintain his second life, which included a gambling habit and five children by two mistresses, who did not know of each other and were unknown in the city.

He reputedly began his criminal career around 1768, when he copied keys to a bank door and stole £800, then enough to maintain a household for several years. In 1786 he recruited a gang of three thieves: John Brown, a thief on the run from a seven-year sentence of transportation; George Smith of Berkshire, a locksmith who ran a grocer's shop in the Cowgate; and Andrew Ainslie, a shoemaker. By 1785 Brodie was spending his evenings gambling at a tavern on Fleshmarket Close owned by a Mr Clark. But his public reputation was high, and in the summer of 1788 he was chosen to sit on a jury in the High Court.

The trial of Brodie and Smith started on 27 August 1788. At first there was no hard evidence against Brodie, although the tools of his criminal trade (copied keys, a disguise, and pistols) were found in his house and workshops. But with the evidence provided by Brown and Ainslie, who had been persuaded to turn King's Evidence, along with the self-incriminating lines in the letters Brodie had written while on the run, the jury found Brodie and Smith guilty.

Brodie and Smith were hanged at the Old Tolbooth, on the High Street, on 1 October 1788 before a crowd of 40,000, including Brodie's 10-year-old daughter, Cecil(e). The rope had to be adjusted in length three times as the bell of the adjacent St Giles Cathedral tolled.

Cultural references

Popular myth holds that Deacon Brodie built the first gallows in Edinburgh and was also its first victim. Of this, William Roughead 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".

150px|thumb|left|Sign at Deacon Brodie's Tavern on Edinburgh's [[Royal Mile.]]

150px|thumb|Brodie's alter ego.

Robert Louis Stevenson, whose father owned furniture that had been made by Brodie, wrote a play (with W. E. Henley) entitled Deacon Brodie, or The Double Life, which was unsuccessful. However, Stevenson remained fascinated by the dichotomy between Brodie's respectable façade and his real nature, and this paradox inspired him to write the novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, which he published in 1886.

Deacon Brodie is commemorated by a pub of that name on Edinburgh's Royal Mile, on the corner of the Lawnmarket and Bank Street which leads down to the Mound; and a close off the Royal Mile, which contained his family residence and workshops, bears the name "Brodie's Close".

A further two pubs carry his name, one in New York City on the south side of the famous west side 46th Street Restaurant Row between Eighth and Ninth avenues, and the other in Ottawa, Canada on the corner of Elgin and Cooper.

The titular character of the novel The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by the Scottish author Muriel Spark claims to be descended from Deacon Brodie. His double life serves as a metaphor for her duplicity, as well as her self-imposed demise. The novel has been adapted into a play, film, and television series.

In 1989, Bathgate rock band Goodbye Mr Mackenzie wrote and recorded a track titled "Here Comes Deacon Brodie", which appeared on the B-side to their hit "The Rattler".

The "Deacon Brodie" episode of the BBC One television drama anthology Screen One starred Billy Connolly as Brodie, aired on 8 March 1997, and was made in Edinburgh.

From 1976 to 1989, Deacon Brodie was a figure in the Chamber of Horrors section of the Edinburgh Wax Museum on the Royal Mile.

References

Further reading

  • Hutchison, David (2014). Deacon Brodie: A Double Life.
  • Gibson, John Sibbald (1993) [1977]. Deacon Brodie: Father to Jekyll and Hyde. Saltire Society.
  • Bramble, Forbes (1975). The Strange Case of Deacon Brodie. London: Hamish Hamilton.
  • Roughead, William (1906) The Trial of Deacon Brodie (Notable Scottish Trials series).
  • The history of Scotland – Deacon Brodie
  • Famous Scots – Deacon William Brodie