Trial and Execution of William Brodie

Background. William Brodie was a Scottish cabinet-maker, deacon of a trades guild, and Edinburgh city councillor who secretly lived as a burglar. His respectable standing was such that in the summer of 1788 he was chosen to sit on a jury in the High Court. The case that led to his downfall began on 5 March 1788, when he organised an armed raid on the excise office in Chessels Court, on the Canongate.

The Trial. The trial of Brodie and Smith started on 27 August 1788 in Edinburgh. Brodie had recruited Smith, a locksmith who ran a grocer's shop in the Cowgate, into a gang of thieves in 1786. Brodie's subsequent hanging on 1 October 1788 implies that the proceedings ended in a death sentence.

Execution at the Tolbooth. 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 ten-year-old daughter, Cecil(e). From 1785, executions in Edinburgh had been carried out on the roof of a two-storey extension on the west side of the Old Tolbooth, which provided a platform equipped with a gallows so the public could view hangings.