The Edinburgh man who lived a double life — and inspired Jekyll and Hyde

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He crafted furniture for Edinburgh’s finest homes. He sat on the town council. Respectable, trusted, admired. And every night, when the city went dark, Deacon William Brodie slipped on a disguise and became Edinburgh’s most daring thief.

His story is one of the most extraordinary in a city full of extraordinary stories. And it changed literature for ever.

A cabinet-maker with a silver tongue

William Brodie was born in 1741, the son of a prosperous Edinburgh cabinetmaker. He inherited the business and flourished. His craftsmanship was sought by the city’s wealthiest families. He became Deacon of the Incorporation of Wrights — effectively the guild master for joiners and cabinetmakers across Edinburgh.

He sat on Edinburgh’s town council. He drank with judges and magistrates. He was as embedded in the city’s establishment as the stones of the Royal Mile itself.

The secret he carried for decades

Brodie had two families, two sets of children, and two completely separate lives. He was also a gambling addict. The dice tables ate through his fortune and the debts mounted up fast.

So he used his privileged position. Every time he visited a client’s home to fit a cabinet or repair a lock, he pressed their keys into wax. Then, in the small hours, he would return — not as a craftsman, but as a burglar.

For years, he got away with it entirely. The city trusted him completely. Nobody suspected the man who built their furniture was the same man emptying their drawers at midnight.

The raid on Canongate that ended everything

In 1788, Brodie led a raid on the Excise Office on Canongate — just a few hundred metres from his own workshop on the Lawnmarket. His gang fumbled the job badly. One accomplice panicked and turned informer. Within days, Brodie fled for Amsterdam.

He was caught, brought back in chains, and put on trial. Edinburgh’s courts convicted him swiftly. The judge who sentenced him had dined with Brodie the previous month.

Hanged on a gallows he designed himself

Here is where the story turns almost unbearably ironic. Years earlier, as a respected craftsman, Brodie had helped to design improvements to the Edinburgh gallows — the very apparatus used to hang criminals at the Tolbooth.

On 1 October 1788, Deacon William Brodie was executed on that same gallows before a crowd of thousands on the Royal Mile. He wore a dapper suit. Contemporary accounts say he walked to his death with remarkable composure.

Some stories claim he had slipped a thin metal tube down his throat hoping to survive the drop. It did not work.

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How Brodie haunted Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Louis Stevenson grew up in Edinburgh. He knew the story of Deacon Brodie well — it fascinated and disturbed him in equal measure. In 1879, he co-wrote a play called Deacon Brodie, or the Double Life. It never became famous.

But the idea never left him. The concept of a man with a respectable face and a dark interior — two personalities trapped in one body — became the engine of Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, published in 1886. The slim, chilling novella transformed horror fiction for ever.

Edinburgh’s fog, its closes, its gaslit double life — all of it runs through Stevenson’s imagination. Brodie’s ghost is on every page.

Walking in Brodie’s footsteps today

You can still trace Brodie’s Edinburgh with ease. His workshop stood on the Lawnmarket, the upper stretch of the Royal Mile near Edinburgh Castle. Deacon Brodie’s Tavern still stands on the corner of Lawnmarket and Bank Street, its sign depicting both faces of the man — craftsman by day, thief by night.

The Canongate area, where the bungled Excise Office raid took place, is still a rewarding walk. The closes threading off the Royal Mile look much as they did in Brodie’s time. Duck into one at dusk and you will feel exactly what Edinburgh’s streets were like on the nights Brodie prowled them.

For more Old Town atmosphere, you might also enjoy exploring Circus Lane in Stockbridge — one of Edinburgh’s most beautiful hidden corners. And the secrets of Rosslyn Chapel offer another layer of the region’s remarkable history, just a short drive south.

For a broader guide to Edinburgh’s historic districts, Love to Visit Scotland’s Edinburgh pages are well worth bookmarking.

FAQ: Deacon Brodie and Edinburgh’s dark history

Was Deacon Brodie a real person?

Yes, completely. William Brodie (1741–1788) was a real Edinburgh cabinetmaker, town councillor, and thief. He was hanged on the Royal Mile in October 1788 after being convicted of burglary. His extraordinary double life directly inspired Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

Where can I visit sites connected to Deacon Brodie in Edinburgh?

The best starting point is Deacon Brodie’s Tavern on the Lawnmarket, near the top of the Royal Mile. The pub sits very close to where his original workshop stood. From there, walk down the Royal Mile toward Canongate to find the area of the Excise Office raid. Mary King’s Close nearby also offers an excellent glimpse into the underground Old Town of Brodie’s era.

Did Deacon Brodie really inspire Jekyll and Hyde?

Yes. Stevenson grew up in Edinburgh and was well acquainted with Brodie’s story. He co-wrote a play about Brodie in 1879, seven years before publishing Jekyll and Hyde. Scholars widely acknowledge Brodie as a key inspiration for the novel’s central theme: the respectable exterior hiding a monstrous interior. Edinburgh’s Old Town — with its closes, shadows, and layered history — formed the psychological landscape for Stevenson’s imagination.

Edinburgh never fully tidied away its dark past. Walk the Royal Mile on a grey autumn morning and Deacon Brodie feels very close — the city’s most charming villain, a man who understood Edinburgh’s double life because he lived it himself.

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