Historic murder cases give an insight into period homes
Kirsty Mcluckie finds the details fascinating
Aperiod townhouse in Blythswood Square in Glasgow has changed hands this week. Number 6/7 comprises 16,200sq ft and has been sold for £2.45 million to Marshall CDP.
You might think that such an office space deal is nothing out of the ordinary but to fans of salacious Victorian murders, among which I number, the address might ring a bell.
This is the notorious Madeleine Smith house, where the young villainess – or heroine depending on your viewpoint – was accused of poisoning her lover in 1857, by means of putting arsenic in the cocoa she served to him from her basement bedroom window.
Her subsequent trial caused a worldwide scandal, particularly as the case against her was found not proven.
The house now carries a plaque identifying it, and I never fail to thrill when I look down at the offending window as I pass.
Some might think my interest is ghoulish but a curiosity about historic criminal cases very often ties in neatly with an interest in property.
The facts, meticulously recorded in court documents, reveal the intricacies of ordinary lives and how people lived in their homes, which no other contemporary records can hope to match.
Madeleine’s family were intimately connected with Glasgow architecture too. Her father James Smith was a wealthy architect, and her mother, Elizabeth, was the daughter of the neoclassical architect David Hamilton, responsible for the Royal Exchange – now Glasgow Gallery of Modern Art.
The family owned a holiday home in Rhu, near Helensburgh, which is another notable property, designed and built at the peak of the Victorian industrial boom.
Meanwhile the unfortunate deceased, Pierre Emile L’angelier, who ranked below Smith in the social order, lived in somewhat insalubrious lodgings at 144 Renfrew Street.
The layout of the houses in question and the way in which the family used them are often central to the outcome at the criminal trial.
In Madeleine’s case, it could be argued that it was not a good idea to put an impetuous teenage daughter in an accessible basement room so far from her protective parents upstairs.
They presumably believed it would be impossible for a well-bred society girl to descend to the level of taking a lover, let alone murdering him. In that, the jury may have agreed, hence the verdict.
The construction company which has bought the premises will now presumably have offices in the room where the deed was done. One hopes the staff will not be troubled by Madeleine’s ghost, which is rumoured to hang about.