Researching a 19th-century murder

If you can’t get to the National Records of Scotland (NRS) to find out about a criminal trial, you can still learn a lot online – from Scottish newspaper reports. For example, the entry for AD14/80/22 on the NRS catalogue details “precognition against Thomas Anderson for the crime of murder” in 1880. A search of the British Newspaper Archive at britishnewspaper archive.co.uk gives the details behind this case.

In June 1880 Thomas Anderson, a tenant farmer, went on trial at the High Court of Justiciary, charged with the murder of outdoor worker Jane Lindsay. Five months earlier, Anderson had allegedly attacked Lindsay at a pool of water known as the ‘Lint Hole’ in Cumbernauld, North Lanarkshire, strangling her with her own shawl.

Jean Sproull, a friend of the dead woman, told the court that Anderson had paid Lindsay’s rent, and 5s a week, in return for sexual favours. As a result of these liaisons, Lindsay had a 16-month-old son by Anderson at the time of her death. Sproull claimed that Anderson had “said he would tak’ her, but he durst’nt do it until his brother died”. Although Lindsay was said to have threatened Anderson, saying if he wouldn’t marry her, she would “put him whar the craws widna fyle on him”, other witnesses spoke of her being the victim of his abuse.

The defence argued that Lindsay had killed herself, and the jury’s verdict was ‘not proven’, which, by this time, had come to mean that the accused had not been proved to be guilty beyond reasonable doubt.