Popular Culture
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".
The dichotomy between Brodie's respectable façade, and his real nature inspired Robert Louis Stevenson to write The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Stevenson's father had furniture made by Brodie.
Deacon Brodie is commemorated by a pub of that name on Edinburgh's Royal Mile, on the corner between the Lawnmarket and Bank Street which leads down to The Mound, and a close (or alleyway) off the Royal Mile has been named after him. There is also a pub in Ward Road, Dundee named after him. A pub in New York City carrying his name sits on the south side of the famous west side 46th Street Restaurant Row between 8th Avenue and 9th Avenue, closer to 9th Avenue.
In 1975 publisher Hamish Hamilton published a book by Forbes Bramble about his life: The Strange Case of Deacon Brodie.
In 1997 a TV movie of the same name was made starring Billy Connolly and was made in Edinburgh.
Read more about this topic: William Brodie
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