Criminal past: Bloody year of brutality

We often think of extreme violence as a sad sign of our times, but our five-part Criminal Past series will change your view of old Edinburgh. 1900-10

ONE man, a shotgun and a trail of carnage. It sounds a very modern crime: a shooting rampage, senseless murders, the mystery of the motive and the shock felt by a community plunged into grief.

Yet this was 1902, and the shotgun murders of two men - very nearly three - in the dignified setting of Surgeons' Hall, one of the Capital's most prestigious learning establishments, were just one gruesome instalment in Edinburgh's summer of bloody murder.

Indeed, over the course of a few months during one of the chilliest summers on record, six people would be slain and other lives shattered.

The most disturbing unfolded on Tuesday, June 24, as respected chemistry professor and upstanding soldier, Colonel William Ivison Macadam, and eager young student James Bell Forbes went about their daily business within the laboratories of Surgeons' Hall.

For Col Macadam, 46, the day's business involved sifting through final preparations for nothing less than the coronation of King Edward. As commander of the Second Scottish Volunteer Coronation Battalion, he was expected to depart for London that very afternoon to help prepare for the event.

As he sorted through coronation paperwork and set about completing some minor experiments, he must have struck a fine and easily distinguishable figure in his smart uniform of brigade-major of 1st Lothian Volunteer Brigade.

Certainly, Daniel McClinton, "porter and general servant" at Surgeons' Hall, had no trouble finding him on what would soon become a very grim June morning. He was a former soldier with the 71st Regiment Highland Light Infantry and still maintained a role as a military volunteer. His military links meant no-one looked twice when he arrived for work clutching his rifle.

Not even his wife seemed concerned when he left that morning, telling her: "I'm not for any dinner today, I'm for volley firing."

For reasons best known to himself, McClinton, a 22 shillings-a-week cleaner and porter, harboured a grudge against the professor and, that summer morning, he would snap.

Col Macadam, above left, was experimenting with the flashpoint of oil alongside his brother and business partner Stevenson Macadam, 37, in the hall's laboratory. Together they hunched over a bench, engrossed in their work.

Suddenly, a door opened and in walked McClinton, above right, rifle in one hand, ammunition slung over the other.

Later, Stevenson would tell the High Court that, unusual as it may seem today, he didn't even look twice at McClinton, standing in the doorway, shotgun in his arm, ammunition over his shoulder.

It was only when shots rang out twice and his startled brother staggered, bleeding, across the room that he realised what was happening.

"Stand where you are," bellowed McClinton to Stevenson. "I won't shoot you if you stand where you are. If you interfere with me, I will."

James Kirkcaldie was the laboratory head assistant. Drawn to the laboratory by the odd succession of noises, he encountered a terrifying scene.

As his senses struggled to take in what lay before him, McClinton turned, aimed his rifle and fired.

Kirkcaldie fell behind a desk, apparently shot.

Student James Bell Forbes, of Ravenscraig, Mortonhall Road, was next. Seemingly oblivious to what was unfolding, he was smiling broadly when he opened the lab door only to be blasted by McClinton's fire. He fell, mortally wounded, to the cold floor. Two men dead, another apparently injured, Stevenson Macadam surely must have feared for his own life.

But it wasn't his blood the gunman wanted to spill. Instead, McClinton insisted he had two others - the hall's janitor and another porter - to "get level with".

He may have managed it, but for Stevenson's shrewd skills as a negotiator. Eventually, McClinton finally handed over his shotgun, even warning Stevenson to be careful as it was loaded.

McClinton appeared at the High Court that September, where the jury heard that the porter had become increasingly agitated in the months leading up to the shootings, filled with an irrational fear of plots against him and unsubstantiated plans to deprive him of his army pension.

Yet the jury opted against finding him guilty of murder. Instead, Daniel McClinton was convicted of culpable homicide, his fate to be sentenced to life behind bars.

The Surgeons' Hall case was just one in a summer of bloodshed, much of it fuelled by booze.

Drink certainly flowed in the Cowgate on the weekend of June 28, when Hugh Mooney viciously beat his live-in partner Helen Black to death using, of all things, his wooden leg as a weapon.

Despite the woman's desperate cries of "murder", no-one paid attention. Indeed, the High Court was told such cries were common in the Cowgate.

Mooney was found guilty of culpable homicide and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Drink was also at the heart of the brutal killing of Potterrow woman Mary Hastie, 47, that summer.

It was July 12 and she had already been drinking when she joined neighbour John Adamson's wife at the pub.

The two women made their way back to the tenement at 39 Potterrow, only for Adamson to erupt in fury.

Enraged that Mrs Hastie had led his wife astray, Adamson pummelled her head and face with almost anything he could lay his hands on - a clock, fireplace tongs, a fender and a frying pan.

Beaten and blooded, his victim was barely recognisable.

Police surgeon Sir Harvey Littlejohn arrived at the scene to find her barely alive but, rather than rush her to hospital, he decided to leave her be, yet it took over two hours for her to take her final breath.

Adamson denied murder and a jury took just seven minutes to return a culpable homicide verdict. He was sentenced to 20 years.

Edinburgh was still coming to terms with the Old Town killings when attention turned to Merchiston and yet another violent death.

It's not known what caused Colin Brown to turn on landlady Mary McIntosh at their house at 11 Rochester Terrace, but at his first appearance in court charged with her murder it was already clear he was suffering from serious mental health issues.

By the time of his trial in September, all parties agreed he was unfit to plead and he was remanded at the Royal Edinburgh Hospital. If that case was vague in detail, the nauseating description of what happened to Stockbridge mother Janet Nicoll on August 16 - witnessed by four startled children - more than made up for it.

She was a temperate woman who had never appeared drunk, unlike her booze-soaked husband, Andrew.

He had beaten her before and she had shown friends the marks he'd left on her face and body to prove it. But that summer night, the callous beating would be the last.

Drunken Nicoll turned on her, assaulting her so badly she couldn't lift herself from the passage outside her 16A Clarence Street house and was found lying, moaning with pain, by two men.

Rather than fetch help, they merely shifted her closer to her front door where her husband would later find her and deliver the second part of his awful attack.

This time four pairs of young eyes were on him. Children, aged from 15 down to ten, watched aghast as Nicoll lifted his foot and stamped on his stricken wife's face and then kicked her ribs.

A post-mortem revealed five broken ribs, punctured lungs, bruises and wounds over her back and hips, and the mark from her husband's shoe on her face.

It took a jury just seven minutes to return their verdict, but not murder, instead it was culpable homicide.

For the life of his wife, Nicoll was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Senseless murder devastates family

EDINBURGH was shocked in March 1909 by the senseless and motiveless murder in broad daylight of a little boy.

It was nearly 7pm, Tollcross was buzzing with tramcars and traffic, and little Francis Demeo, six, right, had left his pregnant mum at the family house at 3 Home Street for some fresh air.

He was near the stairway entrance to an underground lavatory when John O'Neill, below, a strapping, six-foot, red-haired Irishman, approached.

O'Neill chatted pleasantly to the lad then, without warning, snatched him up and threw him down the lavatory stairs. His heavily pregnant mother was left in a state of collapse as he took his final breath.

Thousands lined the streets to see his small white coffin on its way to his resting place in Comely Bank, marked by a marble stone bought by the community. O'Neill was convicted of murder but acquitted on the grounds of insanity and ordered to be detained at "His Majesty's pleasure''.

Demented by grief, his mother delivered her baby daughter six days after the funeral, only to abandon her three weeks later.

The child, Suzie McKay, grew up in foster families, orphanages and workhouses, and aged just four, was begging on the street for bread.

Her life story, A Discarded Brat: A Tiny's Tale of Survival, ran to ten editions and she raised tens of thousands of pounds for charities.

1906

The threat of starvation was too much for West Calder limestone miner Robert Ness, 66, who decided to murder his wife then take his own life.

Sadly, he'd used the only sharp knife in the house, his pocket knife, on his unfortunate wife. Left with just a blunt table knife, his own suicide bid failed miserably.

1907

John Hart and Alexander Wyllie thought they'd got away with stealing 79 from Leven Street grain merchant James Thomson and Sons. When Hart was found in Dundee, he had just 27 left – most of the cash blown on fancy suits and booze.

But among the money was a North of Scotland Bank note, number A.W. 32575. A teller from the bank confirmed the number as on a note paid to Mr Thomson. Hart was given four years, Wyllie, three.

1908

Edwardian Edinburgh families are warned to beware of fraudsters from America targeting them for cash. In an early version of today's e-mail frauds, householders were warned of bogus letters asking for cash to help American gold prospectors which would be returned once they struck gold.

1910

Speeding road users proved troublesome for Edwardians, so police set up a speed trap to snare culprits.

Edinburgh-based Captain John Arthur Ballard hit the road on his motorbike that August – and was caught careering along at 16mph in a 10mph zone.

At least one element of the law was on his side. Sheriff Campbell Smith was not convinced speeding was even an offence and delivered a not proven verdict.