William Brodie
British cabinet-maker and thief (1741-1788)
William Brodie (28 September 1741 – 1 October 1788), often known by his title of Deacon Brodie, was a Scottish cabinet-maker, deacon of a trades guild, and Edinburgh city councillor, who maintained a secret life as a burglar in order to support his mistresses and to fund a gambling addiction.
Life
William Brodie was the son of Francis Brodie, Convenor of Trades in Edinburgh. His father's eminent position allowed William to become the Deacon of Wrights and Masons around 1781.
In 1774, Brodie's mother is listed as the head of household in their Edinburgh home on Brodie's Close on the Lawnmarket. The family (William and his brothers) are listed as "wrights and undertakers" on the Lawnmarket. By 1787 William Brodie is listed alone as a wright living at Brodie's Close. The house was built towards the foot of the close in 1570, on the south east side of an open court, by Edinburgh magistrate William Little, and the close was known as Little's Close until the 18th century.
With 'improvements' being made to Edinburgh, the mansion was demolished around 1835 and is now covered by Victoria Terrace. (At a later date, Brodie's workshops and woodyard, which were situated at the lower extremity of the close, made way for the foundations of the Free Library Central Library on George IV Bridge.)
By day, Brodie was a respectable tradesman and Deacon (president) of the Incorporation of Wrights, which controlled the craft of cabinetmaking in Edinburgh, and this made him a member of the town council. Part of his work as a cabinetmaker was to install and repair locks and other security mechanisms.
The public source identifies “William Brodie” as british cabinet-maker and thief (1741-1788). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around William, Brodie and British.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q709522. VIAF identifies the subject as 61395804. The Library of Congress control number is nr90027751. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1741, 1788, 1781 and 1774.
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This entry incorporates text from “William Brodie” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.