Raising the Dead

The Men Who Created Frankenstein

Andy Dougan

• Publisher: Birlinn
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN:
  9781780275017
• eBook ISBN:
  9780857905536
• Topic: Histoire
• Subtopic: Médecine alternative et complémentaire

Mary Shelley's 1818 novel, Frankenstein, introduced readers around the world to the concept of raising the dead through scientific procedures. Those who read the book were thrilled by this incredible Gothic adventure. Few, however, realised that Shelley's story had a basis in fact. What she imagined as her modern Prometheus was a serious pursuit for some of the greatest minds of the early 19th century. It was a time when scientists genuinely believed, as Frankenstein did, that they could know what it feels like to be God.

Raising the Dead is the story of the science of galvanism - named after the Italian scientist Luigi Galvini who had conducted the original experiments - a movement that investigated the theory of 'animal electricity', a unifying vital spirit that animates us all, its leaders believing that they stood on the brink of immortality.

While they ultimately failed in this challenge, their studies mapped out the nervous system and made valuable and enduring contributions to modern-day medical knowledge and understanding - from theorising the concept of the modern-day defibrillator, and 'deep brain stimulus' which is used to treat personality disorders, to experimental procedures involving the use of microchip-controlled devices to bridge damaged spinal nerves.

1 Let his blood be shed

The chiming of the Tollbooth clock at Glasgow Cross was a frequent and cheering sound for most eighteenth-century Glaswegians. For one thing, when the clock struck one each day it marked the beginning of what was generally regarded as dinner hour, with the city coming to a virtual halt. There was even a time, early in the century, when this was such a welcome announcement that the dinner hour was marked by professional musicians playing traditional Scottish airs on chimes at the Tollbooth Steeple between one and two. This mildly festive arrangement ended when the chimes and the mechanism simply wore out. A new clock replaced the old one in 1816, but, fine timepiece and fitting adornment to Glasgow’s most famous landmark though it was, the new clock provided no dinnertime gaiety, merely chiming the hours and quarters. As it struck two on 4 November 1818, it was not just the signal for a thriving and growing city to get back to work – for Matthew Clydesdale it meant something else entirely. He knew that the sound of the same clock striking the next hour was almost certain to be the last he would hear. He also knew that the sound of the chimes at the hour after that would mean that it wouldn’t be long until the beginning of his final journey, a procession through the streets of Glasgow that would bring him to an inevitable meeting with Andrew Ure and James Jeffray. These three men – the latter two eminent and respected scientists and Clydesdale a barely literate manual worker – could not have come from more different worlds, but their paths were nonetheless destined to cross, and in a way that would enthrall, inspire and disquiet people in equal measure for centuries to come.

Their appointment had been set the previous month, when Clydesdale had been sentenced to death at the Glasgow Circuit Court. Capital sentences were relatively rare in Glasgow, with judges seldom having to don the black cap and pass what was sonorously referred to as the ‘Last Penalty of the Law’. Unusually, the same sitting of the court that convicted Clydesdale had also sentenced three other people to die: Simon Ross, James Boyd and Margaret Kennedy. Their crimes were as dissimilar as the people themselves. Simon Ross and James Boyd were convicted in connection with the burglary of a house belonging to John Scouler in Rutherglen. The welcome distraction of a nearby display by a troupe of acrobats had been enough to lure Mrs Scouler away from her fireside. She was gone, she later claimed, for no more than half an hour and had made sure to lock up the house before she left. When she came back, however, she was shocked to find the back door ajar. Not only that, a window at the back of the house was propped open with a stick. Rushing inside she found her home had been ransacked – chests and drawers had been opened, bedding and crockery had been thrown around and when she looked more closely she saw that some of her clothes had been taken. Mrs Scouler sent for her husband, who worked nearby, and the commotion as she raised the alarm also attracted her neighbours. Forming a makeshift search party John Scouler and his neighbours took to the streets in search of the thieves. Neither a long nor intensive search proved necessary, for they soon found Charlotte Hutchison selling the clothes on nearby Polmadie Bridge. When she was confronted by Mr Scouler she quickly pointed out Ross and Govan, another accomplice, who were lurking nearby, claiming they had given her the bundle of clothing. Switching his attention to his two new targets John Scouler approached the pair. Before he had even opened his mouth Govan lashed out and punched him, knocking him to the ground. While Mr Scouler recovered his composure several of his friends grabbed Ross and Govan, who were subdued after a brief but doubtless violent struggle. Once the various stories came out it appeared that the actual housebreaking had indeed been carried out by Ross and Boyd. The fact that the pub was only just across the road from the Scoulers’ house suggests a crime of opportunity rather than a carefully planned criminal endeavour. When the case came to court on 1 October Govan and Hutchison were found guilty of reset, the sale of stolen goods. Hutchison was fortunate enough to have found witnesses who would testify to her previous good character and she and Govan were both jailed for twelve months. Ross, however, was a recidivist housebreaker who seems to have tried the patience of the authorities once too often, and both he and Boyd were found guilty of housebreaking.

Margaret Kennedy, for whom the judge had also donned his black cap, was convicted of passing forged notes. Although the authorities took a dim view of crimes of deception, her sentence was surprising, as only four women had been hanged in Glasgow since public executions began in 1765; the most recent had been twenty-five years earlier, when Agnes White was hanged for murder. After representation was made to the Prince Regent, Kennedy’s sentence was commuted and she was sent to the Bridewell, a prison in Duke Street in the East End of the city, where she would serve her time at His Majesty’s Pleasure. Kennedy was not the only one of the four to avoid hanging. Although Boyd had been convicted alongside Simon Ross and had played a large part in the break in, he was only a boy of fourteen; it was no surprise that he ultimately received a lesser sentence. Clydesdale and Ross, however, condemned by their age, their gender and their crimes, could hold out no such hope. They were due to meet the one man no Glaswegian wanted to encounter in a professional capacity, Thomas Tammas Young, the public executioner.

When Ross and Boyd were sentenced to hang they reportedly heard Lord Succoth’s verdict ‘with great indifference’, before being led away. This indifference may seem surprising, especially since their crime was hardly earth-shattering. Boyd, being a juvenile, might have been reasonably convinced that his sentence would be commuted. Ross, on the other hand, might have been expected to protest at what was, even within the context of the times, a draconian verdict, albeit that a substantial portion of the few capital sentences handed down in the Glasgow of the time were for robbery and theft, especially housebreaking. Ross was, however, a repeat offender within the terms of the legal system of the time in the sense that, although he had never actually been convicted, he had reportedly been arrested on several occasions. Perhaps the authorities felt that an example should be made of him, but at least one newspaper commented on the ‘trifling’ nature of Ross’s offence in relation to the sentence that was handed down.

If Ross’s offence appeared relatively minor, there could be no doubting the severity of the charges against Matthew Clydesdale. Clydesdale was facing a murder charge. The offence had taken place on 27 August 1818 in the village of Drumgelloch, near Airdrie in Lanark-shire, some 15 miles east of Glasgow. In the formal wording of the charge, Clydesdale was accused of ‘wickedly and maliciously attacking and assaulting Alexander Love . . . and inflicting on his head and other parts of his body many severe blows and wounds with a coal pick in consequence of which he died in a short space thereafter’. The charge, serious enough in itself, was compounded by the fact that Clydesdale was young and ‘athletically built’ while his victim was a man of eighty. This fact, along with the relative rarity of murder trials and the free entertainment they provided, drew public interest. That there had already been an almost unprecedented three death sentences passed at this court sitting only added to the drama. The New Jail itself, where the trial would take place and where Clydesdale was being held, was well situated to draw crowds, standing as it did on the so-called Low Green, that part of Glasgow Green that was crossed by Saltmarket Street. It may have been a damp and miserable day outside but these factors ensured that on the day of Clydesdale’s trial the Judiciary Hall of the New Jail was full to bursting. Although not the official name, Glaswegians would still have been referring to the courtroom and the prison as such because it had only been opened four year earlier, in 1814. The handsome building was positioned on the so-called Low Green, that part of Glasgow Green that was crossed by Saltmarket Street. The Green was one of the most populous parts of the city and the centre of nineteenth-century Glasgow life, thanks to the immigrants who came, mostly from Ireland, and settled not far from where they had landed at the Broomielaw. Glasgow Green was also historically the place where Glaswegians took their ease and leisure.

The old building that the New Jail replaced had held generations of Glasgow children in gruesome thrall. The crumbling north-east tower, demolished in 1790, had been adorned with the spikes on which were placed the heads of those who had died for adhering to their Protestant faith in the reigns of Charles II and James VII of Scotland. Many a despairing parent had warned their children that they might suffer a similar fate if they did not mend their ways. This grisly history notwithstanding, it was decided that the old Tollbooth was completely ill-suited for this new modern era. For one thing, it was falling into rack and ruin; for another it had only thirty-two cells and was nowhere near big enough to cope with the expanding city’s population, which by that stage had reached around 100,000. After seven years of labour and craftsmanship the New Jail was opened in 1814, at a final cost of £34,811. Although this was substantially more than agreed, it was generally held that this magnificent building was a handsome addition to Glasgow’s burgeoning reputation for architectural beauty, ‘in consonance with the more enlightened and philanthropic views of the age’. Standing just a little back from the north bank of the River Clyde on the west corner of the Low Green, the New Jail was 215 feet long and 114 feet wide. The building was most impressive when seen from the front, which faced to the east into the Green. A huge central portico was flanked by two recessed sections with two wings on either side.

The grand main entrance gave way into the Judiciary Hall, which was the main courtroom, and if ever a room was designed to invoke the full majesty of the law, this was it. Seven huge windows on its west side made the room light and airy, allowing daylight to illuminate the process of justice in much the same way that the roofless Roman Senate allowed the gods themselves to witness the passing of man’s laws. When presiding over the court, the judge sat on a handsomely decorated Judge’s Bench, which was elevated to further emphasise his status. To his right sat the jurymen – there were no female jurors in these days – and on his left there were seats for magistrates; directly in front of the judge’s bench and in the full glare of his scrutiny stood the accused, or ‘pannel’ in the legal language of the day. Behind him, seats for the advocates and other court officials separated the formal participants in the proceedings from the audience. The public section was spacious, capable of holding several hundred, and to ensure that justice was not only done but seen to be done, the audience section was elevated. Those who filed into the building on the day of Clydesdale’s trial would very likely have been impressed by the interior décor – the elaborate friezes and cornices, carefully wrought stuccoed ceilings and ionic columns – which gave the room an air of Greek formality.

It seems reasonable to speculate that none of this would have made much of an impression on Matthew Clydesdale as he watched proceedings unfold, given that he was on trial for his life. The judge, Lord Gillies, took his place on the bench and the two advocates, Mr Drummond for the prosecution and Mr Taylor for the defence, took up their positions before a crowd eager for sensation and entertainment. Although he may not have been very intelligent – a newspaper account described him at one point as ‘silly-minded’ – even Matthew Clydesdale could not have failed to be aware of how little chance he stood of receiving anything other than the maximum penalty of the law. From reports it appears that, as in so many cases that have come before the Scottish courts down through the years, drink was the catalyst for this human tragedy.

The evening of 26 August had begun as a celebration, with the powerfully built Clydesdale in a jovial mood after winning a foot race against another weaver, William More, in Clarkston, not far from where Clydesdale lived. Afterwards the race rivals, along with Clydesdale’s brother John and another friend, James Rankine, had gone to a pub at Clarkston Toll to toast the victory with the money Clydesdale had won. The pub owner, John Smillie, gave evidence that although it had been a boisterous evening it was generally good-natured and that at one point in the evening Matthew Clydesdale had entertained the clientèle with some songs. Switching from beer to spirits Clydesdale’s party settled in for a long session and it wasn’t until almost two the following morning that Mr Smillie was able to persuade them to leave. Rankine and John Clydesdale wanted to head home but Matthew Clydesdale wanted more drink; in the end Rankine and his brother left him to it and went on their way. More, who was himself keen to go home after a long day, tried to placate Clydesdale and at the same time take his mind off the drink by challenging him to another race, a rematch of the previous morning’s contest. Despite being the worse for drink, Clydesdale agreed. Witnesses later remarked that although he had taken a large amount of beer and spirits Clydesdale ‘could walk as well as when he entered’ and appeared to know what he was doing.

The second, drunken race began with the men heading from Clarkston in the general direction of Drumgelloch but they then went their separate ways, with Clydesdale running off in another direction. At this point accounts given during the trial begin to differ. William More testified that a few minutes after Clydesdale and he parted company he heard a cry of ‘Murder!’ It was a high-pitched cry, he added, making him think that it was a woman who was shouting. As it turned out, the alarm call was made by a teenage boy, fifteen-year-old Alexander Love. The young man lived with his grandparents in Drumgelloch and although it was barely two in the morning he and his grandfather, also Alexander, were on their way to an early morning shift at the Blackridge coal pit, which was about a mile away. Young Alexander testified that Clydesdale appeared as they reached the main Glasgow to Edinburgh road, only 200 yards from their house. There was a brief discussion that quickly turned argumentative. Clydesdale knocked the old man to the ground and then took his stick and laid into the younger man. Breaking free, young Alexander Love ran back to his grandfather’s house. When he was questioned in court he said he remembered dropping the coal pick he was carrying in his desperation to get away. He also recalled that as he looked back he saw Clydesdale pick it up and use it to attack his grandfather, striking him repeatedly. Even in that fairly remote spot the commotion from the attack began to attract attention. William More, Clydesdale’s ertstwhile drinking companion and running opponent, attracted by the sounds, had by now made his way to the scene. He had begun to run in the direction of the original noise, but before he reached his destination, he heard a person groaning. Stopping, he found old Mr Love lying by the side of the road. More claimed he shouted loudly ‘That’s a murdered man’ then saw someone run off towards the south, in the direction of Clydesdale’s home. More was quickly joined by William Love, the victim’s son and father to young Alexander Love, who only lived a short distance away; father and son carried the old man, by now bleeding profusely, back towards his own house. As they made their way, Alexander Love’s wife rushed into the street shouting ‘My man is killed’. Mrs Love’s anguished cry proved to be correct when, several days later, her husband, with three pickaxe wounds in his back and one to his head, succumbed to his injuries.

While Clydesdale and Alexander Love were having their lethal encounter, James Rankine and John Clydesdale, according to their court testimony, were making their way home, unaware of how events were unfolding behind them. They went to the Clydesdales’ house in Hartfield in Bothwell, which is about three miles south of Clarkston, and had not been home long when Matthew Clydesdale arrived in a state of some agitation and disarray. As well as being dishevelled and showing signs of having been in a fight he was also bleeding from a deep wound in his knee. When his brother asked what had happened Clydesdale claimed he had been attacked on the road by ‘two tinkers’, who had demanded his money. James Fairley, another man who was staying in the house at the time, later testified that Matthew Clydesdale had said that ‘he did what he could but he would tell no man that; the man who wounded his knee would never do so again’. Fairley said he had taken this to mean that Clydesdale had killed a man. Later that day the magistrates arrived at Alexander Love’s house and, although they were unable to talk to the elder Mr Love, young Alexander was judicially examined. Clydesdale was arrested and charged with the murder of the elderly miner when he died a few days later.

For most of the trial Clydesdale sat impassively in the dock as his lawyer, William Taylor, did everything he could to make the best of a bad situation. On the face of it William Taylor’s presence could not be guaranteed to inspire confidence in the heart of anyone whose life depended on him. He was well known locally since his father, Dr William Taylor, was minister at St Enoch’s Church in the city. The younger Taylor is described as being tall, lean and cadaverous, and those who knew him doubted whether a smile had ever passed those gaunt features. One local journalist summed up his appearance when he said he ‘was like the picture of a tattie bogle fitted to scare away the crows’. Scarecrow or not, however, William Taylor was also described as ‘a learned youth’, and although this was his first case since having recently been called to the Scottish Bar he knew all the facts and had studied it intently. The fact that he and his family were well known in Glasgow only served to strengthen his resolve to make a good impression on his first appearance in his native city. Taylor had learned his opening address by heart and made an impassioned plea to the jurymen. It seems, however, that on the day the occasion may have got the better of the novice advocate. Peter Mackenzie, who worked in the Sheriff Clerk’s department in Glasgow at the time, provides a colourful eyewitness account of the younger Taylor’s opening plea: ‘His very appearance at first riveted or commanded the especial attention of the jury but on he went in a most screeching and unnatural style . . . he threw his arms upwards and around him, clenching occasionally the mahogany table at the bar with some tremendous blows . . . he had delivered such a volume of froth at the end of [the] two hours which his speech lasted that the audience in token of their approbation gave him a round of applause, while the prisoner himself appeared to be vastly delighted with the apparent success of his eloquent advocate.’ Taylor, it seems, was so voluble that even Clydesdale briefly appeared to believe that there was a slight chance of avoiding the hangman’s rope.

Next William Taylor attempted to cast doubt on the case against Clydesdale, doing as much as he could to provide his client with some kind of credible defence. In one, somewhat desperate, strategy Taylor claimed that young Alexander Love could not possibly have seen his client clearly because, he argued vehemently, although the night was clear, a new moon was a few days away so there would not have been enough light to make an identification. In any event, according to Taylor, young Love had seen Clydesdale only once before and that was when he was running on the morning before the murder. The young man refused to be browbeaten: he had only been about 20 feet away from Clydesdale at the Clarkston race and had heard others calling him by name.

Then, he began his case for the defence. The prosecution had wasted little time in pointing out that the peculiarly shaped wound on Matthew Clydesdale’s leg was of exactly the right size and shape to have been inflicted by a pick like the one young Alexander Love had dropped and seen Clydesdale pick up. Taylor called witnesses to say that this singular injury could have been done on a paling. Other witnesses said that Clydesdale had taken another road home and so could not have murdered Alexander Love. Where Taylor found these witnesses is uncertain, since it was late at night and there were very few people involved in the actual incident. Earlier witnesses had claimed that Clydesdale seemed none the worse for drink; Taylor’s witnesses suggested that, given the exhausting day he had had and the amount of drink he had consumed, Matthew Clydesdale would not have been capable of the crime. Someone, Taylor’s argument continued, must have been lying in wait for Love and his grandson – their shift pattern was, after all, well known, as was their usual route to work. Taylor had already scored one minor success in cross-examination when he had made Love admit that he was not sure whether Clydesdale had been wearing trousers or br...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Raising the Dead
• List of illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• Prologue
• 1 Let his blood be shed
• 2 The Resurrection men
• 3 The last penalty of the law
• 4 Slaughtered like an ox
• 5 Spirits in the ether
• 6 The battle of the frogs
• 7 A tale of thrilling horror
• 8 The Glasgow Frankenstein
• 9 It’s alive?
• 10 The aftermath
• 11 Man and Superman
• Notes
• Select Bibliography
• Index
• Picture Section