Madeleine Smith Acquitted of Murder

Madeleine Hamilton Smith (29 March 1835 – 12 April 1928) was a 19th-century Glasgow socialite who was the accused in a sensational murder trial in Scotland in 1857.

Smith was the first child (of five) of an upper-middle-class family in Glasgow; her father, James Smith (1808–1863) was a wealthy architect, and her mother, Elizabeth, was the daughter of leading neo-classical architect David Hamilton.

She was born at the family home 81 Wellington Place in Glasgow.

In 1855 the family moved from India Street to 7 Blythswood Square, Glasgow, living in the lower half of a house owned by her maternal uncle, David Hamilton, a yarn merchant.

The house stands at the crown of the major development led by William Harley on Blythswood Hill, and they also had a country property, “Rowaleyn”, near Helensburgh.

Smith broke the strict Victorian conventions of the time when, as a young woman in early 1855, she began a secret love affair with Pierre Emile L’Angelier, some ten years her senior, an apprentice nurseryman who originally came from the Channel Islands. He worked as a packing clerk in a warehouse at 10 Bothwell Street nearby.

The pair would meet late at night, at Smith’s bedroom window and also engaged in voluminous correspondence. During one of their infrequent meetings alone, she lost her virginity to L’Angelier.

Smith’s parents, unaware of the affair with L’Angelier (whom Smith had promised to marry) found a suitable fiancé for her within the Glasgow upper-middle class, William Harper Minnoch.

Smith attempted to break her connection with L’Angelier and, in February 1857, asked him to return the letters she had written to him.

Instead, L’Angelier threatened to use the letters to expose her and force her to marry him. She was soon observed in a druggist’s office, ordering arsenic, which she signed for as M.H. Smith.

Early on the morning of 23 March 1857, L’Angelier died from arsenic poisoning. He is buried in the Ramshorn Cemetery on Ingram Street in Glasgow.

After his death, Madeleine Smith’s numerous letters were found in the house where he lodged, and she was arrested and charged with his murder.