Madeleine Smith

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.

[2] 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.

[3] The house stands at the crown of the major development led by William Harley[4] on Blythswood Hill, and they also had a country property, "Rowaleyn", near Helensburgh.

[5] 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,[6] an apprentice nurseryman who originally came from the Channel Islands.

[citation needed] Following the scandal her family were forced to quit their Glasgow home and their country villa Rowaleyn in Rhu and moved to Bridge of Allan in central Scotland.

[13] After the trial, The Scotsman ran a small article stating that a witness had come forward claiming that a young male and female were seen outside Smith's house on the night of L'Angelier's death.

Smith's story was the basis for several plays and the distinguished David Lean film Madeleine (1950), starring Ann Todd, Ivan Desny and Leslie Banks.

Jack House's book Square Mile of Murder (1961), which contains a section on Smith, formed the basis for a BBC television version in 1980.

The case was an inspiration for Wilkie Collins' novel The Law and the Lady (1875), though the only main similar features were the problem of the Scottish "Not Proven" verdict and arsenic poisoning as a means for murder.

[16] In the early 1930s, MGM starred Joan Crawford, Nils Asther and Robert Montgomery in a film called Letty Lynton, which was based on a 1931 novel of the same title by Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes.

[18] Other novels based on the case include The House in Queen Anne's Square (1920) by William Darling Lyell, Lovers All Untrue (1970) by Norah Lofts, and Alas, for Her That Met Me!