Hangman William Marwood caused a sensation in Dumbarton when after hanging a prisoner outside the local prison on Tuesday, October 19th, 1875, he submitted his expenses to the local council. He claimed for a dozen bottles of beer, two bottles of whisky and brandy, a bottle of sherry, and a bottle of port, most of which, he said, he drank on the morning of the execution.
On the scaffold was a 56-year-old shoemaker, David Wardlaw, who ended his 30-year long marriage by killing his wife Mary at their home in Bonhill, Dumbarton. Ironically in view of what followed, he pleaded provocation through being drunk the court heard that the marriage had been one long argument from beginning to end, until he finally beat her to death with a hammer.