10/30/2026
Fascinating story just in time for Halloween...
The man whose double life inspired the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde lived in what is now Central Edinburgh Quaker Meeting in Scotland. This is his story.
Thomas Weir and his sister Jean were executed in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1670 after confessing to necromancy and other crimes. A man respected in the city for his piety for most of his life, Weir began confessing to a secret life of occultism and perversion during an illness in his seventies. Because of his good reputation, he was not believed at first, but his sister backed up his account. When they were found guilty, Weir was garroted and burned at the stake. He refused to pray for forgiveness in his final moments, saying, “I have lived as a beast, and I must die as a beast.” His sister was hanged. This story of a man who was seemingly an upstanding citizen admitting to terrible crimes was still so famous 200 years later, that it inspired Edinburgh native Robert Louis Stevenson to write Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
Weir’s house stood empty for centuries because it was considered the most haunted place in the city. Historian Dr. Jan Bondeson, of Cardiff University, said, “Although no person dared live there, its windows were lit up at night, with weird shapes flitting past the dirty panes and strange music coming from inside.”
After Weir's death, people spoke of hearing his coach and horses thundering down the road, while it was claimed his walking stick, which was burned with his body, was seen floating along the street searching for its master.
The house was once bought in 1780 by an ex-soldier and his wife who were said to have fled on their first night after seeing an apparition of a calf propping itself up with its forelegs and staring at them in bed.
Although Weir’s house was popularly thought to have been demolished in the 19th century, researchers have recently discovered that the builders of a church, now Central Edinburgh Quaker Meeting, actually incorporated the old dwelling into the structure.
When press came to interview Anthony Buxton, manager of the Quaker meetinghouse, he said, “This was the first time I had been told Major Weir’s home was actually here. That said, one of my staff some years ago said he had seen Weir walk through the wall. If Dr. Bondeson is right, Weir’s house is in our toilet, which seems appropriate.”
