Talk:Maiden (guillotine)

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Origins?

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1307 the Scottish Maiden was first documented in use in Ireland in 1307. No source is cited/given. Which is correct? 193.108.78.10 (talk) 14:36, 11 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for drawing attention to this. It is demonstranly untrue. I have removed that unsourced assertion, as it is contradicted by reliable sources. I have also changed the date for the last use of the machine from 1708 to 1710, as per information given in Sir Herbert Maxwell's Edinburgh, A Historical Study, published in 1916. Maxwell is not always 100 per cent accurate, so if someone else has an even more reliable source for the year 1708, they should revert my action. I am also going to remove or amend the implausible explanation given for the machine's nickname, as (according to Maxwell) it was constructed in 1564 and first used in April 1565. Given the date of the source and the authors' distance in time from events, I think the reason given for the name is pure conjecture. Kim Traynor | Talk 14:06, 19 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have reverted an edit which placed scans of a 1781 encyclopaedia entry on the page. Three reasons: it led to a visual cluttering of the page and I can't see the virtue of showing such an entry rather than just paraphrasing its content where relevant or using it as a source reference. Also, Tennant is a 17th century antiquarian who has been superseded by later, more reliable studies. Kim Traynor | Talk 13:56, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]