HISTORIAN Malcolm Archibald spends his life reading 19th century court records and newspapers to use in his books.

Yet it was the anecdote of his grandfather from five decades ago that helped plant the seed for his latest publication, Glasgow: The Real Mean City.

His grandfather, George, who served for 22 years with the Royal Scots, fought alongside soldiers from Glasgow in the trenches of the First World War.

"He mentioned he saw a lot of Germans with broken noses, bruised foreheads and black eyes," said the award-winning author.

"Apparently some Glasgow soldiers had helmets that they sharpened, and they gave a 'Glasgow kiss' to prisoners of war."

Malcolm's own life could rival the twists of his page-turning crime books. He has been a travel agent, a stock controller for John Lewis and, for 10 years, a postie.

He hung up his mail-bag to return to study as a mature student – and gained a first-class history degree in 2001.

The 55-year-old lecturer now writes historical literature and crime fiction.

His latest work lifts the lid on the real-life 19th century criminals who populated the sinister underbelly of the second city of the empire.

By trawling newspapers from the time, he found court cases that sparked his interest, which he then researched in the National Archives of Scotland.

Indeed, he wanted to use one sentence he found in the Evening Times' sister paper, The Herald, from October 1950 as his book's title, yet "A great city with a strong leaven of scoundralism in its population" was deemed not to be commercial enough.

"I don't think people would want to read a book about fatal attack after fatal attack," said dad-of-three Malcolm. "I liked the interesting cases – the ones that were a wee bit different.

"And I like the atmosphere of that time, the coach chases and skeleton keys."

In his research, the writer found ample murky instances of murder, rape, assaults, petty thefts, drunken misdemeanours and fraud – all crimes that wouldn't be out of place now.

OTHER crimes were less common such as the baby minders who used laudanum to keep their charges quiet.

Elsewhere, hawkers stripped children of their clothing to sell and there were highway robberies, poisonings and garrotting of unsuspecting men in the street.

"Garrotting started in Glasgow – a claim to fame," quips Malcolm, who lives near Elgin in Moray, and is a lecturer at Inverness College.

"In the 1850s, it was a new crime in Britain, where people were grabbed by the throats and strangled until they were unconscious."

Malcolm's book doesn't make for easy reading: it outlines brothels and illicit drinking dens used by the 2000 people who lived in squalor in Tontine Close; mistresses who sought vengeance with a bottle of vitriol; public hangings; sectarian skirmishes among those labelled either a 'Billy' or a 'Dan'.

"Old Glasgow was the worst area – people moved from the old cities into the new buildings and left the poor behind," said Malcolm.

"The poor had to survive somehow. I think for a lot of people the crime was not evilness but was necessity."

Madeleine Smith's infamous poisoning of her lover Pierre Emile L'Angelier features in the book, as do ruthless pair James Sutherland and Alexander Houston, who in 1894 were found guilty of enticing random people into a pub to share a drink, poisoning them and taking their valuables.

Sitting in a cafe overlooking the Old Sheriff Court building, Malcolm recalls reading about one heist that took place nearby in Ingram Street.

In 1811, the Paisley Union Bank was hit by three robbers who used skeleton keys to get in after dark – and the perpetrators were chased by coach from Glasgow to London.

"One man was called 'Huffy' White, a fantastic name – he got hanged eventually," said Malcolm.

Such was the prosperity of Glasgow that it became a target for high-class criminals, including international jewel thief George de Fontenoy, who had jewels brought to his hotel room during a visit in 1877 only to escape through a secret passageway.

In 1853, another inventive jewel thief, George Jackson, accessed jewellers DC Rait in Buchanan Street by tunnelling through the fireplace in a warehouse directly above, but was caught by a one-legged night watchman.

Just as there was much ingenuity in the criminal world, law enforcement also broke new ground in Glasgow, with the first Glasgow Police Act of 1800 creating the City of Glasgow Police, the oldest in Britain.

"The first police force was small but efficient," said Malcolm. "What it did do was move the criminals from Glasgow to the outlying towns.

"The outlying towns began to get more crime and Glasgow got safer."

Malcolm has researched and written about his favourite subjects for decades – even while a postman in Peebles, in the Scottish Borders.

BUT it was during a family holiday that Malcolm's wife, Cathy, finally managed to convince her husband to leave his job.

"She bullied me. I was stagnating at work," he says smiling.

The graduation of a former postman with a first-class honours from Dundee University generated news stories across the UK.

He went on to research crime and punishment in the City of Discovery in his book A Sink of Atrocity, and he is now charting crime in the Highlands for another book.

In the realm of fiction, his adventure mystery Whales For The Wizard won the Dundee Book Prize in 2005, while his Victorian crime thriller The Darkest Walk won the People's Book Prize in 2011.

One story from his research into Glasgow's Victorian crimes has stirred in his imagination the idea for a new book – the 1880 theft of a 460-ton steam ship called Ferret, which was spotted by a Glasgow-born policeman in Melbourne, Australia.

Yet, during months spent poring over reports of crime in the Dear Green Place, a sense of community still shone out.

"You'd find people running away and going to houses for sanctuary and the doors were unlocked. Why were the doors not locked in a bad city?

"The Real Mean City is only one part of it."

l Glasgow: The Real Mean City is published by Black & White, priced £9.99.