I’ve seen some stuff online about a Madam Violet and the Edinburgh vampire hive and was just wondering if you guys knew if it was actually real and if you know any details about it.
It seem kind of like an Internet urban legend type thing to be honest.
If you’re asking if there is a Madame Violet who is associated with a group of real vampires in Edinburgh, then I think I can safely say that the answer is no.
If you’re asking if there’s a group in Edinburgh that calls themselves vampires and perhaps plays dress-up, who knows? Google comes up with some hits but it could all be, as you say, some sort of urban legend or even a stealth marketing campaign for a book, game, or movie.
It’s supposedly from the 1800s. This is Madame Violet, apparently:
Actually, seeing as how it is from Little Falls, NY, this might be someone deeply involved in the ‘spiritualist’ movement, despite the claims that she is “Madam Violet” from Edinburgh.
Further Googling says that that is an image of a fortune teller.
So I’m thinking the whole “Madam Violet” thing was made up to give that picture a creepy story.
But I’m still interested if there is/was a thing called the “Edinburgh vampire hive.”
It’s an interesting illustration of how a single picture with a caption like “Edinburgh vampire hive” and no cite or other information to back it up, can spread itself all over the internet. She was supposedly twice voted Most Scary Woman in the UK, 1882 and 1884 but no one can say by whom or cite the publication.
Google it and you get over 2,000 hits. But they are all the same photograph.
The photograph dates only from 2008 and is by the photographer Christine Elfman. Everything else appears be just an internet myth invented in the past few years.
What might be rather more interesting would be the backstory on the photograph supposedly of Hattie ‘The Mad Hatter’ Madders.
I was going to suggest that it looks like a Victorian post-mortem photo because of what looks like wires around the fingers holding the hands in place.
Interesting artist. I particularly liked the idea of flowers painted out of themselves.
Possibly the British Christmas edition of Playbpy in those years, as edited by a young Hugh Hefner.
Or St. Nicholas Magazine.
Could they be characters from a novel?
With the old photo appropriated to that end?
The photo is an art work from 2008.
You will kick yourself when you see it … the dress is actually newspaper print , the writing invokes reference to “her” life history… the artist says the photo represents the anonymity of death, the photo shows no more about her than the headlines in the newspaper.
So the question that cries out for an answer is… who was voted Most Scary Woman in 1883?
Oddly, when I google Madam Violet and the Edinburgh vampire hive the first result I get is this Wikipedia entry:
It does not mention Vampires or hives, but it does have the word “Edinburgh” and the name “Violet” in it. The rest of the Google result page is links to articles about the photograph.
Why a completely unrelated (other than two word matches) Wikipedia article is the first result I can’t say. Google really falls down on this one.
Unlike the “Madam Violet” photograph, where the clothing would have been just as bizarre in the 1880’s as it is now, the “Hattie Madders” photograph is plausibly a real period photo, but from about 40 years later than the text indicates; I collect fashion magazines and photos from the early 20th century, and her outfit looks completely appropriate for the early 20’s, including the giant ribbons and goofy hat. I suspect that this is a real lady who posed for a gag photo some 95 years ago, with the “scariest woman” / boxing story appended by someone who can’t spot the difference between 1880’s fashion and 1920’s fashion. 
I was thinking along the same lines. Although your eye for fashion is clearly far better than mine, my hunch was that it’s an old photograph. But, whereas the original of the ‘Madam Violet’ photograph is relatively easy to track down online, the ‘Hattie Madders’ one seems only to appear with the doubtless spurious information about her as the winner of ‘the Most Scary Woman in the UK award in 1883’. So we’re left none the wiser as to her true identity. Like you, my further hunch would be that it was originally a gag photo. Which would have a certain interest in its own right, if only we knew the precise context. So your thoughts on the dating are really helpful.
Also it may be worth pointing out that people outside government publications — of which this was not one — would not use ‘The UK’ as a construct in the '80s, or any time until the mid-20th century ( if then: I’ve never heard it used in casual conversation ), but would say ‘Britain’ instead, or even ‘Great Britain’, or ‘England’ [ to stand in for all the other countries, Scotland, Ireland etc… ] — Unless travelling abroad, inhabitants wouldn’t usually refer to themselves as Britons, except in song.
I wouldn’t think ‘scary’ was used much in the 19th century.
Just to say that I have a whole shelf of books, some dating back at least 130 years, on Edinburgh’s history and it’s characters and have never come across a reference in them to Madame Violet and vampires.
According to the Google Ngram Viewer, it was barely used even prior to 1920 or so and only experienced its jump in popularity after 1960.
Interestingly, UK has a very similar trajectory.
I am having too much fun.