The Great British Bake Off judge found out that his great-great grandfather Alexander McKenzie, known for being a pianist with a drinking problem in Liverpool, was actually born in Glasgow. Alexander’s father and Paul’s great-great-great grandfather, Kenneth McKenzie, was a police officer in the Scottish city. Unfortunately, he was actually chucked out of the police for a series of transgressions including drinking on duty and assaulting a prisoner.
Glasgow was the first city to have a professional, paid police force, 29 years before Sir Robert Peel set up the Metropolitan Police in London.
Glasgow’s police force was set up and paid for by the middle classes who were afraid that the poor would revolt over their dreadful living conditions.
Historian Dr Bill Knox told Paul: “Kenneth as a policeman would have been operating in mid-19th century Glasgow, and Glasgow at that time was described by one politician as ‘the nearest suburb to hell’.
“It was shockingly polluted, there was overcrowding, disease, poverty, you name it ‒ Glasgow had it.
“It was a rough job, it was a difficult job.”
Men like Kenneth McKenzie were recruited for their brawn, rather than brains.
Their lack of education would make them more likely to take orders and accept low pay, and a strong build made them more physically imposing.
Kenneth’s police record showed he was 5’10’’, a towering figure at the time when the average male Glasgwegian was 5’5’’.
He came down from Ross-shire in the eastern Highlands to find regular work in the city.
Dr Knox said: “Highlanders were much stronger and fitter than men in Glasgow, so to the Glaswegian population they seemed like giants.”
Police officers had to live in the area of their beat, and Kenneth’s beat was the docks, where he would patrol for a 10 hour shift every night of the week.
The docks were notoriously difficult to police and had a reputation for drunken violence, theft, gambling, prostitution and smuggling.
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Paul mused: “So he was a bit of a meathead that came down from the Highlands, but he did a good job.
“I like to think he did a good job.”
However, when Dr Knox pulled out Kenneth’s police record there were a number of serious offences attributed to him.
On August 31, 1852 he was found “drinking in a public house” while on duty.
On April 29, 1853, he was accused of “assaulting a prisoner in his charge”.
On May 26, he was accused of “improper conduct when on duty”, which Dr Knox said “could have been anything”.
Finally, on July 2, 1856, accused of “worse of liquor, receiving four pennies as a fee.”
After these transgressions racked up, he was dismissed from the service.
Paul laughed awkwardly, but Dr Knox assured him that dismissal was actually a common occurrence in the police force at that time, with about a third of the police force leaving in any given year.
If this statistic is to be considered, Kenneth may have actually lasted longer than many of his fellow police officers.
Paul mused: “Three of the four are drink-related and probably the last one is as well.”
Dr Knox explained: “It doesn’t surprise me, because drink culture was endemic in Scotland in the 19th century, maybe it still is.
“The other thing is, alcohol was preferable to water because until we have clean drinking water it was better to children beer than it was to give them water.”
In a tongue in cheek defence of his ancestor, Paul said: “See, this is what he’s thinking and I totally understand that!
“Because he didn’t trust the water and because he came from the Highlands, you could drink from a stream and he comes here and can’t drink from a stream ‒ so he has a drink!
“He’s doing what everyone else would have done!”
Paul recalled how Kenneth’s son Alexander was also a big drinker, likely taking it on from his father.
However, Paul’s grandfather and great-grandmother – Alexander’s daughter and grandson – were teetotal, presumably after seeing the damage that alcohol can do to a man and his family.
He also learned that Kenneth moved to Liverpool after his dismissal, but later returned in old age.
He was accepted into a poor house on April 7, 1893 and died two days later.
Dr Knox said: “To come here he must have been incredibly desperate, because only destitution in the 19th century was recognised as poverty, so he had no resources, no one he could rely on, nothing to draw on.
“So he came here as an act of desperation.”
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