Selection from Glasgow Characters Peter Mackenzie

Alexander Macdonald was born near Penrith in England in 1771, but his father was a true

Highlander from Inverness.

  Alick married a Glasgow woman in 1790 and settled in the city.

 He lost his eyesight from an attack of small-pox. He was an admirable fiddler, and was much employed for penny reels at Fraser's Hall in King Street and was in great demand at weddings.

Said to be the ugliest man in Glasgow. Small pox had deprived him of an eye and made his nose lie

flat on his face. His habit was to follow women that he found attractive around the streets of

Glasgow.

 However he never at any time behaved rudely or impolitely towards them. He was aware

that people on the streets were laughing at him but this gave him no concern. In fact he seemed to

court this sort of notoriety. He died by his own hand in 1806.

Captain Archibald Paton was well known for his suit of snuff coloured brown, blue striped

stockings and fine cambric ruffles. He held a commission in a regiment that has been raised in Scotland for the Dutch service and the plain Stanes in front of his house formed the daily parade of this veteran.

  He studied well the art of fencing and excelled in small sword exercise. The gallant

Captain often spoke of his brave doings while seated around a bowl of his favourite cold punch made with limes from his estate in Trinidad.

Hawkie, whose real name was William Cameron was born in St Ninians, near Stirling. He was for a

period of thirty years one of the Glasgow’s greatest and wittiest beggars. He irresistibly attracted

the attention of the rich as well as the poor, the young and the old, all ranks and conditions of men.

 His appeals to them when he was in the humour made them hold their sides and feel their pockets

as they came near him, with his droll speeches and harangues on the public streets.

 He was fascinated by public executions because he made his living from selling 'True Confessions' of

condemned prisoners. He died in the Old town's Hospital of Glasgow in Clyde Street, in or about

about the month of September 1851.

Jamie Blue was universally known as the Shaws' (Pollokshaws’) Poet and went often by the name

of Jamie Cock-up, for he sometime wore a tremendous Kilmarnock cowl, which, when the spirit

moved him he "cocked up on the crown of his head" and brandished it at other times with great

animation. His final days were spent as an inmate in the Parish of Govan's Poor House situated in

the Old Cavalry Barracks in Eglinton Street.

John Wallace, who purchased Whitehill, was a Virginia merchant and possessed large West Indian

estates. He represented the male line of Sir William Wallace, the Scottish patriot.

A gentlemen of much sagacity and experience. He was a partner of Messrs. Somerville, Gordon and Co., American merchants and owner of three large sugar estates in Jamaica. He was also a principal partner of the extensive concern known as "The King Street Sugar House". He died in 1805.

Major was a common face among local glaswegians in the streets of St Mungo. He is described as

knock-kneed, twisted, and round shouldered. Despite this, the Major was greatly admired for his

singing and dancing and the playing of his 'violin' which consisted merely of two sticks without any

strings.