"Loyal Peter", as Mackenzie was known, was the editor of the Reformers' Gazette, a popular Saturday publication in the west of Scotland. He was born in Dumbarton and worked in the sheriff clerk's office there before moving to Glasgow in 1814 and turning to newspapers.
The Loyal Reformers' Gazette, as it was initially known, first appeared on 7 May 1831. Once the Reform Bill was passed it became (on 12 May 1832) the Reformers' Gazette. Mackenzie was quickly threatened with gagging orders and at one stage spent a month in prison. The Reformers' Gazette became a twice-monthly publication, and ran in this form until May 1836. It then became a weekly newspaper, latterly called the Glasgow Gazette until its demise in 1865.
Mackenzie died in London on 17 March 1875, while visiting one of his daughters, and was buried in the Glasgow Necropolis.
HALF-A-CENTURY ago the "Reformers' Gazette" was a power in the West of Scotland, and as each Saturday came round the curiosity of the quidnuncs was stirred to know what new job was to be denounced, what fresh scandal to be exposed. The editor was not in nubibus, but Peter Mackenzie, or "Loyal Peter," as he was familiarly styled, was as well known as his paper. Born of humble parentage at Dumbarton, in 1799, he passed through the Burgh School, and at the early age of ten began the business of life in the office of the Sheriff-Clerk, Mr. Robert McKenzie of Caldarvan, "an upright, gaucy old lawyer," with a large county practice, from which he passed to that of Archibald Colquhoun of Macaulay & Colquhoun. Their Glasgow correspondent was Aeneas Morrison, a sound lawyer with a good business - in early life clerk to the great Whig advocate, John Clerk (Lord Eldin) - to whose office he was transferred in August, 1814. Two Dumbarton cousins, Robert Napier, afterwards of Shandon, then a blacksmith in Greyfriars' Wynd, and Alexander Mathieson, afterwards minister of St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Montreal, had preceded him to Glasgow and shared their lodgings with him. He attended the law lectures of Professor Davidson in the University, and was a member of the Literary and Commercial Society, a famous debating club which included in its lists many prominent citizens, and most of the literary and scientific men connected with Glasgow at the time. After being some years in Mr. Morrison's employment young Mackenzie started business as a writer on his own account, under the patronage of one of his master's clients - the notorious Grahame of Gartmore - the "Squire Chattermore" of the "Northern Sketches." The connection had been a valuable one to the old agent, but was disastrous to the younger. Forgetful of the precepts of King Solomon, he became security for the laird for £10,000 and had the usual experience of a cautioner. In 1827 he was called upon to pay in consequence of the bankruptcy of his principal, and not having the wherewithal his estate was sequestrated.
On 30th October, 1792, the Scottish branch of the Friends of the People had its first meeting in the Star Inn, Ingram Street, and passed resolutions to obtain by all constitutional means an equal representation of the people and a shorter duration of Parliaments. Meetings were held, speeches made, and petitions forwarded to Parliament. Reform was asked. None was needed, and to suggest it was rebellion, said the Government, and repressed the movement with merciless severity. In 1816 the clouds again began to gather and darken. The peace of the preceding year had been followed by great depression of trade and suffering amongst the commercial and labouring classes, and political associations sprung up on all sides. The Government took fright, and reverting to the policy of 1793-94 instituted a series of State trials of the most paltry description. Then came "the Radical year" of 1819-20, a commission of Oyer and Terminer, and the conviction of four-and-twenty weavers, tailors, shoemakers, and day labourers, all of whom were sentenced to death, and three of them actually executed.
Peter Mackenzie took a keen and intelligent interest in all that was passing. Mr. Morrison was a staunch Reformer, and his clerk adopted the same political creed and gained some notoriety while still at the desk by getting up an address to Queen Caroline which set all Tory Glasgow by the ears. He soon found that the noisy life of the demagogue was more suited to his genius than the quiet and unobtrusive business of a conveyancer; and the law having failed him, he resolved to become the professional advocate of Reform, turn editor, and start a periodical of his own.
The newspaper press was not then the property of a few wealthy monopolists. War correspondents, verbatim reports, telegraphic news, a daily issue did not exist; but a comparatively small capital was required to set up and carry on a journal, and newspapers were consequently more numerous than now. The "Scotsman" had been instituted at Edinburgh in 1817 as a Radical organ; the "Sentinel" - still remembered by the duel which its malicious virulence produced at Glasgow in 1820 as a Government paper. The "Edinburgh Evening Courant" - the leading journal in the country - was neutral, and so likewise was the "Glasgow Herald," then a small sheet edited by Samuel Hunter, which made its appearance twice a week, on Monday and Friday. The "Courier," now under the charge of William Motherwell, who succeeded James McQueen on his retiral from the editorship in 1830, was strongly Tory, but was written chiefly in the interests of slavery, the sugar lords, and West India proprietors. The "Chronicle" - of which David Prentice was editor, and John Douglas of Barloch the leading spirit and principal proprietor - was Whig and steadily supported the Reform movement, but principally devoted itself to replying to the "Courier." To meet the views of the more advanced Liberals two new papers were started, the "Free Press" and the "Scots Times," the former under the editorship first of William Bennet, next of William Spencer Northouse, the latter by Robert Malcolm, auctioneer. Somewhat later came the "Argus," the organ of James Oswald and "the Clique," edited by William Weir; the "Constitutional," a Tory paper started after the collapse of the "Free Press," under the editorship of William Bennet, who changed his politics with this paper, and afterwards of Philip A. Ramsay, and latterly of John Frame; and the "Day," a non-political journal edited by John Strang - the "Necropus" of the "Gazette" - the first daily newspaper in Scotland. In addition to these Glasgow furnished the "Scottish Guardian," the organ of the High Churchmen of the establishment; the "Glasgow Journal," a Liberal organ and the favourite paper of the farmers; and the "Glasgow Evening Post," also Liberal. The two latter were issued by the proprietors of the "Chronicle," and as showing the value of newspaper property it may be mentioned that for the copyright of the whole three, and of the "Paisley Reformer" thrown in, with type, presses, and plant, Mr. Kippen of Busby paid £575 in 1838. The working classes were represented by the "Trades' Advocate" started in 1829 by Mr. Warden, a teacher, which was succeeded by the "Liberator," under the editorship of John Tait, and subsequently of the eccentric John Taylor, a surgeon in Ayr. It had the largest circulation in the whole West of Scotland except the "Herald," and became in consequence a favourite with the vendors of quack medicines, whose advertisements formed a substantial portion of the pabulum provided for its readers. Circulations, however, are comparative. In 1838 when the "Herald" reached 2,800 it was considered enormous.
The newspaper stamp, the tax on advertisements, and the Six Acts sorely crippled the press, and to escape them various periodicals were issued without advertisements, resembling a magazine as much and a pamphlet as little as possible. It was a publication such as this that Mackenzie decided upon, and on 7th May, 1831, appeared the first number of the "Loyal Reformers' Gazette," 16 pp. 8vo, price 2d. "We are Radicals to the backbone. We are young recruits who have enlisted into one of the finest regiments now in Europe. It is called the Royal Regiment of British Reformers, commanded by our patriotic monarch, William IV.... If any Radical has a grievance to redress let him only write to us. We shall instantly sharpen our swords and sally forth on his behalf. We expect to kill with our own hands at least half a dozen of Boroughmongers or Antis,(*) every week. Perhaps we shall finish hundreds of them without a groan. The more the better! We are billetted in the meantime in the REFORM BATTERY. We see more CANNON on the ramparts than we can count." In such guise was the "Gazette" presented to the public - its military tone being accounted for by the fact that the editor had been an ardent member of the volunteer regiment "The Glasgow Sharpshooters," when it was enrolled in 1819-20. Its loyalty was gushing: the first page was adorned with a royal crown and an eagle bearing the motto, "The King and the People!" The majority for the Reform Bill was announced as a "majority for the King and the People," and when it was defeated in the House of Lords the devoted editor was enabled to announce "the cheering - the glorious intelligence that our beloved Sovereign William IV. has yet saved the liberties of England - God bless him." After Parliament had been prorogued, a new session begun, the Bill again introduced, and the Ministry had been defeated and had resigned, the "Gazette" appeared on 12th May, 1832, with a black border. Next week it became the "Reformers' Gazette," and the motto that the eagle bore was simply "The People," and so remained until 1st September, when it became, "For the rights of the People," and, so continued till the close of the chapter.
The editor had other troubles besides sentimental ones. Scarcely had the "Gazette" been started before he was threatened with a prosecution under the gagging Acts, on the ground that it was a newspaper. The proceedings were abandoned, but were afterwards revived, judgment obtained, and Mr. Mackenzie sent to prison, where he was kept for about a month. The "Trades' Union Gazette," another Glasgow publication, was also prosecuted a few months later, and suppressed. The "Tradesman" was started upon its ruins, but only lived through eighteen numbers, the ingenuity of the editor not being sufficient to evade the stamp laws. The "Gazette's" plan was, instead of a weekly, a monthly publication in double numbers, which was successful. It ran on until May, 1836, and forms six volumes, each furnished with that indispensable accessory an index. The staple subject of discussion was Reform, the progress of the Bill, the elections and the doings of the Reformed Parliament. Every Tory misdeed was shown up, the pension list analysed, electoral lists printed, with curious bits of gossip interjected. Everything that could be scented out of the nature of a job, everything that could be characterized as chicanery or oppression was duly chronicled week by week.
The writing was of a slapdash, slipshod description, bristling with strong statements and stronger epithets. The Whigs were denounced as freely as the Tories, and Radicals who differed from Peter as hotly as the Whigs: the "Chronicle" as violently as the "Courier"; and the Radical "Liberator" of John Tait, "Purity John," as fiercely as either. The Reform "Clique" was as obnoxious as the Anti-reform Boroughmongers to the secretary of the Glasgow Political Union, Mr. Peter Mackenzie. When the elections came James Oswald, John Crawford, and John Douglas, all old and tried Reformers were as distasteful to the "Gazette" as the turncoat James Ewing; and the only person fit to represent Glasgow was Sir D. K. Sandford, whom no one had ever known as a reformer, or heard of as a politician, until he appeared as a candidate.
The "Gazette" having served its time was merged in an ordinary weekly newspaper, started by Mr. Mackenzie in 1837 under the old title, and was carried on latterly as the "Glasgow Gazette" until 1865, when it was killed by the penny dailies. The same style of writing and denunciation, when opportunity occurred, continued, but there was often a great deal of interesting matter in it, some of which was occasionally transferred to the discriminating columns of the "Herald" which was then noted for the excellence of its selections and the meagreness of its original contributions.
Mr. Mackenzie did some good service in his day. He unravelled the spy system, and exposed Richmond, the Glasgow spy; some years later he brought to light the fraudulent designs of The Independent West Middlesex Fire and Life Insurance Company, and after a considerable crop of actions for libel, had the satisfaction of seeing a gang of swindlers extinguished. He was a gossip and somewhat of an antiquary. The pages of the original "Gazette" are full of curious and generally unkind bits of information respecting the leading citizens of the day. The columns of the newspaper were always open to antiquarian contributions regarding Glasgow matters, especially of a local character, from which an interesting selection was made and published in four small volumes, 1852-54, under the title of "Northern Notes and Queries."
After the newspaper was given up Mr. Mackenzie prepared three volumes of "Reminiscences of Glasgow and the West of Scotland." The first two contain a history of the Reform movement in Glasgow from the days of Thomas Muir till the Reform Act, and the recital of a number of celebrated local trials, interspersed with personal reminiscences and with anecdotes, and explanations derived from Aeneas Morrison and others engaged in them. The third volume contains accounts of various Glasgow characters - Hawkie, Blind Alick, Jamie Blue, and all the regiment; but the greater part of these were contributions by John Buchanan to the "Gazette."
Mr. Mackenzie died in London on 17th March, 1875, when on a visit to one of his daughters, and is buried in the Necropolis, Glasgow. He was a lively and interesting companion, a good friend, an affectionate husband, and a warm-hearted, kindly father.
(*) The Antis were the Anti-reformers or Boroughmongers, as Peter delighted to call them, and lists of whom were from tine to time published in the "Gazette." William Brown of Kilmardinny, Professor James Towers, Samuel Hunter of the "Herald," Bailie Archibald McLellan, James Campbell and William Campbell (of J. & W. Campbell & Co.), Bailie George Burns (of G. & J. Burns), Bailie James Martin his partner, and James Burns afterwards of Kilmahew, his brother, besides scores of other now less remembered citizens, are duly noted and labelled as thorough-paced Tories, Maynooth petitioners, supporters of James Ewing, all synonymes for boroughmongers, or opponents of progress and popular rights.
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