Heroes & villains

Ed Balls finds a crusading ancestor and a dark scandal in his family tree

- CAREN CLARK, HANNAH DAVIES.

LAST ONE FACTUAL

Who Do You Think You Are? Tuesday, BBC1 HD, 9pm

During his time in Parliament, Ed Balls, by his own admission, was seen as a ‘bruiser’. So the former Labour MP was intrigued to learn about a determined fight for justice in his ancestry on Who Do You Think You Are?

Balls’ maternal four-times great-grandad Christopher Green was a Norfolk agricultural labourer, who, in the 1820s, went to prison for smashing a threshing machine in protest against new technology threatening his livelihood.

A decade later, Christopher was accused of an arson attack on a farm before charges were dropped. He was then tried for a charge of stealing a ewe, but the jury found him not guilty.