Peterloo Massacre
Encyclopedia
The Peterloo Massacre occurred at St Peter's Field, Manchester
, England, on 16 August 1819, when cavalry charged
into a crowd of 60,000–80,000 that had gathered to demand the reform of parliamentary representation.
The end of the Napoleonic Wars
in 1815 had resulted in periods of famine
and chronic unemployment
, exacerbated by the introduction of the first of the Corn Laws
. By the beginning of 1819 the pressure generated by poor economic conditions, coupled with the lack of suffrage
in northern England
, had enhanced the appeal of political radicalism
. In response, the Manchester Patriotic Union, a group agitating for parliamentary reform, organised a demonstration to be addressed by the well-known radical orator Henry Hunt
.
Shortly after the meeting began, local magistrates called on the military authorities to arrest Hunt and several others on the hustings with him, and to disperse the crowd. Cavalry charged into the crowd with sabre
s drawn, and in the ensuing confusion, 15 people were killed and 400–700 were injured. The massacre
was given the name Peterloo in ironic comparison to the Battle of Waterloo
, which had taken place four years earlier.
Historian Robert Poole has called the Peterloo Massacre one of the defining moments of its age. In its own time, the London and national papers shared the horror felt in the Manchester region, but Peterloo's immediate effect was to cause the government to crack down on reform, with the passing of what became known as the Six Acts
. It also led directly to the foundation of The Manchester Guardian (now The Guardian
), but had little other effect on the pace of reform. In a survey conducted by The Guardian in 2006, Peterloo came second to the Putney Debates
as the event from British history
that most deserved a proper monument or a memorial. Peterloo is commemorated by a plaque close to the site, a replacement for an earlier one that was criticised as being inadequate as it did not reflect the scale of the massacre.
was represented by two Members of Parliament (MPs). Voting was restricted to the adult male owners of freehold land valued at 40 shillings
or more – the equivalent of about £
80 as of 2008 – and votes could only be cast at the county town of Lancaster
, by a public spoken declaration at the hustings. Constituency boundaries were out of date, and the so-called "rotten borough
s" had a hugely disproportionate influence on the membership of the Parliament of the United Kingdom
compared to the size of their populations: Old Sarum
in Wiltshire
, with one voter, elected two MPs, as did Dunwich
in Suffolk
, which by the early 19th century had almost completely disappeared into the sea. The major urban centres of Manchester
, Salford, Bolton
, Blackburn, Rochdale
, Ashton-under-Lyne
, Oldham
and Stockport
, with a combined population of almost one million, were represented by either the two county MPs for Lancashire, or the two for Cheshire
in the case of Stockport. By comparison, more than half of all MPs were elected by a total of just 154 voters. These inequalities in political representation led to calls for reform.
in 1815, a brief boom in textile manufacture
was followed by periods of chronic economic depression, particularly among textile weavers and spinners. Weavers who could have expected to earn 15 shillings for a six-day week in 1803, saw their wages cut to 5 shillings or even 4s 6d
by 1818. The industrialists, who were cutting wages without offering relief, blamed market forces generated by the aftershocks of the Napoleonic Wars. Exacerbating matters were the Corn Laws
, the first of which was passed in 1815, imposing a tariff
on foreign grain in an effort to protect English grain producers. The cost of food rose as people were forced to buy the more expensive and lower quality British grain, and periods of famine and chronic unemployment ensued, increasing the desire for political reform both in Lancashire and in the country at large.
By the beginning of 1819 the pressure generated by poor economic conditions was at its peak and had enhanced the appeal of political radicalism
among the cotton loom weavers of south Lancashire. In response, coupled with the lack of suffrage
in northern England
, a "great assembly" was organised by the Manchester Patriotic Union, a group agitating for parliamentary reform. The secretary of the union, Joseph Johnson, wrote to the well-known radical orator Henry Hunt
asking him to chair a large meeting planned for Manchester on 2 August 1819. In his letter Johnson wrote:
Unknown to either Johnson or Hunt, the letter was intercepted by government spies
and copied before being sent on to its destination. The contents were interpreted to mean that an insurrection
was being planned, and the government immediately responded by ordering the 15th Hussars to Manchester.
The mass public meeting planned for 2 August was delayed until 9 August. Announcing the delay, the Manchester Observer reported that the intention of the meeting was "to take into consideration the most speedy and effectual mode of obtaining Radical reform in the Common House of Parliament" and "to consider the propriety of the 'Unrepresented Inhabitants of Manchester' electing a person to represent them in Parliament". The local magistrates, under the leadership of William Hulton
, had already been advised by the acting Home Secretary, Henry Hobhouse, that "the election of a Member of Parliament without the King's writ" was a serious misdemeanour, encouraging them to declare the assembly illegal.
, had written to the magistrates instructing them that it was not the intention to elect an MP that was illegal, but the execution of that intention.
The press had frequently mocked previous meetings of working men because of their ragged, dirty appearance and disorganised conduct. The organisers were determined that those attending the meeting at St Peter's Field would be neatly turned out and would march to the event in good order. Samuel Bamford
, a local radical who led the Middleton
contingent to the assembly, wrote that "It was deemed expedient that this meeting should be as morally effective as possible, and, that it should exhibit a spectacle such as had never before been witnessed in England." Instructions were given to the various committees forming the contingents that "Cleanliness, Sobriety, Order and Peace" and a "prohibition of all weapons of offence or defence" were to be observed throughout the demonstration
. Each contingent was drilled and rehearsed in the fields of the townships around Manchester, further adding to the concerns of the authorities. One spy reported that "seven hundred men drilled at Tandle Hill
as well as any army regiment would". A royal proclamation forbidding the practice of drilling was posted in Manchester on .
(an open piece of land) alongside Mount Street which was being cleared to enable the last section of Peter Street to be constructed. Piles of brushwood had been placed at the end of the field nearest to the Friends Meeting House
, but the remainder of the field was clear. Thomas Worrell, Manchester's Assistant Surveyor of Paving, arrived to inspect the field at 7:00 am. His job was to remove anything that might be used as a weapon, and he duly had "about a quarter of a load" of stones carted away.
Monday, 16 August 1819, was a hot summer's day, with a cloudless blue sky. The fine weather almost certainly increased the size of the crowd significantly; marching from the outer townships in the cold and rain would have been a much less attractive prospect.
The Manchester magistrates met at 9:00 am, to breakfast at the Star Inn on Deansgate
and to consider what action they should take on Henry Hunt's arrival at the meeting. By 10:30 am they had come to no conclusions, and moved to a house on the southeastern corner of St Peter's Field, from where they planned to observe the meeting.
They were concerned that it would end in a riot, or even a rebellion, and had arranged for a substantial number of regular troops and militia yeomanry
to be deployed. The military presence comprised 600 men of the ; several hundred infantry
men; a Royal Horse Artillery
unit with two six-pounder (2.7 kg) guns; 400 men of the Cheshire Yeomanry
; 400 special constable
s; and 120 cavalry of the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry
, relatively inexperienced militia recruited from among local shopkeepers and tradesmen, the most numerous of which were publicans. The Yeomanry were variously described as "younger members of the Tory party in arms", and as "hot-headed young men, who had volunteered into that service from their intense hatred of Radicalism".
The British Army
in the north was under the overall command of General Sir John Byng
. When he had initially learned that the meeting was scheduled for 2 August he had written to the Home Office
stating that he hoped the Manchester magistrates would show firmness on the day:
The revised meeting date of 16 August, however, coincided with the horse races at York
, a fashionable event at which Byng had entries in two races. He once again wrote to the Home Office, saying that although he would still be prepared to be in command in Manchester on the day of the meeting if it was thought really necessary, he had absolute confidence in his deputy commander, Lieutenant Colonel Guy L'Estrange.
, Royton
(which included a sizable female section), Crompton
, Lees
, Saddleworth
and Mossley
. Other sizable contingents marched from Middleton
and Rochdale
(6,000 strong) and Stockport
(1,500–5,000 strong). Reports of the size of the crowd at the meeting vary substantially. Contemporaries estimated it from 30,000 to as many as 150,000; modern estimates are 60,000–80,000. Scholar Joyce Marlow describes the event as "The most numerous meeting that ever took place in Great Britain" and elaborates that the generally accepted figure of 60,000 would have been 6% of the population of Lancashire, or half the population of the immediate area around Manchester.
The assembly was intended by its organisers and participants to be a peaceful meeting; Henry Hunt had exhorted everyone attending to come "armed with no other weapon but that of a self-approving conscience", and many were wearing their "Sunday best" clothes. Samuel Bamford recounts the following incident, which occurred as the Middleton contingent reached the outskirts of Manchester:
Although some observers, like the Rev. W. R. Hay, chairman of the Salford Quarter Sessions
, claimed that "The active part of the meeting may be said to have come in wholly from the country", others such as John Shuttleworth, a local cotton manufacturer, estimated that most were from Manchester, a view that would subsequently be supported by the casualty lists. Of the casualties whose residence was recorded, 61% lived within a three-mile radius of the centre of Manchester. Some groups carried banners with texts like "No Corn Laws", "Annual Parliaments", "Universal suffrage" and "Vote By Ballot". The only banner known to have survived is in Middleton Public Library. It was carried by Thomas Redford, who was injured by a yeomanry sabre. Made of green silk embossed with gold lettering, one side of the banner is inscribed "Liberty and Fraternity" and the other "Unity and Strength".
At about noon, several hundred special constables were led onto the field. They formed two lines in the crowd a few yards apart, in an attempt to form a corridor through the crowd between the house where the magistrates were watching and the hustings, two waggons lashed together. Believing that this might be intended as the route by which the magistrates would later send their representatives to arrest the speakers, some members of the crowd pushed the waggons away from the constables, and pressed around the hustings to form a human barrier.
Hunt's carriage arrived at the meeting shortly after 1:00 pm, and he made his way to the hustings. Alongside Hunt on the speakers' stand were John Knight, a cotton manufacturer and reformer, Joseph Johnson, the organiser of the meeting, John Thacker Saxton, managing editor of the Manchester Observer, the publisher Richard Carlile
, and George Swift, reformer and shoemaker. There were also a number of reporters, including John Tyas of The Times, John Smith of the Liverpool Echo and Edward Baines Jr, the son of the editor of the Leeds Mercury. By this time St Peter's Field, an area of 14000 square yards (11,706 m²), was packed with tens of thousands of men, women and children. The crowd around the speakers was so dense that "their hats seemed to touch"; large groups of curious spectators gathered on the outskirts of the crowd. The rest of Manchester was like a ghost town
, the streets and shops were empty.
, the chairman of the magistrates watching from the house on the edge of St Peter's Field, saw the enthusiastic reception that Hunt received on his arrival at the assembly, and it encouraged him to action. He issued an arrest warrant for Henry Hunt, Joseph Johnson, John Knight, and James Moorhouse. On being handed the warrant the Chief Constable, Jonathan Andrews, offered his opinion that the press of the crowd surrounding the hustings would make military assistance necessary for its execution. Hulton then wrote two letters, one to Major Thomas Trafford
, the commanding officer of the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry Cavalry, and the other to the overall military commander in Manchester, Lieutenant Colonel Guy L'Estrange. The contents of both notes were similar:
The notes were handed to two horsemen who were standing by. The Manchester and Salford Yeomanry were stationed just a short distance away in Portland Street, and so received their note first. They immediately drew their swords and galloped towards St Peter's Field. One trooper, in a frantic attempt to catch up, knocked down a woman in Cooper Street, causing the death of her child when he was thrown from her arms; two-year-old William Fildes was the first casualty of Peterloo.
Sixty cavalrymen of the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry, led by Captain Hugh Hornby Birley
, a local factory owner, arrived at the house from where the magistrates were watching; some reports allege that they were drunk. Andrews, the Chief Constable, instructed Birley that he had an arrest warrant which he needed assistance to execute. Birley was asked to take his cavalry to the hustings to allow the speakers to be removed; it was by then about 1:40 pm.
The route towards the hustings between the special constables was narrow, and as the inexperienced horses were thrust further and further into the crowd they reared and plunged as people tried to get out of their way. The arrest warrant had been given to the Deputy Constable, Joseph Nadin, who followed behind the yeomanry. As the cavalry pushed towards the speakers' stand they became stuck in the crowd, and in panic started to hack about them with their sabres. On his arrival at the stand Nadin arrested Hunt, Johnson and a number of others including John Tyas, the reporter from The Times. According to Tyas the yeomanry's progress through the crowd had provoked a hail of bricks and stones, and caused them to lose "all command of temper". Their mission to execute the arrest warrant having been achieved, they then set about destroying the banners and flags carried by the crowd.
From his vantage point William Hulton perceived the unfolding events as an assault on the yeomanry, and on L'Estrange's arrival at 1:50 pm, at the head of his hussars, he ordered them into the field to disperse the crowd with the words: "Good God, Sir, don't you see they are attacking the Yeomanry; disperse the meeting!" The 15th Hussars formed themselves into a line stretching across the eastern end of St Peter's Field, and charged into the crowd. At about the same time the Cheshire Yeomanry charged from the southern edge of the field. At first the crowd had some difficulty in dispersing, as the main exit route into Peter Street was blocked by the 88th Regiment of Foot
, standing with bayonets fixed. One officer of the 15th Hussars was heard trying to restrain the by now out of control Manchester and Salford Yeomanry, who were "cutting at every one they could reach": "For shame! For shame! Gentlemen: forbear, forbear! The people cannot get away!"
However, within ten minutes the crowd had been dispersed, at the cost of 11 dead and over 600 injured. Only the wounded, their helpers, and the dead were left behind. A woman living nearby said she saw "a very great deal of blood". For some time afterwards there was rioting in the streets, most seriously at New Cross, where troops fired on a crowd attacking a shop belonging to someone rumoured to have taken one of the women reformers' flags as a souvenir. Peace was not restored in Manchester until the next morning, and in Stockport and Macclesfield
rioting continued on the 17th. There was also a major riot in Oldham
that day, during which one person was shot and wounded.
The exact number of those killed and injured at Peterloo has never been established with certainty. Sources claim 11–15 killed and 400–700 injured. The Manchester Relief Committee, a body set up to provide relief for the victims of Peterloo, gave the number of injured as 420, while Radical sources listed 500. The true number is difficult to estimate, as many of the wounded hid their injuries for fear of retribution by the authorities. Three of William Marsh's six children worked in the factory belonging to Captain Hugh Birley of the Manchester Yeomanry, and lost their jobs because their father had attended the meeting. James Lees was admitted to Manchester Infirmary with two severe sabre wounds to the head, but was refused treatment and sent home after refusing to agree with the surgeon's insistence that "he had had enough of Manchester meetings".
A particular feature of the meeting at Peterloo was the number of women present. Female reform societies had been formed in north west England during June and July 1819, the first in Britain. Many of them were dressed distinctively in white, and some formed all-female contingents, carrying their own flags. Of the 654 recorded casualties, at least 168 were women, four of whom died either at St Peter's Field or later as a result of their wounds. It has been estimated that less than 12% of the crowd was made up of females, suggesting that women were at significantly greater risk of injury than men by a factor of almost 3:1. Richard Carlile claimed that the women were especially targeted, a view apparently supported by the large number who suffered from wounds caused by weapons.
Eleven of the fatalities listed occurred on St Peter's Field. Some, like John Lees of Oldham, died later of their wounds, and others like Joshua Whitworth were killed in the rioting that followed the crowd's dispersal from the field.
The Peterloo Massacre has been called one of the defining moments of its age. Many of those present at the massacre, including local masters, employers and owners, were horrified by the carnage. One of the casualties, Oldham cloth-worker and ex-soldier John Lees, who died from his wounds on 7 September, had been present at the Battle of Waterloo
. Shortly before his death he said to a friend that he had never been in such danger as at Peterloo: "At Waterloo there was man to man but there it was downright murder." When news of the massacre began to spread, the population of Manchester and surrounding districts were horrified and outraged. This was the first public meeting at which journalists from a number of important, distant newspapers were present and, within a day or so of the event, accounts were published as far away as London, Leeds and Liverpool. The London and national papers shared the horror felt in the Manchester region, and the feeling of indignation throughout the country became intense. The name "Peterloo" was coined immediately by the radical Manchester Observer, combining the name of the meeting place, St Peter's Field, with the Battle of Waterloo
fought four years earlier.
The poet Percy Bysshe Shelley
was living in Italy at the time and did not hear of the massacre until 5 September. He immediately wrote a poem entitled The Masque of Anarchy
, subtitled Written on the Occasion of the Massacre at Manchester, and sent it for publication in the radical periodical The Examiner. However, due to restrictions on the radical press the poem was not published until 1832. Many commemorative items such as plates, jugs, handkerchiefs and medals were produced, all with the iconic image of Peterloo; cavalrymen with swords drawn riding down and slashing at defenceless civilians.
. After a two-week trial, five of the ten defendants were found guilty. Hunt was sentenced to 30 months in Ilchester
Gaol; Bamford, Johnson, and Healey were given one year each, and Knight was jailed for two years on a subsequent charge. A test case was brought against four members of the Manchester Yeomanry at Lancaster Assizes, on 4 April 1822: Captain Birley, Captain Withington, Trumpeter Meagher, and Private Oliver. All were acquitted, as the court ruled that their actions had been justified to disperse an illegal gathering.
The government declared its support for the actions taken by the magistrates and the army. The Manchester magistrates held a supposedly public meeting on 19 August, so that resolutions supporting the action they had taken three days before could be published. Archibald Prentice, a radical manufacturer later to become editor of The Manchester Times, organised a petition of protest against the violence at St Peter's Field and the validity of the magistrate's meeting. Within a few days it had collected 4,800 signatures. Nevertheless the Home Secretary
, Lord Sidmouth
, on 27 August conveyed to the magistrates the thanks of the Prince Regent
for their action in the "preservation of the public peace". That public exoneration was met with fierce anger and criticism. During a debate at Hopkins Street Robert Wedderburn declared "The Prince is a fool with his Wonderful letters of thanks ... What is the Prince Regent or King to us, we want no King – he is no use to us." In an open letter, Richard Carlile said:
For a few months following Peterloo it seemed to the authorities that the country was heading towards an armed rebellion. Encouraging them in that belief were two abortive uprisings, in Huddersfield
and Burnley
, during the autumn of 1819, and the discovery and foiling of the Cato Street Conspiracy
to blow up the cabinet that winter. By the end of the year, the government had introduced legislation, later known as the Six Acts
, to suppress radical
meetings and publications, and by the end of 1820 every significant working-class radical reformer was in jail; civil liberties had declined to an even lower level than they were before Peterloo. Historian Robert Reid has written that "it is not fanciful to compare the restricted freedoms of the British worker in the post-Peterloo period in the early nineteenth century with those of the black South African in the post-Sharpeville period of the late twentieth century".
One direct consequence of Peterloo was the foundation of The Manchester Guardian
newspaper in 1821 by a group of non-conformist Manchester businessmen headed by John Edward Taylor
, a witness to the massacre. The prospectus announcing the new publication proclaimed that it would "zealously enforce the principles of civil and religious Liberty ... warmly advocate the cause of Reform ... endeavour to assist in the diffusion of just principles of Political Economy and ... support, without reference to the party from which they emanate, all serviceable measures".
Events such as the Pentridge Rising
, the March of the Blanketeers
and the Spa Fields
meeting, all serve to indicate the breadth, diversity and widespread geographical scale of the demand for economic and political reform at the time. Peterloo had no effect on the speed of reform, but in due course all but one of the reformer's demands, annual parliaments, were met. Following the Great Reform Act of 1832, the newly created Manchester parliamentary borough
elected its first two MPs. Five candidates including William Cobbett
stood, and the Whigs
, Charles Poulett Thomson and Mark Philips, were elected. Manchester became a Municipal Borough
in 1837, and what remained of the manorial rights were subsequently purchased by the borough council.
, home of the Anti-Corn Law League
, was built partly as a "cenotaph raised on the shades of the victims" of Peterloo. Until 2007 the massacre was commemorated by a blue plaque
on the wall of the present building, the third to occupy the site, now the Radisson Hotel. It was regarded as a less than appropriate memorial because it under reported the incident as a dispersal, and the deaths were omitted completely. In a 2006 survey conducted by The Guardian, Peterloo came second to St. Mary's Church, Putney
, the venue for the Putney Debates
, as the event from British history that most deserved a proper monument. A Peterloo Massacre Memorial Campaign was set up to lobby for a more prominent monument to an event that has been described as Manchester's Tiananmen Square
.
In 2007, Manchester City Council
replaced the original blue plaque with a red one, giving a fuller account of the events of 1819. It was unveiled on 10 December 2007 by the Lord Mayor of Manchester, Councillor Glynn Evans. Under the heading "St. Peter's Fields: The Peterloo Massacre", the new plaque reads:
In 1968, in celebration of its centenary, the Trades Union Congress
commissioned British composer Sir Malcolm Arnold
to write the Peterloo Overture. Other 20th-century musical commemorations include "Ned Ludd Part 5" on electric folk
group Steeleye Span
's 2006 album Bloody Men
, and Rochdale
rock band Tractor
's suite of five songs written and recorded in 1973, later included on their 1992 release Worst Enemies.
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
, England, on 16 August 1819, when cavalry charged
Charge (warfare)
A charge is a maneuver in battle in which soldiers advance towards their enemy at their best speed in an attempt to engage in close combat. The charge is the dominant shock attack and has been the key tactic and decisive moment of most battles in history...
into a crowd of 60,000–80,000 that had gathered to demand the reform of parliamentary representation.
The end of the Napoleonic Wars
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
in 1815 had resulted in periods of famine
Famine
A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including crop failure, overpopulation, or government policies. This phenomenon is usually accompanied or followed by regional malnutrition, starvation, epidemic, and increased mortality. Every continent in the world has...
and chronic unemployment
Unemployment
Unemployment , as defined by the International Labour Organization, occurs when people are without jobs and they have actively sought work within the past four weeks...
, exacerbated by the introduction of the first of the Corn Laws
Corn Laws
The Corn Laws were trade barriers designed to protect cereal producers in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland against competition from less expensive foreign imports between 1815 and 1846. The barriers were introduced by the Importation Act 1815 and repealed by the Importation Act 1846...
. By the beginning of 1819 the pressure generated by poor economic conditions, coupled with the lack of suffrage
Suffrage
Suffrage, political franchise, or simply the franchise, distinct from mere voting rights, is the civil right to vote gained through the democratic process...
in northern England
Northern England
Northern England, also known as the North of England, the North or the North Country, is a cultural region of England. It is not an official government region, but rather an informal amalgamation of counties. The southern extent of the region is roughly the River Trent, while the North is bordered...
, had enhanced the appeal of political radicalism
Radicalism (historical)
The term Radical was used during the late 18th century for proponents of the Radical Movement. It later became a general pejorative term for those favoring or seeking political reforms which include dramatic changes to the social order...
. In response, the Manchester Patriotic Union, a group agitating for parliamentary reform, organised a demonstration to be addressed by the well-known radical orator Henry Hunt
Henry Hunt (politician)
Henry "Orator" Hunt was a British radical speaker and agitator remembered as a pioneer of working-class radicalism and an important influence on the later Chartist movement. He advocated parliamentary reform and the repeal of the Corn Laws.Hunt was born in Upavon, Wiltshire and became a prosperous...
.
Shortly after the meeting began, local magistrates called on the military authorities to arrest Hunt and several others on the hustings with him, and to disperse the crowd. Cavalry charged into the crowd with sabre
Sabre
The sabre or saber is a kind of backsword that usually has a curved, single-edged blade and a rather large hand guard, covering the knuckles of the hand as well as the thumb and forefinger...
s drawn, and in the ensuing confusion, 15 people were killed and 400–700 were injured. The massacre
Massacre
A massacre is an event with a heavy death toll.Massacre may also refer to:-Entertainment:*Massacre , a DC Comics villain*Massacre , a 1932 drama film starring Richard Barthelmess*Massacre, a 1956 Western starring Dane Clark...
was given the name Peterloo in ironic comparison to the Battle of Waterloo
Battle of Waterloo
The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815 near Waterloo in present-day Belgium, then part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands...
, which had taken place four years earlier.
Historian Robert Poole has called the Peterloo Massacre one of the defining moments of its age. In its own time, the London and national papers shared the horror felt in the Manchester region, but Peterloo's immediate effect was to cause the government to crack down on reform, with the passing of what became known as the Six Acts
Six Acts
In the United Kingdom, following the Peterloo Massacre of August 16, 1819, the British government acted to prevent any future disturbances by the introduction of new legislation, the so-called Six Acts which labelled any meeting for radical reform as "an overt act of treasonable conspiracy"...
. It also led directly to the foundation of The Manchester Guardian (now The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
), but had little other effect on the pace of reform. In a survey conducted by The Guardian in 2006, Peterloo came second to the Putney Debates
Putney Debates
The Putney Debates were a series of discussions between members of the New Model Army – a number of the participants being Levellers – concerning the makeup of a new constitution for England....
as the event from British history
History of the United Kingdom
The history of the United Kingdom as a unified sovereign state began with the political union of the kingdoms of England, which included Wales, and Scotland on 1 May 1707 in accordance with the Treaty of Union, as ratified by the Acts of Union 1707...
that most deserved a proper monument or a memorial. Peterloo is commemorated by a plaque close to the site, a replacement for an earlier one that was criticised as being inadequate as it did not reflect the scale of the massacre.
Suffrage
In 1819, LancashireLancashire (UK Parliament constituency)
Lancashire was a county constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of England from 1290, then of the Parliament of Great Britain from 1707 to 1800, and of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1801 to 1832...
was represented by two Members of Parliament (MPs). Voting was restricted to the adult male owners of freehold land valued at 40 shillings
Shilling (United Kingdom)
The British shilling is an historic British coin from the eras of the Kingdom of Great Britain and the later United Kingdom; also adopted as a Scot denomination upon the 1707 Treaty of Union....
or more – the equivalent of about £
Pound sterling
The pound sterling , commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence...
80 as of 2008 – and votes could only be cast at the county town of Lancaster
Lancaster, Lancashire
Lancaster is the county town of Lancashire, England. It is situated on the River Lune and has a population of 45,952. Lancaster is a constituent settlement of the wider City of Lancaster, local government district which has a population of 133,914 and encompasses several outlying towns, including...
, by a public spoken declaration at the hustings. Constituency boundaries were out of date, and the so-called "rotten borough
Rotten borough
A "rotten", "decayed" or pocket borough was a parliamentary borough or constituency in the United Kingdom that had a very small electorate and could be used by a patron to gain undue and unrepresentative influence within Parliament....
s" had a hugely disproportionate influence on the membership of the Parliament of the United Kingdom
Parliament of the United Kingdom
The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, located in London...
compared to the size of their populations: Old Sarum
Old Sarum (UK Parliament constituency)
Old Sarum was the most infamous of the so-called 'rotten boroughs', a parliamentary constituency of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland which was effectively controlled by a single person, until it was abolished under the Reform Act 1832. The constituency was the site of what had been...
in Wiltshire
Wiltshire
Wiltshire is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset, Somerset, Hampshire, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire. It contains the unitary authority of Swindon and covers...
, with one voter, elected two MPs, as did Dunwich
Dunwich (UK Parliament constituency)
Dunwich was a parliamentary borough in Suffolk, one of the most notorious of all the rotten boroughs. It elected two Members of Parliament to the House of Commons from 1298 until 1832, when the constituency was abolished by the Great Reform Act....
in Suffolk
Suffolk
Suffolk is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in East Anglia, England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south. The North Sea lies to the east...
, which by the early 19th century had almost completely disappeared into the sea. The major urban centres of Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
, Salford, Bolton
Bolton
Bolton is a town in Greater Manchester, in the North West of England. Close to the West Pennine Moors, it is north west of the city of Manchester. Bolton is surrounded by several smaller towns and villages which together form the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton, of which Bolton is the...
, Blackburn, Rochdale
Rochdale
Rochdale is a large market town in Greater Manchester, England. It lies amongst the foothills of the Pennines on the River Roch, north-northwest of Oldham, and north-northeast of the city of Manchester. Rochdale is surrounded by several smaller settlements which together form the Metropolitan...
, Ashton-under-Lyne
Ashton-under-Lyne
Ashton-under-Lyne is a market town in the Metropolitan Borough of Tameside, Greater Manchester, England. Historically a part of Lancashire, it lies on the north bank of the River Tame, on undulating land at the foothills of the Pennines...
, Oldham
Oldham
Oldham is a large town in Greater Manchester, England. It lies amid the Pennines on elevated ground between the rivers Irk and Medlock, south-southeast of Rochdale, and northeast of the city of Manchester...
and Stockport
Stockport
Stockport is a town in Greater Manchester, England. It lies on elevated ground southeast of Manchester city centre, at the point where the rivers Goyt and Tame join and create the River Mersey. Stockport is the largest settlement in the metropolitan borough of the same name...
, with a combined population of almost one million, were represented by either the two county MPs for Lancashire, or the two for Cheshire
Cheshire (UK Parliament constituency)
Cheshire is a former United Kingdom Parliamentiary constituency for the county of Cheshire. It was a constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of England then of the Parliament of Great Britain from 1707 to 1800 and of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1801 to 1832.As a county...
in the case of Stockport. By comparison, more than half of all MPs were elected by a total of just 154 voters. These inequalities in political representation led to calls for reform.
Economic conditions
After the end of the Napoleonic WarsNapoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
in 1815, a brief boom in textile manufacture
Textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution
The industrial revolution changed the nature of work and society. Opinion varies as to the exact date, but it is estimated that the First Industrial Revolution took place between 1750 and 1850, and the second phase or Second Industrial Revolution between 1860 and 1900. The three key drivers in...
was followed by periods of chronic economic depression, particularly among textile weavers and spinners. Weavers who could have expected to earn 15 shillings for a six-day week in 1803, saw their wages cut to 5 shillings or even 4s 6d
British One Penny coin (pre-decimal)
The English Penny, originally a coin of 1.3 to 1.5 g pure silver, includes the penny introduced around the year 785 by King Offa of Mercia. However, his coins were similar in size and weight to the continental deniers of the period, and to the Anglo-Saxon sceats which had gone before it, which were...
by 1818. The industrialists, who were cutting wages without offering relief, blamed market forces generated by the aftershocks of the Napoleonic Wars. Exacerbating matters were the Corn Laws
Corn Laws
The Corn Laws were trade barriers designed to protect cereal producers in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland against competition from less expensive foreign imports between 1815 and 1846. The barriers were introduced by the Importation Act 1815 and repealed by the Importation Act 1846...
, the first of which was passed in 1815, imposing a tariff
Tariff
A tariff may be either tax on imports or exports , or a list or schedule of prices for such things as rail service, bus routes, and electrical usage ....
on foreign grain in an effort to protect English grain producers. The cost of food rose as people were forced to buy the more expensive and lower quality British grain, and periods of famine and chronic unemployment ensued, increasing the desire for political reform both in Lancashire and in the country at large.
By the beginning of 1819 the pressure generated by poor economic conditions was at its peak and had enhanced the appeal of political radicalism
Radicalism (historical)
The term Radical was used during the late 18th century for proponents of the Radical Movement. It later became a general pejorative term for those favoring or seeking political reforms which include dramatic changes to the social order...
among the cotton loom weavers of south Lancashire. In response, coupled with the lack of suffrage
Suffrage
Suffrage, political franchise, or simply the franchise, distinct from mere voting rights, is the civil right to vote gained through the democratic process...
in northern England
Northern England
Northern England, also known as the North of England, the North or the North Country, is a cultural region of England. It is not an official government region, but rather an informal amalgamation of counties. The southern extent of the region is roughly the River Trent, while the North is bordered...
, a "great assembly" was organised by the Manchester Patriotic Union, a group agitating for parliamentary reform. The secretary of the union, Joseph Johnson, wrote to the well-known radical orator Henry Hunt
Henry Hunt (politician)
Henry "Orator" Hunt was a British radical speaker and agitator remembered as a pioneer of working-class radicalism and an important influence on the later Chartist movement. He advocated parliamentary reform and the repeal of the Corn Laws.Hunt was born in Upavon, Wiltshire and became a prosperous...
asking him to chair a large meeting planned for Manchester on 2 August 1819. In his letter Johnson wrote:
Unknown to either Johnson or Hunt, the letter was intercepted by government spies
Espionage
Espionage or spying involves an individual obtaining information that is considered secret or confidential without the permission of the holder of the information. Espionage is inherently clandestine, lest the legitimate holder of the information change plans or take other countermeasures once it...
and copied before being sent on to its destination. The contents were interpreted to mean that an insurrection
Insurgency
An insurgency is an armed rebellion against a constituted authority when those taking part in the rebellion are not recognized as belligerents...
was being planned, and the government immediately responded by ordering the 15th Hussars to Manchester.
William Hulton
William Hulton was an English landowner and magistrate.William Hulton was the son of William Hulton and Jane of Hulton Park, then in the historic county of Lancashire, England. He was educated at Brasenose College, Oxford...
, had already been advised by the acting Home Secretary, Henry Hobhouse, that "the election of a Member of Parliament without the King's writ" was a serious misdemeanour, encouraging them to declare the assembly illegal.
Rehearsals
Although banning the 9 August meeting had been intended to discourage the radicals entirely, Hunt and his followers were determined to assemble. A new meeting was organised for 16 August, after the Home Secretary, Lord SidmouthViscount Sidmouth
Viscount Sidmouth, of Sidmouth in the County of Devon, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1805 for the former Prime Minister, Henry Addington. In May 1804, King George III intended to confer the titles of Earl of Banbury, Viscount Wallingford and Baron Reading on...
, had written to the magistrates instructing them that it was not the intention to elect an MP that was illegal, but the execution of that intention.
The press had frequently mocked previous meetings of working men because of their ragged, dirty appearance and disorganised conduct. The organisers were determined that those attending the meeting at St Peter's Field would be neatly turned out and would march to the event in good order. Samuel Bamford
Samuel Bamford
Samuel Bamford , was an English radical and writer, who was born in Middleton, Lancashire.-Biography:...
, a local radical who led the Middleton
Middleton, Greater Manchester
Middleton is a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Rochdale, in Greater Manchester, England. It stands on the River Irk, south-southwest of Rochdale, and north-northeast of the city of Manchester...
contingent to the assembly, wrote that "It was deemed expedient that this meeting should be as morally effective as possible, and, that it should exhibit a spectacle such as had never before been witnessed in England." Instructions were given to the various committees forming the contingents that "Cleanliness, Sobriety, Order and Peace" and a "prohibition of all weapons of offence or defence" were to be observed throughout the demonstration
Demonstration (people)
A demonstration or street protest is action by a mass group or collection of groups of people in favor of a political or other cause; it normally consists of walking in a mass march formation and either beginning with or meeting at a designated endpoint, or rally, to hear speakers.Actions such as...
. Each contingent was drilled and rehearsed in the fields of the townships around Manchester, further adding to the concerns of the authorities. One spy reported that "seven hundred men drilled at Tandle Hill
Tandle Hill
Tandle Hill Country Park is a country park in Royton, Greater Manchester, England. It consists of approximately , a combination of beech woodland and open grassland. The park contains a countryside centre , picnic areas, children's play area and numerous trails and paths into the surrounding area....
as well as any army regiment would". A royal proclamation forbidding the practice of drilling was posted in Manchester on .
Assembly
| Contingents sent to St Peter's Field Use a cursor to explore this imagemap. |
||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
Image:Peterloo contingents map.svg|300px|Peterloo contingents came from all over what is now Greater Manchester. (use a cursor to explore)| rect 334 444 415 474 Altrincham Altrincham Altrincham is a market town within the Metropolitan Borough of Trafford, in Greater Manchester, England. It lies on flat ground south of the River Mersey about southwest of Manchester city centre, south-southwest of Sale and east of Warrington... poly 541 307 541 327 635 326 623 315 602 296 594 296 Ashton-under-Lyne (sent 2,000) Ashton-under-Lyne Ashton-under-Lyne is a market town in the Metropolitan Borough of Tameside, Greater Manchester, England. Historically a part of Lancashire, it lies on the north bank of the River Tame, on undulating land at the foothills of the Pennines... rect 181 243 251 269 Atherton Atherton, Greater Manchester Atherton is a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan, in Greater Manchester, England, historically a part of Lancashire. It is east of Wigan, north-northeast of Leigh, and northwest of Manchester... rect 272 143 328 176 Bolton Bolton Bolton is a town in Greater Manchester, in the North West of England. Close to the West Pennine Moors, it is north west of the city of Manchester. Bolton is surrounded by several smaller towns and villages which together form the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton, of which Bolton is the... rect 395 124 428 152 Bury (sent 3,000) Bury Bury is a town in Greater Manchester, England. It lies on the River Irwell, east of Bolton, west-southwest of Rochdale, and north-northwest of the city of Manchester... rect 507 191 586 212 Chadderton Chadderton Chadderton is a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham, in Greater Manchester, England, historically a part of Lancashire... rect 588 144 664 167 Crompton Shaw and Crompton Shaw and Crompton is a town and civil parish within the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham, in Greater Manchester, England. It lies on the River Beal at the foothills of the South Pennines, north of Oldham, southeast of Rochdale, and to the northeast of the city of Manchester... rect 314 304 369 322 Eccles Eccles, Greater Manchester Eccles is a town in the City of Salford, a metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester in North West England, west of Salford and west of Manchester city centre... rect 541 256 627 269 Failsworth Failsworth At Failsworth lies north-northwest of London. It shares common boundaries with Manchester and Oldham, on its west and northeast respectively. Failsworth is traversed by the A62 road, from Manchester to Oldham, the heavy rail line of the Oldham Loop and the Rochdale Canal, which crosses the... rect 592 364 659 386 Gee Cross Gee Cross Gee Cross is a suburban village within the Metropolitan Borough of Tameside, in Greater Manchester, England. It lies at the edge of the town of Hyde and borders onto Woodley in the Metropolitan Borough of Stockport... rect 424 141 497 155 Heywood Heywood, Greater Manchester Heywood is a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Rochdale, in Greater Manchester, England. It lies on the south bank of the River Roch and is east of Bury, west-southwest of Rochdale, and north of the city of Manchester. The town of Middleton lies to the south, whilst to the north is the... rect 264 344 312 370 Irlam Irlam Irlam is a suburban town and unparished area within the City of Salford in Greater Manchester, England. At the 2001 census it had a population of 18,504. The town lies on flat ground on the south side of the M62 motorway and the north bank of the Manchester Ship Canal, and is west-southwest of... rect 595 205 627 228 Lees Lees, Greater Manchester The village consists of a small cluster of shops and businesses on either side of the A669 Lees Road, surrounded by some terraced houses and some small estates... rect 178 283 233 305 Leigh Leigh, Greater Manchester Leigh is a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan, in Greater Manchester, England. It is southeast of Wigan, and west of Manchester. Leigh is situated on low lying land to the north west of Chat Moss.... rect 430 210 509 222 Middleton (sent 3,000) Middleton, Greater Manchester Middleton is a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Rochdale, in Greater Manchester, England. It stands on the River Irk, south-southwest of Rochdale, and north-northeast of the city of Manchester... rect 636 240 695 259 Mossley Mossley Mossley is a small town and civil parish within the Metropolitan Borough of Tameside, in Greater Manchester, England. The town is located in the upper section of the Tame valley in the foothills of the Pennines, northeast of Ashton-under-Lyne and east of Manchester.Mossley has the distinction of... poly 568 219 568 243 619 244 618 231 582 230 582 218 571 218 Oldham (sent 6-10,000) Oldham Oldham is a large town in Greater Manchester, England. It lies amid the Pennines on elevated ground between the rivers Irk and Medlock, south-southeast of Rochdale, and northeast of the city of Manchester... rect 519 97 585 121 Rochdale (sent 3,000) Rochdale Rochdale is a large market town in Greater Manchester, England. It lies amongst the foothills of the Pennines on the River Roch, north-northwest of Oldham, and north-northeast of the city of Manchester. Rochdale is surrounded by several smaller settlements which together form the Metropolitan... rect 521 163 572 186 Royton Royton Royton is a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham, in Greater Manchester, England. It lies by the source of the River Irk, on undulating land at the foothills of the Pennines, north-northwest of Oldham, south-southeast of Rochdale and northeast of the city of Manchester.Historically a... rect 639 190 730 214 Saddleworth Saddleworth Saddleworth is a civil parish of the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham in Greater Manchester, England. It comprises several villages and hamlets amongst the west side of the Pennine hills: Uppermill, Greenfield, Dobcross, Delph, Diggle and others... rect 391 281 450 312 Salford rect 619 292 701 317 Stalybridge Stalybridge Stalybridge is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Tameside in Greater Manchester, England, with a population of 22,568. Historically a part of Cheshire, it is east of Manchester city centre and northwest of Glossop. With the construction of a cotton mill in 1776, Stalybridge became one of... rect 353 344 424 370 Stretford Stretford Stretford is a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Trafford, in Greater Manchester, England. Lying on flat ground between the River Mersey and the Manchester Ship Canal, it is to the southwest of Manchester city centre, south-southwest of Salford and northeast of Altrincham... rect 504 411 578 439 Stockport (sent 1,500-5,000) Stockport Stockport is a town in Greater Manchester, England. It lies on elevated ground southeast of Manchester city centre, at the point where the rivers Goyt and Tame join and create the River Mersey. Stockport is the largest settlement in the metropolitan borough of the same name... rect 314 365 374 388 Urmston Urmston Urmston is a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Trafford, in Greater Manchester, England, with a population of around 41,000. Historically a part of Lancashire, it lies about six miles to the southwest of Manchester city centre. The southern boundary is marked by the River Mersey and the... rect 170 198 268 224 Westhoughton Westhoughton Westhoughton is a town and civil parish of the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton in Greater Manchester, England. It is southwest of Bolton, east of Wigan and northwest of Manchester.... rect 343 192 424 214 Whitefield Whitefield, Greater Manchester Whitefield is a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Bury, in Greater Manchester, England. It lies on undulating ground in the Irwell Valley, along the south bank of the River Irwell, south-southeast of Bury, and to the north-northwest of the city of Manchester... rect 98 195 145 226 Wigan Wigan Wigan is a town in Greater Manchester, England. It stands on the River Douglas, south-west of Bolton, north of Warrington and west-northwest of Manchester. Wigan is the largest settlement in the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan and is its administrative centre. The town of Wigan had a total... rect 22 490 204 515 scale - Five miles rect 437 293 529 349 St. Peter's Field poly 70 132 107 131 117 123 122 126 126 141 132 144 143 126 154 124 164 127 172 140 187 135 190 126 205 126 226 95 261 112 270 104 278 105 278 97 285 97 282 76 299 74 309 99 326 99 326 89 349 89 353 82 350 76 358 51 353 40 370 40 370 51 399 55 401 48 407 48 417 37 421 47 419 71 422 86 427 93 427 104 449 117 451 114 448 101 439 70 443 60 453 55 470 37 484 33 499 54 512 68 519 68 519 74 519 76 537 76 534 57 547 30 548 18 556 20 556 12 561 12 573 33 590 33 594 36 606 25 629 16 633 16 633 32 645 45 645 50 643 81 648 85 654 98 659 114 666 114 682 128 684 135 708 168 713 168 727 185 729 194 752 213 757 231 744 248 744 255 750 269 735 282 722 282 710 276 704 286 702 304 687 315 690 338 695 344 682 364 674 375 673 383 663 383 654 392 661 407 683 415 663 473 643 474 640 472 640 480 629 488 616 503 596 496 593 487 571 494 566 494 558 490 557 501 546 514 549 521 541 542 528 550 508 536 506 528 515 522 512 511 474 498 447 500 439 510 431 510 423 524 417 521 417 515 374 487 366 489 363 483 362 489 346 492 341 483 336 483 317 468 297 453 278 444 264 447 256 447 262 437 281 409 281 403 273 384 267 384 258 371 258 363 243 341 243 328 240 328 235 332 210 335 208 329 205 341 197 347 201 356 172 373 164 362 164 358 136 342 136 331 143 327 137 314 109 317 108 308 95 294 95 291 62 287 57 280 40 280 37 295 17 281 17 277 14 262 46 243 48 222 49 218 59 192 53 184 47 167 53 162 61 150 66 145 Greater Manchester today rect 0 0 768 560 use button to enlarge or cursor to explore desc top-left |
||||
| Altrincham Altrincham Altrincham is a market town within the Metropolitan Borough of Trafford, in Greater Manchester, England. It lies on flat ground south of the River Mersey about southwest of Manchester city centre, south-southwest of Sale and east of Warrington... |
Middleton Middleton, Greater Manchester Middleton is a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Rochdale, in Greater Manchester, England. It stands on the River Irk, south-southwest of Rochdale, and north-northeast of the city of Manchester... |
3,000 | ||
| Ashton-under-Lyne Ashton-under-Lyne Ashton-under-Lyne is a market town in the Metropolitan Borough of Tameside, Greater Manchester, England. Historically a part of Lancashire, it lies on the north bank of the River Tame, on undulating land at the foothills of the Pennines... |
2,000 | Mossley Mossley Mossley is a small town and civil parish within the Metropolitan Borough of Tameside, in Greater Manchester, England. The town is located in the upper section of the Tame valley in the foothills of the Pennines, northeast of Ashton-under-Lyne and east of Manchester.Mossley has the distinction of... |
||
| Atherton Atherton, Greater Manchester Atherton is a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan, in Greater Manchester, England, historically a part of Lancashire. It is east of Wigan, north-northeast of Leigh, and northwest of Manchester... |
Oldham Oldham Oldham is a large town in Greater Manchester, England. It lies amid the Pennines on elevated ground between the rivers Irk and Medlock, south-southeast of Rochdale, and northeast of the city of Manchester... |
6,000–10,000 | ||
| Bolton Bolton Bolton is a town in Greater Manchester, in the North West of England. Close to the West Pennine Moors, it is north west of the city of Manchester. Bolton is surrounded by several smaller towns and villages which together form the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton, of which Bolton is the... |
Rochdale Rochdale Rochdale is a large market town in Greater Manchester, England. It lies amongst the foothills of the Pennines on the River Roch, north-northwest of Oldham, and north-northeast of the city of Manchester. Rochdale is surrounded by several smaller settlements which together form the Metropolitan... |
3,000 | ||
| Bury Bury Bury is a town in Greater Manchester, England. It lies on the River Irwell, east of Bolton, west-southwest of Rochdale, and north-northwest of the city of Manchester... |
3,000 | Royton Royton Royton is a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham, in Greater Manchester, England. It lies by the source of the River Irk, on undulating land at the foothills of the Pennines, north-northwest of Oldham, south-southeast of Rochdale and northeast of the city of Manchester.Historically a... |
||
| Chadderton Chadderton Chadderton is a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham, in Greater Manchester, England, historically a part of Lancashire... |
Saddleworth Saddleworth Saddleworth is a civil parish of the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham in Greater Manchester, England. It comprises several villages and hamlets amongst the west side of the Pennine hills: Uppermill, Greenfield, Dobcross, Delph, Diggle and others... |
|||
| Crompton Shaw and Crompton Shaw and Crompton is a town and civil parish within the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham, in Greater Manchester, England. It lies on the River Beal at the foothills of the South Pennines, north of Oldham, southeast of Rochdale, and to the northeast of the city of Manchester... |
Salford | |||
| Eccles Eccles, Greater Manchester Eccles is a town in the City of Salford, a metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester in North West England, west of Salford and west of Manchester city centre... |
Stalybridge Stalybridge Stalybridge is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Tameside in Greater Manchester, England, with a population of 22,568. Historically a part of Cheshire, it is east of Manchester city centre and northwest of Glossop. With the construction of a cotton mill in 1776, Stalybridge became one of... |
|||
| Failsworth Failsworth At Failsworth lies north-northwest of London. It shares common boundaries with Manchester and Oldham, on its west and northeast respectively. Failsworth is traversed by the A62 road, from Manchester to Oldham, the heavy rail line of the Oldham Loop and the Rochdale Canal, which crosses the... |
Stretford Stretford Stretford is a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Trafford, in Greater Manchester, England. Lying on flat ground between the River Mersey and the Manchester Ship Canal, it is to the southwest of Manchester city centre, south-southwest of Salford and northeast of Altrincham... |
|||
| Gee Cross Gee Cross Gee Cross is a suburban village within the Metropolitan Borough of Tameside, in Greater Manchester, England. It lies at the edge of the town of Hyde and borders onto Woodley in the Metropolitan Borough of Stockport... |
Stockport Stockport Stockport is a town in Greater Manchester, England. It lies on elevated ground southeast of Manchester city centre, at the point where the rivers Goyt and Tame join and create the River Mersey. Stockport is the largest settlement in the metropolitan borough of the same name... |
1,500–5,000 | ||
| Heywood Heywood, Greater Manchester Heywood is a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Rochdale, in Greater Manchester, England. It lies on the south bank of the River Roch and is east of Bury, west-southwest of Rochdale, and north of the city of Manchester. The town of Middleton lies to the south, whilst to the north is the... |
Urmston Urmston Urmston is a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Trafford, in Greater Manchester, England, with a population of around 41,000. Historically a part of Lancashire, it lies about six miles to the southwest of Manchester city centre. The southern boundary is marked by the River Mersey and the... |
|||
| Irlam Irlam Irlam is a suburban town and unparished area within the City of Salford in Greater Manchester, England. At the 2001 census it had a population of 18,504. The town lies on flat ground on the south side of the M62 motorway and the north bank of the Manchester Ship Canal, and is west-southwest of... |
Westhoughton Westhoughton Westhoughton is a town and civil parish of the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton in Greater Manchester, England. It is southwest of Bolton, east of Wigan and northwest of Manchester.... |
|||
| Lees Lees, Greater Manchester The village consists of a small cluster of shops and businesses on either side of the A669 Lees Road, surrounded by some terraced houses and some small estates... |
Whitefield Whitefield, Greater Manchester Whitefield is a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Bury, in Greater Manchester, England. It lies on undulating ground in the Irwell Valley, along the south bank of the River Irwell, south-southeast of Bury, and to the north-northwest of the city of Manchester... |
|||
| Leigh Leigh, Greater Manchester Leigh is a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan, in Greater Manchester, England. It is southeast of Wigan, and west of Manchester. Leigh is situated on low lying land to the north west of Chat Moss.... |
Wigan Wigan Wigan is a town in Greater Manchester, England. It stands on the River Douglas, south-west of Bolton, north of Warrington and west-northwest of Manchester. Wigan is the largest settlement in the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan and is its administrative centre. The town of Wigan had a total... |
|||
Preparations
St Peter's Field was a croftCroft (land)
A croft is a fenced or enclosed area of land, usually small and arable with a crofter's dwelling thereon. A crofter is one who has tenure and use of the land, typically as a tenant farmer.- Etymology :...
(an open piece of land) alongside Mount Street which was being cleared to enable the last section of Peter Street to be constructed. Piles of brushwood had been placed at the end of the field nearest to the Friends Meeting House
Friends meeting house
A Friends meeting house is a meeting house of the Religious Society of Friends , where meeting for worship may be held.-History:Quakers do not believe that meeting for worship should take place in any special place. They believe that "where two or three meet together in my name, I am there among...
, but the remainder of the field was clear. Thomas Worrell, Manchester's Assistant Surveyor of Paving, arrived to inspect the field at 7:00 am. His job was to remove anything that might be used as a weapon, and he duly had "about a quarter of a load" of stones carted away.
Monday, 16 August 1819, was a hot summer's day, with a cloudless blue sky. The fine weather almost certainly increased the size of the crowd significantly; marching from the outer townships in the cold and rain would have been a much less attractive prospect.
The Manchester magistrates met at 9:00 am, to breakfast at the Star Inn on Deansgate
Deansgate
Deansgate is a main road through the city centre of Manchester, England. It runs roughly north–south in a near straight route through the western part of the city centre and is the longest road in the city centre at over one mile long....
and to consider what action they should take on Henry Hunt's arrival at the meeting. By 10:30 am they had come to no conclusions, and moved to a house on the southeastern corner of St Peter's Field, from where they planned to observe the meeting.
They were concerned that it would end in a riot, or even a rebellion, and had arranged for a substantial number of regular troops and militia yeomanry
Yeomanry
Yeomanry is a designation used by a number of units or sub-units of the British Territorial Army, descended from volunteer cavalry regiments. Today, Yeomanry units may serve in a variety of different military roles.-History:...
to be deployed. The military presence comprised 600 men of the ; several hundred infantry
Infantry
Infantrymen are soldiers who are specifically trained for the role of fighting on foot to engage the enemy face to face and have historically borne the brunt of the casualties of combat in wars. As the oldest branch of combat arms, they are the backbone of armies...
men; a Royal Horse Artillery
Royal Horse Artillery
The regiments of the Royal Horse Artillery , dating from 1793, are part of the Royal Regiment of Artillery of the British Army...
unit with two six-pounder (2.7 kg) guns; 400 men of the Cheshire Yeomanry
Cheshire Yeomanry
The Cheshire Yeomanry was a yeomanry regiment that can trace its history back to 1797 when Sir John Fleming Leicester of Tabley raised a county regiment of light cavalry in response to the growing fears of invasion from Napoleonic France....
; 400 special constable
Special constable
A Special Constable is a law enforcement officer who is not a regular member of a police force. Some like the Royal Canadian Mounted Police carry the same law enforcement powers as regular members, but are employed in specific roles, such as explosive disposal technicians, court security, campus...
s; and 120 cavalry of the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry
Manchester and Salford Yeomanry
The Manchester and Salford Yeomanry cavalry was a short-lived yeomanry regiment formed in response to social unrest in northern England in 1817. The volunteer regiment became notorious for its involvement in the 1819 Peterloo Massacre, in which as many as 15 people were killed and 400–700 were...
, relatively inexperienced militia recruited from among local shopkeepers and tradesmen, the most numerous of which were publicans. The Yeomanry were variously described as "younger members of the Tory party in arms", and as "hot-headed young men, who had volunteered into that service from their intense hatred of Radicalism".
The British Army
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...
in the north was under the overall command of General Sir John Byng
John Byng, 1st Earl of Strafford
Field Marshal John Byng, 1st Earl of Strafford, GCB, GCH, PC was a British peer, politician and soldier.-Early years:...
. When he had initially learned that the meeting was scheduled for 2 August he had written to the Home Office
Home Office
The Home Office is the United Kingdom government department responsible for immigration control, security, and order. As such it is responsible for the police, UK Border Agency, and the Security Service . It is also in charge of government policy on security-related issues such as drugs,...
stating that he hoped the Manchester magistrates would show firmness on the day:
The revised meeting date of 16 August, however, coincided with the horse races at York
York
York is a walled city, situated at the confluence of the Rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. The city has a rich heritage and has provided the backdrop to major political events throughout much of its two millennia of existence...
, a fashionable event at which Byng had entries in two races. He once again wrote to the Home Office, saying that although he would still be prepared to be in command in Manchester on the day of the meeting if it was thought really necessary, he had absolute confidence in his deputy commander, Lieutenant Colonel Guy L'Estrange.
Meeting
The crowd that gathered in St Peter's Field arrived in disciplined and organised contingents. Each village or chapelry was given a time and a place to meet, from where its members were to proceed to assembly points in the larger towns or townships, and from there on to Manchester. Contingents were sent from all around the region, the largest and "best dressed" of which was a group of 10,000 who had travelled from Oldham Green, comprising people from OldhamOldham
Oldham is a large town in Greater Manchester, England. It lies amid the Pennines on elevated ground between the rivers Irk and Medlock, south-southeast of Rochdale, and northeast of the city of Manchester...
, Royton
Royton
Royton is a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham, in Greater Manchester, England. It lies by the source of the River Irk, on undulating land at the foothills of the Pennines, north-northwest of Oldham, south-southeast of Rochdale and northeast of the city of Manchester.Historically a...
(which included a sizable female section), Crompton
Shaw and Crompton
Shaw and Crompton is a town and civil parish within the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham, in Greater Manchester, England. It lies on the River Beal at the foothills of the South Pennines, north of Oldham, southeast of Rochdale, and to the northeast of the city of Manchester...
, Lees
Lees, Greater Manchester
The village consists of a small cluster of shops and businesses on either side of the A669 Lees Road, surrounded by some terraced houses and some small estates...
, Saddleworth
Saddleworth
Saddleworth is a civil parish of the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham in Greater Manchester, England. It comprises several villages and hamlets amongst the west side of the Pennine hills: Uppermill, Greenfield, Dobcross, Delph, Diggle and others...
and Mossley
Mossley
Mossley is a small town and civil parish within the Metropolitan Borough of Tameside, in Greater Manchester, England. The town is located in the upper section of the Tame valley in the foothills of the Pennines, northeast of Ashton-under-Lyne and east of Manchester.Mossley has the distinction of...
. Other sizable contingents marched from Middleton
Middleton, Greater Manchester
Middleton is a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Rochdale, in Greater Manchester, England. It stands on the River Irk, south-southwest of Rochdale, and north-northeast of the city of Manchester...
and Rochdale
Rochdale
Rochdale is a large market town in Greater Manchester, England. It lies amongst the foothills of the Pennines on the River Roch, north-northwest of Oldham, and north-northeast of the city of Manchester. Rochdale is surrounded by several smaller settlements which together form the Metropolitan...
(6,000 strong) and Stockport
Stockport
Stockport is a town in Greater Manchester, England. It lies on elevated ground southeast of Manchester city centre, at the point where the rivers Goyt and Tame join and create the River Mersey. Stockport is the largest settlement in the metropolitan borough of the same name...
(1,500–5,000 strong). Reports of the size of the crowd at the meeting vary substantially. Contemporaries estimated it from 30,000 to as many as 150,000; modern estimates are 60,000–80,000. Scholar Joyce Marlow describes the event as "The most numerous meeting that ever took place in Great Britain" and elaborates that the generally accepted figure of 60,000 would have been 6% of the population of Lancashire, or half the population of the immediate area around Manchester.
The assembly was intended by its organisers and participants to be a peaceful meeting; Henry Hunt had exhorted everyone attending to come "armed with no other weapon but that of a self-approving conscience", and many were wearing their "Sunday best" clothes. Samuel Bamford recounts the following incident, which occurred as the Middleton contingent reached the outskirts of Manchester:
Although some observers, like the Rev. W. R. Hay, chairman of the Salford Quarter Sessions
Quarter Sessions
The Courts of Quarter Sessions or Quarter Sessions were local courts traditionally held at four set times each year in the United Kingdom and other countries in the former British Empire...
, claimed that "The active part of the meeting may be said to have come in wholly from the country", others such as John Shuttleworth, a local cotton manufacturer, estimated that most were from Manchester, a view that would subsequently be supported by the casualty lists. Of the casualties whose residence was recorded, 61% lived within a three-mile radius of the centre of Manchester. Some groups carried banners with texts like "No Corn Laws", "Annual Parliaments", "Universal suffrage" and "Vote By Ballot". The only banner known to have survived is in Middleton Public Library. It was carried by Thomas Redford, who was injured by a yeomanry sabre. Made of green silk embossed with gold lettering, one side of the banner is inscribed "Liberty and Fraternity" and the other "Unity and Strength".
Hunt's carriage arrived at the meeting shortly after 1:00 pm, and he made his way to the hustings. Alongside Hunt on the speakers' stand were John Knight, a cotton manufacturer and reformer, Joseph Johnson, the organiser of the meeting, John Thacker Saxton, managing editor of the Manchester Observer, the publisher Richard Carlile
Richard Carlile
Richard Carlile was an important agitator for the establishment of universal suffrage and freedom of the press in the United Kingdom.-Early life :...
, and George Swift, reformer and shoemaker. There were also a number of reporters, including John Tyas of The Times, John Smith of the Liverpool Echo and Edward Baines Jr, the son of the editor of the Leeds Mercury. By this time St Peter's Field, an area of 14000 square yards (11,706 m²), was packed with tens of thousands of men, women and children. The crowd around the speakers was so dense that "their hats seemed to touch"; large groups of curious spectators gathered on the outskirts of the crowd. The rest of Manchester was like a ghost town
Ghost town
A ghost town is an abandoned town or city. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economic activity that supported it has failed, or due to natural or human-caused disasters such as floods, government actions, uncontrolled lawlessness, war, or nuclear disasters...
, the streets and shops were empty.
Charge
William HultonWilliam Hulton
William Hulton was an English landowner and magistrate.William Hulton was the son of William Hulton and Jane of Hulton Park, then in the historic county of Lancashire, England. He was educated at Brasenose College, Oxford...
, the chairman of the magistrates watching from the house on the edge of St Peter's Field, saw the enthusiastic reception that Hunt received on his arrival at the assembly, and it encouraged him to action. He issued an arrest warrant for Henry Hunt, Joseph Johnson, John Knight, and James Moorhouse. On being handed the warrant the Chief Constable, Jonathan Andrews, offered his opinion that the press of the crowd surrounding the hustings would make military assistance necessary for its execution. Hulton then wrote two letters, one to Major Thomas Trafford
Thomas de Trafford
Sir Thomas Joseph de Trafford, 1st Baronet, DL was a member of a prominent family of English Roman Catholics. He served as commander of the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry at the time of the Peterloo Massacre...
, the commanding officer of the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry Cavalry, and the other to the overall military commander in Manchester, Lieutenant Colonel Guy L'Estrange. The contents of both notes were similar:
The notes were handed to two horsemen who were standing by. The Manchester and Salford Yeomanry were stationed just a short distance away in Portland Street, and so received their note first. They immediately drew their swords and galloped towards St Peter's Field. One trooper, in a frantic attempt to catch up, knocked down a woman in Cooper Street, causing the death of her child when he was thrown from her arms; two-year-old William Fildes was the first casualty of Peterloo.
Sixty cavalrymen of the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry, led by Captain Hugh Hornby Birley
Hugh Hornby Birley
Hugh Hornby Birley was a leading Manchester Tory who is reputed to have led the fatal charge of the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry at the Peterloo Massacre. He was also instrumental in founding the Royal Victoria Gallery of Practical Science in 1839...
, a local factory owner, arrived at the house from where the magistrates were watching; some reports allege that they were drunk. Andrews, the Chief Constable, instructed Birley that he had an arrest warrant which he needed assistance to execute. Birley was asked to take his cavalry to the hustings to allow the speakers to be removed; it was by then about 1:40 pm.
From his vantage point William Hulton perceived the unfolding events as an assault on the yeomanry, and on L'Estrange's arrival at 1:50 pm, at the head of his hussars, he ordered them into the field to disperse the crowd with the words: "Good God, Sir, don't you see they are attacking the Yeomanry; disperse the meeting!" The 15th Hussars formed themselves into a line stretching across the eastern end of St Peter's Field, and charged into the crowd. At about the same time the Cheshire Yeomanry charged from the southern edge of the field. At first the crowd had some difficulty in dispersing, as the main exit route into Peter Street was blocked by the 88th Regiment of Foot
88th Regiment of Foot (Connaught Rangers)
The 88th Regiment of Foot was an Irish Regiment of the British Army, one of eight Irish regiments raised and garrisoned in Ireland. As part of the Cardwell-Childers reforms of the British army, the regiment amalgamated with the 94th Foot, to form the Connaught Rangers on 1 July 1881...
, standing with bayonets fixed. One officer of the 15th Hussars was heard trying to restrain the by now out of control Manchester and Salford Yeomanry, who were "cutting at every one they could reach": "For shame! For shame! Gentlemen: forbear, forbear! The people cannot get away!"
However, within ten minutes the crowd had been dispersed, at the cost of 11 dead and over 600 injured. Only the wounded, their helpers, and the dead were left behind. A woman living nearby said she saw "a very great deal of blood". For some time afterwards there was rioting in the streets, most seriously at New Cross, where troops fired on a crowd attacking a shop belonging to someone rumoured to have taken one of the women reformers' flags as a souvenir. Peace was not restored in Manchester until the next morning, and in Stockport and Macclesfield
Macclesfield
Macclesfield is a market town within the unitary authority of Cheshire East, the county palatine of Chester, also known as the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. The population of the Macclesfield urban sub-area at the time of the 2001 census was 50,688...
rioting continued on the 17th. There was also a major riot in Oldham
Oldham
Oldham is a large town in Greater Manchester, England. It lies amid the Pennines on elevated ground between the rivers Irk and Medlock, south-southeast of Rochdale, and northeast of the city of Manchester...
that day, during which one person was shot and wounded.
Victims
A particular feature of the meeting at Peterloo was the number of women present. Female reform societies had been formed in north west England during June and July 1819, the first in Britain. Many of them were dressed distinctively in white, and some formed all-female contingents, carrying their own flags. Of the 654 recorded casualties, at least 168 were women, four of whom died either at St Peter's Field or later as a result of their wounds. It has been estimated that less than 12% of the crowd was made up of females, suggesting that women were at significantly greater risk of injury than men by a factor of almost 3:1. Richard Carlile claimed that the women were especially targeted, a view apparently supported by the large number who suffered from wounds caused by weapons.
Eleven of the fatalities listed occurred on St Peter's Field. Some, like John Lees of Oldham, died later of their wounds, and others like Joshua Whitworth were killed in the rioting that followed the crowd's dispersal from the field.
Public
| “ | Just published No. 1 price twopence of PETER LOO MASSACRE Containing a full, true and faithful account of the inhuman murders, woundings and other monstous Cruelties exercised by a set of INFERNALS (miscalled Soldiers) upon unarmed and distressed People. |
” |
| — 28 August 1819, Manchester Observer | ||
| “ | As the 'Peterloo Massacre' cannot be otherwise than grossly libellous you will probably deem it right to proceed by arresting the publishers. | ” |
| — 25 August 1819, Letter from the Home Office Home Office The Home Office is the United Kingdom government department responsible for immigration control, security, and order. As such it is responsible for the police, UK Border Agency, and the Security Service . It is also in charge of government policy on security-related issues such as drugs,... to Magistrate Norris |
||
The Peterloo Massacre has been called one of the defining moments of its age. Many of those present at the massacre, including local masters, employers and owners, were horrified by the carnage. One of the casualties, Oldham cloth-worker and ex-soldier John Lees, who died from his wounds on 7 September, had been present at the Battle of Waterloo
Battle of Waterloo
The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815 near Waterloo in present-day Belgium, then part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands...
. Shortly before his death he said to a friend that he had never been in such danger as at Peterloo: "At Waterloo there was man to man but there it was downright murder." When news of the massacre began to spread, the population of Manchester and surrounding districts were horrified and outraged. This was the first public meeting at which journalists from a number of important, distant newspapers were present and, within a day or so of the event, accounts were published as far away as London, Leeds and Liverpool. The London and national papers shared the horror felt in the Manchester region, and the feeling of indignation throughout the country became intense. The name "Peterloo" was coined immediately by the radical Manchester Observer, combining the name of the meeting place, St Peter's Field, with the Battle of Waterloo
Battle of Waterloo
The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815 near Waterloo in present-day Belgium, then part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands...
fought four years earlier.
The poet Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is critically regarded as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. Shelley was famous for his association with John Keats and Lord Byron...
was living in Italy at the time and did not hear of the massacre until 5 September. He immediately wrote a poem entitled The Masque of Anarchy
The Masque of Anarchy
The Mask of Anarchy is a political poem written in 1819 by Percy Bysshe Shelley following the Peterloo Massacre of that year...
, subtitled Written on the Occasion of the Massacre at Manchester, and sent it for publication in the radical periodical The Examiner. However, due to restrictions on the radical press the poem was not published until 1832. Many commemorative items such as plates, jugs, handkerchiefs and medals were produced, all with the iconic image of Peterloo; cavalrymen with swords drawn riding down and slashing at defenceless civilians.
Political
The immediate effect of Peterloo was a crackdown on reform. Hunt and eight others were tried at York Assizes on 16 March 1820, charged with seditionSedition
In law, sedition is overt conduct, such as speech and organization, that is deemed by the legal authority to tend toward insurrection against the established order. Sedition often includes subversion of a constitution and incitement of discontent to lawful authority. Sedition may include any...
. After a two-week trial, five of the ten defendants were found guilty. Hunt was sentenced to 30 months in Ilchester
Ilchester
Ilchester is a village and civil parish, situated on the River Yeo or Ivel, five miles north of Yeovil, in the English county of Somerset. The parish, which includes the village of Sock Dennis and the old parish of Northover, has a population of 2,021...
Gaol; Bamford, Johnson, and Healey were given one year each, and Knight was jailed for two years on a subsequent charge. A test case was brought against four members of the Manchester Yeomanry at Lancaster Assizes, on 4 April 1822: Captain Birley, Captain Withington, Trumpeter Meagher, and Private Oliver. All were acquitted, as the court ruled that their actions had been justified to disperse an illegal gathering.
Home Secretary
The Secretary of State for the Home Department, commonly known as the Home Secretary, is the minister in charge of the Home Office of the United Kingdom, and one of the country's four Great Offices of State...
, Lord Sidmouth
Henry Addington, 1st Viscount Sidmouth
Henry Addington, 1st Viscount Sidmouth, PC was a British statesman, and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1801 to 1804....
, on 27 August conveyed to the magistrates the thanks of the Prince Regent
George IV of the United Kingdom
George IV was the King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and also of Hanover from the death of his father, George III, on 29 January 1820 until his own death ten years later...
for their action in the "preservation of the public peace". That public exoneration was met with fierce anger and criticism. During a debate at Hopkins Street Robert Wedderburn declared "The Prince is a fool with his Wonderful letters of thanks ... What is the Prince Regent or King to us, we want no King – he is no use to us." In an open letter, Richard Carlile said:
For a few months following Peterloo it seemed to the authorities that the country was heading towards an armed rebellion. Encouraging them in that belief were two abortive uprisings, in Huddersfield
Huddersfield
Huddersfield is a large market town within the Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees, in West Yorkshire, England, situated halfway between Leeds and Manchester. It lies north of London, and south of Bradford, the nearest city....
and Burnley
Burnley
Burnley is a market town in the Burnley borough of Lancashire, England, with a population of around 73,500. It lies north of Manchester and east of Preston, at the confluence of the River Calder and River Brun....
, during the autumn of 1819, and the discovery and foiling of the Cato Street Conspiracy
Cato Street Conspiracy
The Cato Street Conspiracy was an attempt to murder all the British cabinet ministers and Prime Minister Lord Liverpool in 1820. The name comes from the meeting place near Edgware Road in London. The Cato Street Conspiracy is notable due to dissenting public opinions regarding the punishment of the...
to blow up the cabinet that winter. By the end of the year, the government had introduced legislation, later known as the Six Acts
Six Acts
In the United Kingdom, following the Peterloo Massacre of August 16, 1819, the British government acted to prevent any future disturbances by the introduction of new legislation, the so-called Six Acts which labelled any meeting for radical reform as "an overt act of treasonable conspiracy"...
, to suppress radical
Radicalism (historical)
The term Radical was used during the late 18th century for proponents of the Radical Movement. It later became a general pejorative term for those favoring or seeking political reforms which include dramatic changes to the social order...
meetings and publications, and by the end of 1820 every significant working-class radical reformer was in jail; civil liberties had declined to an even lower level than they were before Peterloo. Historian Robert Reid has written that "it is not fanciful to compare the restricted freedoms of the British worker in the post-Peterloo period in the early nineteenth century with those of the black South African in the post-Sharpeville period of the late twentieth century".
One direct consequence of Peterloo was the foundation of The Manchester Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
newspaper in 1821 by a group of non-conformist Manchester businessmen headed by John Edward Taylor
John Edward Taylor
John Edward Taylor was the founder of the Manchester Guardian newspaper, later to become The Guardian.-Biography:...
, a witness to the massacre. The prospectus announcing the new publication proclaimed that it would "zealously enforce the principles of civil and religious Liberty ... warmly advocate the cause of Reform ... endeavour to assist in the diffusion of just principles of Political Economy and ... support, without reference to the party from which they emanate, all serviceable measures".
Events such as the Pentridge Rising
Pentrich, Derbyshire
-Pentrich Revolution:The village gave its name to the Pentrich Revolution, which occurred on the night of 9/10 June 1817. A gathering of some two or three hundred men , led by Jeremiah Brandreth , , set out to march to Nottingham...
, the March of the Blanketeers
Blanketeers
The Blanketeers or Blanket March was a demonstration organised in Manchester in March 1817. The intention was for the participants, who were mainly Lancashire weavers, to march to London and petition the Prince Regent over the desperate state of the textile industry in Lancashire, and to protest...
and the Spa Fields
Spa Fields
Spa Fields is a park, and surrounding area, in the London Borough of Islington in London, bordering Finsbury and Clerkenwell. Historically it is known for the Spa Fields riots of 1816 and an Owenite community which existed there between 1821 and 1824...
meeting, all serve to indicate the breadth, diversity and widespread geographical scale of the demand for economic and political reform at the time. Peterloo had no effect on the speed of reform, but in due course all but one of the reformer's demands, annual parliaments, were met. Following the Great Reform Act of 1832, the newly created Manchester parliamentary borough
Manchester (UK Parliament constituency)
Manchester was a Parliamentary borough constituency in the county of Lancashire which was represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Its territory consisted of the city of Manchester.- History :...
elected its first two MPs. Five candidates including William Cobbett
William Cobbett
William Cobbett was an English pamphleteer, farmer and journalist, who was born in Farnham, Surrey. He believed that reforming Parliament and abolishing the rotten boroughs would help to end the poverty of farm labourers, and he attacked the borough-mongers, sinecurists and "tax-eaters" relentlessly...
stood, and the Whigs
British Whig Party
The Whigs were a party in the Parliament of England, Parliament of Great Britain, and Parliament of the United Kingdom, who contested power with the rival Tories from the 1680s to the 1850s. The Whigs' origin lay in constitutional monarchism and opposition to absolute rule...
, Charles Poulett Thomson and Mark Philips, were elected. Manchester became a Municipal Borough
Municipal borough
Municipal boroughs were a type of local government district which existed in England and Wales between 1835 and 1974, in Northern Ireland from 1840 to 1973 and in the Republic of Ireland from 1840 to 2002...
in 1837, and what remained of the manorial rights were subsequently purchased by the borough council.
Commemoration
The Free Trade HallFree Trade Hall
The Free Trade Hall, Peter Street, Manchester, was a public hall constructed in 1853–6 on St Peter's Fields, the site of the Peterloo Massacre and is now a hotel. The hall was built to commemorate the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846. The architect was Edward Walters The hall subsequently was...
, home of the Anti-Corn Law League
Anti-Corn Law League
The Anti-Corn Law League was in effect the resumption of the Anti-Corn Law Association, which had been created in London in 1836 but did not obtain widespread popularity. The Anti-Corn Law League was founded in Manchester in 1838...
, was built partly as a "cenotaph raised on the shades of the victims" of Peterloo. Until 2007 the massacre was commemorated by a blue plaque
Blue plaque
A blue plaque is a permanent sign installed in a public place to commemorate a link between that location and a famous person or event, serving as a historical marker....
on the wall of the present building, the third to occupy the site, now the Radisson Hotel. It was regarded as a less than appropriate memorial because it under reported the incident as a dispersal, and the deaths were omitted completely. In a 2006 survey conducted by The Guardian, Peterloo came second to St. Mary's Church, Putney
St. Mary's Church, Putney
St. Mary's Church , Putney is an Anglican church in Putney, London sited next to the river Thames, beside the southern approach to Putney Bridge. There has been a centre of Christian worship on this site from at least the 13th century, and the church is still very active today...
, the venue for the Putney Debates
Putney Debates
The Putney Debates were a series of discussions between members of the New Model Army – a number of the participants being Levellers – concerning the makeup of a new constitution for England....
, as the event from British history that most deserved a proper monument. A Peterloo Massacre Memorial Campaign was set up to lobby for a more prominent monument to an event that has been described as Manchester's Tiananmen Square
Tiananmen Square protests of 1989
The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, also known as the June Fourth Incident in Chinese , were a series of demonstrations in and near Tiananmen Square in Beijing in the People's Republic of China beginning on 15 April 1989...
.
In 2007, Manchester City Council
Manchester City Council
Manchester City Council is the local government authority for Manchester, a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. It is composed of 96 councillors, three for each of the 32 electoral wards of Manchester. Currently the council is controlled by the Labour Party and is led by...
replaced the original blue plaque with a red one, giving a fuller account of the events of 1819. It was unveiled on 10 December 2007 by the Lord Mayor of Manchester, Councillor Glynn Evans. Under the heading "St. Peter's Fields: The Peterloo Massacre", the new plaque reads:
In 1968, in celebration of its centenary, the Trades Union Congress
Trades Union Congress
The Trades Union Congress is a national trade union centre, a federation of trade unions in the United Kingdom, representing the majority of trade unions...
commissioned British composer Sir Malcolm Arnold
Malcolm Arnold
Sir Malcolm Henry Arnold, CBE was an English composer and symphonist.Malcolm Arnold began his career playing trumpet professionally, but by age thirty his life was devoted to composition. He was ranked with Benjamin Britten as one of the most sought-after composers in Britain...
to write the Peterloo Overture. Other 20th-century musical commemorations include "Ned Ludd Part 5" on electric folk
Electric folk
Electric folk is the name given to the form of folk rock pioneered in England from the late 1960s, and most significant in the 1970s, which then was taken up and developed in the surrounding Celtic cultures of Brittany, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and the Isle of Man, to produce Celtic rock and its...
group Steeleye Span
Steeleye Span
Steeleye Span are an English folk-rock band, formed in 1969 and remaining active today. Along with Fairport Convention they are amongst the best known acts of the British folk revival, and were among the most commercially successful, thanks to their hit singles "Gaudete" and "All Around My Hat"....
's 2006 album Bloody Men
Bloody Men (album)
Bloody Men is the 20th studio album by the British electric folk band Steeleye Span.This album represents a continuation of the band's recent surge of activity...
, and Rochdale
Rochdale
Rochdale is a large market town in Greater Manchester, England. It lies amongst the foothills of the Pennines on the River Roch, north-northwest of Oldham, and north-northeast of the city of Manchester. Rochdale is surrounded by several smaller settlements which together form the Metropolitan...
rock band Tractor
Tractor (band)
Tractor is a band founded in Rochdale, Lancashire, England by guitarist/vocalist Jim Milne and drummer Steve Clayton in 1971. Both had been members of a beat group, The Way We Live since 1966. They are notable both for their appreciation by John Peel and Julian Cope, but also for their longevity...
's suite of five songs written and recorded in 1973, later included on their 1992 release Worst Enemies.
See also
- History of ManchesterHistory of ManchesterThe history of Manchester encompasses its change from a minor Lancastrian township into the pre-eminent industrial metropolis of the United Kingdom and the world. Manchester began expanding "at an astonishing rate" around the turn of the 19th century as part of a process of unplanned urbanisation...
- Unreformed House of CommonsUnreformed House of CommonsThe unreformed House of Commons is the name generally given to the British House of Commons as it existed before the Reform Act 1832.Until the Act of Union of 1707 joining the Kingdoms of Scotland and England , Scotland had its own Parliament, and the term refers to the House of Commons of England...
- List of massacres in the United Kingdom