Only a minority campaigned for women to have the vote, but women were nevertheless active in the movement. It was critical to our freedoms.". His son, Samuel, received 20 shillings in relief. Shelley’s reaction to Peterloo, what one biographer has called “the most intensely creative eight weeks of his whole life,” embodies and elevates what is greatest about his work. In the process, 18 people were killed and about 500, including 100 women, were wounded. Henry Hunt gave the number as 180,000 – 200, 000 in his memoirs, while Richard Carlile, who was also on the hustings, gave the unusually high attendance figure of 300,000 people in Sherwin’s Political Register. Contact Us The government instructed the police and courts to go after the journalists, presses and publication that was the Manchester Observer. spotting a reporter from the radical Manchester Observer, a Yeomanry officer called out "There's Saxton, damn him, run him through.") 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. 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;[40] two-year-old William Fildes was the first casualty of Peterloo. On horseback, armed with sabres and clubs, many were familiar with, and had old scores to settle with, the leading protesters. This included Henry 'Orator' Hunt, Richard Carlile, John Knight, Joseph Johnson and Mary Fildes. Events this Thursday - the massacre's 188th anniversary - will highlight concern that Peterloo is in danger of being forgotten. arresting the speakers. "They say there'll be thousands pouring into Manchester tomorrow. Meetings to condemn the massacre took place in Wakefield, Glasgow, Sheffield, Huddersfield and Nottingham. At the trial of Rochdale workers charged with rioting on the night after Peterloo, Attorney General Sir Robert Gifford made clear that the ruling class would stop at nothing to crush the development of radical and revolutionary sentiment in the masses. In March 1819, Joseph Johnson, John Knight and James Wroe formed the Manchester Patriotic Union Society. they are killing them in front, and they cannot get away." | As 600 Hussars, several hundred infantrymen; an artillery unit with two six-pounder guns, 400 men of the Cheshire cavalry and 400 special constables waited in reserve, the local Yeomanry were given the task of arresting the speakers. Ironically, the attempt to silence government critics only encouraged journalists to develop inventive new ways of conveying the message of reform, while the outrage of conservative newspapers only inspired further satires. 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. Workers took a more direct response, even as the military were being deployed widely against the population. A full report of the meeting appeared in the next edition of the newspaper. [87] Under the heading "St. Peter's Fields: The Peterloo Massacre", the new plaque reads: On 16 August 1819 a peaceful rally of 60,000 pro-democracy reformers, men, women and children, was attacked by armed cavalry resulting in 15 deaths and over 600 injuries.[88]. On the bank of an open field on our left I perceived a gentleman observing us attentively. Nadin replied that this could not be done without the help of the military. Peace was not restored in Manchester until the next morning, and in Stockport and Macclesfield rioting continued on the 17th. "The magistrates effectively let local shopkeepers and businessmen, people with a stake in the status quo, loose on the crowd," said Mr Clarke. It underscores his importance to us now. 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. The project is backed by local trade unions, and Labour and Liberal Democrat politicians who say the occasion has for too long been treated "as a secret". [42] Andrews, the Chief Constable, instructed Birley that he had an arrest warrant which he needed assistance to execute. their swords. At about the same time the Cheshire Yeomanry charged from the southern edge of the field. He declared: “Men deluded themselves if they thought their condition would be bettered by such kind of Reform as Universal Suffrage, Annual Parliaments, and Vote by Ballot; or that it was just that the property of the country ought to be equally divided among its inhabitants, or that such a daring innovation would ever take place.”. Her research is focussed on the links between working-class political identities and the home in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. 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. This week, the city whose conscience was seared by the death of nine men, a woman and a child at a mass demonstration demanding the vote, will see the launch of a campaign for a "prominent, accurate and respectful" memorial to the brief mayhem known to history as the Peterloo massacre. But hopefully the organisers and journalists will get abreast of recent research. With Rory Kinnear, Maxine Peake, Neil Bell, Philip Jackson. 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: I will be prepared to go there, and will have in that neighbourhood, that is within an easy day's march, 8 squadron of cavalry, 18 companies of infantry and the guns. 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. The pamphlets, which appeared for fourteen consecutive weeks from 28th August, price twopence, had a large circulation, and played an important role in the propaganda war against the authorities. [53] 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". Be on the lookout for your Britannica newsletter to get trusted stories delivered right to your inbox. George Cruikshank and William Hone's satirical Bank Restriction Note, Poster about political reform and radicalism in north England, An inquest on a death caused by the Peterloo Massacre, Lists of the killed and wounded from the Peterloo Massacre, Petition declaring support for the victims of the Peterloo Massacre and the protestors, Gagging Acts cartoon by George Cruikshank with poem, Manuscript of P B Shelley's 'The Masque of Anarchy', Newspaper cuttings of letters relating to the Peterloo Massacre, Account of poor prison conditions at Ilchester by Henry Hunt, Galleries, Reading Rooms, Shop and Catering Opening Times Vary. [81] 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. "[47] The 15th Hussars formed themselves into a line stretching across the eastern end of St Peter's Field, and charged into the crowd. [46], 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! Plans to elect a "shadow parliament" put the wind up the Tory government which was also frightened that the power of Henry "Orator" Hunt, the main speaker at Peterloo, might turn the Manchester crowd into a mob. In October, a banner in Halifax bore the lines: With heartfelt grief we mourn for thoseWho fell a victim to our causeWhile we with indignation viewThe bloody field of Peterloo. Its content is pointed— “In every direction they slaughtered away, Drunken with blood on St. Ethelstone’s Day”—but Davenport sharpens the satire even further by specifying the tune “Gee Ho Dobbin,” the prince regent’s favourite. Some persons said it was the Blackburn people coming, and I stood on tip-toe and looked in the direction whence the noise was coming from, I saw a party of cavalry in blue and white uniform come trotting, sword in hand. Shelley’s manuscript of ‘The Mask of Anarchy’, 1819, inspired by the Peterloo Massacre. [13], St Peter's Field was a croft (an open piece of land) alongside Mount Street which was being cleared to enable the last section of Peter Street to be constructed. However, due to restrictions on the radical press the poem was not published until 1832. Weaver poet John Stafford, who regularly sang at radical meetings, wrote a longer, more detailed account of the day’s events in a song titled “Peterloo.”. Less than 2% of the population had the vote at the time, and resentment was sharpened by "rotten boroughs" such as the moribund Wiltshire village Old Sarum which had 11 voters and two MPs. The Manchester & Salford Yeomanry entered St. Peter's Field along the path cleared by the special constables. "[49], However, within ten minutes the crowd had been dispersed, at the cost of 11 dead and over 600 injured. (9), Richard Carlile managed to avoid being arrested and after being hidden by local radicals, he took the first mail coach to London. Please consider the environment before printing, All text is © British Library and is available under Creative Commons Attribution Licence except where otherwise stated. In many towns, the march was practised on local moors in the weeks before the meeting to ensure that everybody could arrive in an organised manner. Among this new legislation was the requirement for any public meeting on church or state matters of more than 50 people to obtain the permission of a sheriff or magistrate, and the toughening of the laws that punished authors of blasphemous or seditious material. Yeomen and hussars continued attacks on workers across Manchester, and the ruling class launched an intensive campaign of disinformation and retribution. The Tiger Who Came to Tea by Judith Kerr: sketches and original artwork, Sean's Red Bike by Petronella Breinburg, illustrated by Errol Lloyd, Unfinished Business: The Fight for Women's Rights, The fight for women’s rights is unfinished business, Get 3 for 2 on all British Library Fiction, Discovering Literature: Romantics & Victorians. Wroe is believed to be the first person to describe the incident as the Peterloo Massacre. [46] Their mission to execute the arrest warrant having been achieved, they then set about destroying the banners and flags carried by the crowd. The Peterloo Massacre (or Battle of Peterloo) 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.. Carlile was determined not to be silenced. Birley later insisted that the troop's erratic behaviour was caused by the horses being afraid of the crowd. [44] On his arrival at the stand Nadin arrested Hunt, Johnson and a number of others including John Tyas, the reporter from The Times. "[77] In an open letter, Richard Carlile said: Unless the Prince calls his ministers to account and relieved his people, he would surely be deposed and make them all REPUBLICANS, despite all adherence to ancient and established institutions. [19] Reports of the size of the crowd at the meeting vary substantially.
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