Peterloo Massacre

August 16,1819

St. Peter's Field, Manchester.

The British army cut down the British public.

Pictures to click and enlarge

Henry 'Orator' Hunt

Member of Parliament

for Preston

The brave hussars cut

down the workers of

Lancashire

Read about the regiment

today - they don't

mention Peterloo!

The Peterloo Massacre, 1819

Why was there a crowd that day?

Political meetings in Spa Fields in London in 1816 had caused the government great alarm. One of the main Radical campaigners was William 'Orator' Hunt. (Orator means public speaker). Habeas Corpus was suspended - meaning people could be arrested without charge.

A year later in 1817 the Blanketeers planned to march from Manchester to London to protest about unemployment and poverty. (They carried blankets for the journey) Troops broke up the assembly before they began, the ringleaders were jailed, and many of the Blanketeers were arrested for breaking ancient vagrancy laws.

A huge meeting was planned for August 16, 1819 in St. Peters Fields in Manchester, where Henry Hunt and other Radicals would address the crowds. Over 50,000 men, women and children from across Lancashire were in the square by midday. They were dressed in their Sunday best and carried banners calling for democracy and freedom ('one man one vote')

What happened?

When Hunt began speaking to the crowd, a group of part-time soldiers from the Manchester Yeomanry went in on horseback to arrest him on the orders of the magistrates. Many of the cavalrymen had never worked with crowds before and a woman was knocked down, and her child killed by them.

The crowd turned on the yeomanry and a local army unit, the 15th Hussars charged in with their swords to rescue them. Many of the soldiers were reported to have been drinking all day up to this point.

Eleven people were dead, and over 400 wounded. The public immediately called it 'The Massacre at Peterloo' in reference to the army's success in the Battle of Waterloo four years previously. None of the soldiers were charged.

Peterloo signalled a complete end in the trust between the British working class and the forced of the establishment, in particular the magistrates and the army.

Timeline Industrial

External Links

Peterloo Massacre

From Spartacus

Peterloo Massacre

at the English History Web

Peterloo Website

from Chadderton Historical Society nr Manchester

Peterloo News

from Cotton Times

Radical Manchester

Manchester Virtual Encyclopaedia

Peterloo - a turning point

History from the Communist Party of Britain

How have these changed? Crime, Protest, Punishment and Policing.

What happened in?

Early-Modern

c.1500-1750

Kett's Rebellion, Pilgrimage of Grace, Gunpowder Plot, Vagabonds, Poaching, Smuggling, Highwaymen, Witchcraft, Corporal Punishment, Bloody Code........more

Industrial Britain

c.1750-1900

Theft and robbery, Poverty, Police, Transportation, Prisons, Luddites, Swing Riots, Chartism, Prison Reformers, Dock Strike........more

Twentieth Century

c.1900-2000

Suffrage Movement, Conscientious Objectors, General Strike, Hanging, Youth Detention, Fingerprinting, DNA, Surveillance, Drug Crime, Hooliganism, Community Service, Race Crime.........more

Who were?

Robert Aske, Matthew Hopkins, Jonathan Wild, Dick Turpin, John Howard, Elizabeth Fry, Derek Bentley........more

Click to enlarge this engraving showing the

radical platform at the meeting.

Click to enlarge this huge picture of the

chaotic scene at 'Peterloo'

Click to enlarge this notice

of a meeting two months

after the massacre.

St. Peters Square as it is today, from

Manchester Online by Aidan O'Rourke

Another thumbnail

picture to click.

Aren't I generous?