The Peterloo Massacre - Historical Background

Historical Background to Peterloo

By 1819 Manchester had grown into England’s second largest city, and the world’s first industrial city. Its status remained that of a medieval market town owned by the Mosley family. It had no Member for Parliament, and magistrates from the Counties Palatine of Lancaster and Chester were empowered to take control in times of unrest. Before August 16th a Select Committee of Magistrates had already assumed control of the town, which was regarded by Lord Liverpool’s administration as the most troublesome, turbulent, seditious, and wicked area in the country. [ Joyce Marlow ]

A few days after the meeting the Manchester Observer coined the name Peterloo, associating it in mockery with Napoleons defeat at the Battle of Waterloo which had taken place four years earlier. Thus: the name Peterloo and even the Peterloo Massacre became a powerful and emotive symbol for generations in the shaping of political opinion. In the words of Simon Schama, ‘There was something evil about Peterloo, which for many mocked the pretension of the government to be upholding British traditions against innovation. Peterloo was not, the critics believed, a British event.’
Although the name Peterloo is now well-known its memory has faded over the generations. However, there is no doubt that Peterloo was a major event in British history, and the most important day in Manchester’s political history. It was also one of the bloodiest days in Manchester’s history which occurred at St Peter’s Field where the Free Trade Hall stands today, and close to St. Peter’s Square. Almost every writer dealing with the post-Napoleonic period of British history has touched on this controversial topic with the exception of Winston Churchill, who in A History of English Speaking Peoples did not mention it at all. However, historians generally agree that a repressive Government and an equally repressive Select Committee of Magistrates brutally dispersed a peaceful Radical Reform meeting with tragic results.
To place the period in historical context there is no doubt however that the great technical advances of the Industrial Revolution were certainly not accompanied by any comparable improvements in British society as a whole. A few men of ‘humble birth’ were enabled to make fortunes beyond their wildest dreams which had previously not been possible. However, in the words of Chris Aspin ‘the headlong pursuit of wealth dragged many thousands into misery and degradation. Government, badly informed and often misled about the state of the manufacturing districts, reacted to the people’s unrest with exaggerated alarm and too often introduced measures that added fuel to the fire beneath the Lancashire cauldron, which for more than half a century simmered, and from time to time boiled over, with bitter passions of class hatred.’
In 1819 Manchester was only one of several industrial centres where unenfranchised working men had organised themselves into clubs to discuss political topics, to make plans for a constitutional reform of Parliament and to hasten this reform by means of demonstrations which were intended to persuade the ruling class. The industrial towns in Lancashire looked to Manchester to take the lead. Here the reform movement was more vigorous but was also more carefully watched by the local magistrates.
By 1819, the manufacturing and selling of cotton was the main occupation of the people of Manchester and surrounding towns. Raw cotton arrived at Liverpool from America, was sold by dealers to Manchester merchants who then passed it on to master spinners. The two basic manufacturing processes were the spinning into yarn and weaving into cloth. By this time spinning was mainly done in mills with new machinery whilst the weaving process was still largely carried out by handloom weavers working from home.
Throughout the Napoleonic Wars migrant workers had flocked into Manchester not only from Lancashire, but from all counties of England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. Because of the increasing demand for children in the cotton trade, many large families were included among the migrant workers. All these people were poverty-stricken and had come to settle in Manchester to benefit from the work the new cotton industry provided.
As early as 1815, over 24,000 workers were employed in the sixty spinning mills located in the Manchester region. Although ninety per cent of spinning was carried out in mills other spinners operated from home. Manchester is also believed to have had no less than 10,000 silk weavers in 1815 and over the following decade the silk trade increased dramatically. Most of the silk weavers were recruited from the skilled workers in the cotton trade in Manchester itself but most were recruited from Macclesfield.
The cotton trade created modern Manchester along with a small privileged middle-class and a large group of working-class who were condemned to a life of hardship. There was no doubt that the cotton industry was responsible for the increasing growth and wealth of the town. It was not long before Manchester became one of the commercial capitals of Europe long before it became an incorporated town in 1838. On the one hand Manchester’s progress was reflected by the newness of its buildings and on the other hand by its squalor. However, most of the buildings in Manchester were already blackened with smoke by the beginning of the nineteenth century. A visitor from Rotherham declared as early as 1808:

The town is abominably filthy, and the Steam Engine is pestiferous, the Dye houses noisome and offensive, and the water of the river as black as ink or the Stygian lake.

From the late 1780s up until the first census of 1801 Manchester’s population had risen from 40,000 to over 70,000. The population had grown to 108,000 in 1821, and 142,000 by 1831. The surrounding towns like Ashton, Bolton, Blackburn, Rochdale and Stockport had also grown at the same alarming rate. After visiting Manchester Engels described the working conditions in one of the cotton mills by the 1840’s as follows:

In the cotton and flax spinning mills there are many rooms in which the air is filled with fluff and dust...The operative of course had no choice in the matter...The usual consequences of inhaling factory dust are the spitting of blood, heavy, noisy breathing, pains in the chest, coughing and sleeplessness...Accidents occur to operatives who work in rooms crammed full of machinery...The most common injury is the loss of a joint of the finger...In Manchester one sees not only numerous cripples, but also plenty of workers who have lost the whole or part of an arm, leg or foot.

It must be remembered that towards the end of the eighteenth century enlightened thinkers were writing about social equality, the will of the majority and the end of the feudal system which was still binding the rural population of Europe to its aristocratic rulers. These writers argued that power should not be simply vested in aristocratic elite, the Church or even the mercantile class but be shared by the people. However, the aristocracy in England still believed that the majority of the middle-class as well as the poor should be excluded from the ‘sacred circle of the parliamentary Constitution.’
Throughout the last years of George III’s reign, national consciousness had been promoted through public celebrations of ‘loyalty’ and ‘royalty’ by spectacular military parades to elicit popular support for the existing order, the Church and King. However, things began to change in England and in Manchester in particular when in 1790 two new political constitutional reform societies were established, and partisan opinions and prejudices grew around them. As early as March 1790, the dominant Anglican-Tory oligarchy in Manchester established The Church and King Club, to celebrate the successful defence of the Test and Corporation Acts which became the focus for organised campaigns against constitutional reformers. Its motto and toast of ‘Church and King, and down with the Rump,’ stemmed from earlier confrontations within the Manchester middle-class.
During October 1790 Thomas Walker, a Unitarian cotton manufacturer, established a rival liberal association, the Manchester Constitutional Society. Between May and June of 1792 two more radical clubs were established, one the Patriotic and the other the Constitutional Society, whose members were largely weavers, labourers and journeymen, [tradesmen]. Both of these clubs were committed to peaceful reforms although still acting under the patronage of Thomas Walker’s society. In effect the Manchester Constitutional Society of 1790-1793 was a middle-class organisation though it had satellite clubs of working-class reformers.
In May of 1792, the Constitutional Society issued a declaration that Members of Parliament should owe their seats to the free suffrage of the people. However, within a week the Government issued a proclamation against these ‘wicked and seditious writings.’ In June 1792, following a loyalist meeting to celebrate the King’s birthday, the loyalist crowd attacked two ‘Dissenting chapels, one of them the Unitarian chapel in Mosley Street.’ However, the local authorities made no attempt to intervene. Instead, the loyalist propaganda war against the Constitutional Society and Thomas Walker gained momentum. There is no doubt that loyalist political societies played an important role in counteracting the influence of Radicalism.
By September 1792, a total of 186 innkeepers and publicans in Manchester had signed a declaration of loyalty and banned members of reformer clubs from entering their public houses. Although it was rumoured at the time, that some had had their licences threatened beforehand by the local authorities. Further radical activity in Manchester sparked a spate of ‘loyalist-inspired mob violence.’ For example in December 1792, The Manchester Herald offices were attacked, along with Walkers’ house where the Reformation Society had been meeting. Again the authorities did nothing to stop the offenders. As a precaution Walker collected firearms to defend himself against possible future attacks. This soon came to the notice of the authorities and he was arrested. This led to a trial at the Lancaster Assizes on a trumped up charge to ‘overthrow the Constitution and Government and to aid and assist the French.’ Although Walker was acquitted, he was financially ruined by the cost of the trial. His trial also had the effect of frightening many reformers into keeping quiet or going underground.
Between 1792 and 1815, no less than 155 military barracks were constructed to accommodate the army. Most of these were strategically placed in the ‘disaffected’ districts of the Midlands, the North, and especially in Manchester and her surrounding towns. In the words of E.P. Thompson: ‘England until 1792 had been governed by consent and deference supplemented by the gallows and the Church and King mob.’
After 1795 public agitation for reform had many problems to overcome. Largely due to the repressive legislation passed by William Pitt’s Tory government, and the waves of loyalist sentiment which were aroused. One of the most permanent results of reform agitation in Manchester was the consolidation of the loyalists who formed the Manchester Association for Preserving Liberty, Order and Property who worked very closely with the local authorities. The magistrates and the town officers were some of its leading members. However, Radicalism was silenced by the Government in 1795 with relative ease. Once radical societies had no response to their arguments on reform they had no other way of persuading a Parliament made up of property owners who were united in their belief that their patrimony was threatened.
As early as 1800, the Government had passed the Combination Acts to prevent workers from forming organisations to fight for improved conditions. These Acts were passed at the request of the employers in the trades concerned. In addition the magistrates were able to lock up men and women under the Acts, which they frequently did. The Combination Acts made it practically impossible for workers to try to improve their lot without risking prosecution and imprisonment. By using the Combination Acts against workers and allowing employers to combine openly whenever they pleased, the magistrates were able to put the majority of the working-class completely under the control of their employers. However, in spite of the Combination Acts the unions of cotton spinners still maintained an underground existence.
Because their position was unchallenged, the wealthy classes fell into the habit of believing that all national and economic problems were in keeping with their own self interest. It seemed that the law of the land existed for no other purpose than the control and punishment of the working-class. There is no doubt the Home Secretary, Lord Sidmouth, with his unbending reverence for law and order was responsible for maintaining this policy.
Despite the severity of Government measures, between 1800 and 1815, the discontent of the masses had frequently erupted in agitation in the form of strikes, rioting and machine breaking. Following the closure of American trade early in 1811 and after the introduction of new machinery into the various mills most of the framework knitters were unemployed causing widespread poverty. This state of affairs in the East Midlands was responsible for the start of the Luddite movement. The Luddite movement erupted when bands of textile workers began to destroy machinery in textile mills which they blamed for the loss of their jobs. The Luddites as they were known wore masks after dark and their leader real or imagined was known as General Ludd.
The Prime Minister William Pitt died in 1812 and was succeeded by Lord Liverpool. His government believed Luddism was part of a widespread conspiracy plotting revolution. The conspiracy was a myth and most of the information regarding revolutionary activity was invented by government spies and agents provocateurs, who deliberately stirred up risings to accumulate evidence. In an attempt to smash the rising the government introduced the Frame Breaking Act in 1811 which imposed the death penalty for machine breaking. In fact the Luddite movement was largely non-political and not part of a revolutionary plot. Generally machine breaking was down to a few bands of machine breakers sometimes supported by spontaneously assembled mobs. Although early agitation was confined to Nottinghamshire by the end of 1811 it had spread to Yorkshire, Derbyshire and finally to Lancashire.
Altogether no less than 12,000 troops were employed by the government in their attempts to put down the Luddites disturbances. Finally the government took ruthless measures rounding up large numbers of Luddites leading to a mass trial at York in 1813. Twenty men were hanged including a boy of 16 years who had been a look-out whilst his brothers were setting fire to a Lancashire mill. Most of the others convicted of offences were transported to Australia for life. There is no doubt that for the government the Luddite movement was a warning of horrors to come. As it happens however, workers in Lancashire and what can be described as the other Luddite counties gave up their old activities to embrace popular radicalism as a way of looking for ‘democratic control of the state and the economy’ to improve their lot.
It must also be remembered that between 1793 and 1815 Britain was almost continuously at war with France. This had cost the Government £800 million. In 1815 the last year of the war had cost Britain £81 million, of which £27 million had been raised by a loan. Nevertheless, on Wellington’s triumphant return to London after defeating Napoleon at Waterloo, a grateful Parliament rewarded him with £200,000. Liberal allowances were also paid to the relatives of the Ministers in government and to the Commanding Officers. In contrast, the veterans who had fought on the battlefield at Waterloo, returned to the manufacturing towns like Manchester and other towns in the north of England largely unpaid to face unemployment.
By 1815 the parliamentary system in Britain had almost gone back to the Middle Ages, certainly not reflecting the needs of the rapidly changing society. Altogether there were ‘658 MPs in the House of Commons’ but how they were elected was to come under close scrutiny. This is largely because there were no independent MPs representing the new expanding industrial centres like Manchester. The working-classes blamed their misery on misgovernment and the fact that they had no proper representation in Parliament to redress their grievances. They could see Manchester, Salford, Bolton, Blackburn, Rochdale, Bury, Ashton-under-Lyne, Oldham, and Stockport had no members in parliament, whilst a host of small villages with only a few inhabitants often had two, MPs.
To make matters worse for the working-classes, by 1819 the administration of justice in Manchester was still in the hands of a few county magistrates. There were about eighteen magistrates, including a chief stipendiary magistrate. On the other hand the administration of local poor relief and the payment of the Police were in the hands of the churchwardens and overseers of the poor. All branches of local government were controlled by the same small group of elite, who were all members of a close knit circle of men who were Tory in their politics and Anglican in their religion. Directly under the magistrates was the Deputy Chief Constable of Manchester, Joseph Nadin, who was hated by the majority of the working-class. Archibald Prentice later described him as ‘the real ruler of Manchester.’
For a generation prior to Peterloo most of the new cotton manufacturers employed large numbers of immigrants from Ireland and Scotland who were either Dissenters or Roman Catholics. As a result of this, during the thirty years before Peterloo, Manchester was transformed from a predominantly Anglican into a largely Nonconformist town. In fact Nonconformists outnumbered Anglicans two to one both in Manchester and surrounding towns. The Unitarians in particular were most radical in their outlook. Thus: rivalry between the Establishment and Nonconformity was a prominent feature in the religious life of Manchester at the time of Peterloo. This is reflected in the variety and number of Nonconformist chapels and churches, built during this period in and around Manchester that still stand today.
The Anglican attitude in Manchester on the question of Catholic Emancipation was one of even more ‘uncompromising hostility.’ For example, soon after Peterloo the Reverend Melville Horne, curate of St. Stephen’s, Salford, denounced both the Radical Reformers and Roman Catholics in equal terms saying ‘That the Radicals have publicly invited all Catholics to join their banners is no novelty.’ Earlier in May 1819 when a petition against Roman Catholic relief was prepared in Manchester, the local Anglican clergy were its biggest supporters.
The Napoleonic Wars ended amidst riots which had been spasmodic for twenty-three years. For example, during the passing of the Corn Laws in 1815, the Houses of Parliament had to be defended by troops from menacing crowds. In addition 300,000, disbanded soldiers suddenly swamped the already stretched employment market. Aggravating the situation were those industries that had prospered during the war who like the iron industry found that the government no longer required their products. There was also no need for new uniforms, blankets and other products to sustain the war effort which had thrown the cotton industry into deep depression. ‘The decline into wretchedness of large numbers of once-prosperous handloom weavers, the harsh conditions in the new mills and the terrible conditions of the industrial slums cast a dark shadow over the age.’
By 1815, the ruling classes in Britain were still convinced that only they were fit to rule and their interests were those of society as a whole. Therefore, when Britain entered the economic crisis after the close of the Napoleonic War in 1815, the aristocratic rulers of Britain concentrated on protecting their own property and repressing all threats to their position of power and authority. There is no doubt that the Government and the ruling-classes still believed in the possibility of a popular revolution similar to the savage French Revolution that had taken place twenty years earlier. Their official reaction was to repress all agitation rather than deal with the causes of it.
In 1815, at the end of the long endurance of war, there was fear, envy and greed, but little hope. The reduction in the size of the navy added to the distress as the strength of the navy fell from 100,000 to 35,000 in 1816. Large numbers of labourers, on the verge of starvation, began spasmodic rioting, especially in the eastern counties. In fact the four years following the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 brought Britain closer to the brink of revolution than at any other time in her history.
It should be noted that the return of peace in 1815 after the Napoleonic Wars and 23 years of conflict was not marked by a return to ‘Church and King Deference’ but what was to become known as the ‘heroic age of popular Radicalism.’ This was because the balance of popular sentiment had moved from Church and King to popular Radicalism which provided immunity to ‘Church and King Propaganda’ and the language of class conflict began to appear. These were to be years of social unrest which found their voice in open-air meetings and the radical press. The radical voices that had been suppressed in the aftermath of the French Revolution and through the long endurance years of war, re-surfaced, especially, in the new industrial areas of the country where reformer associations, called Hampden Clubs were established. These clubs were named after John Hampden, the man who had challenged the absolute rule of Charles I.
In 1812 Major John Cartwright and Sir Francis Burdett had founded the Hampden Club in London. Cartwright then toured the country encouraging other parliamentary reformers to follow his example. His aim was to unite the middle-class moderates with radical members of the working-class. This frightened the authorities and led to his arrest in 1813 and 1815. However, in 1816 a committee of the Hampden Club set to work upon a draft Reform Bill which it proposed to present to Parliament at the opening session of 1817. By March 1817 there were forty clubs in the cotton districts of Lancashire, with about 8,000 members drawing much of their support from the smaller towns surrounding Manchester. The Hampden Club founded in 1812 was by no means democratic in its constitution. Only landowners of substantial income were admitted to membership, and the object of the club was to stimulate a constitutional agitation for reform of the House of Commons on the lines laid down by the New Whig politicians who had founded the Society of the Friends of the People in 1792.
The Hampden Clubs were eventually to be replaced by Political Unions who held open-air meetings and sent huge petitions to Parliament signed by thousands of people, only to find them ignored by Lord Liverpool’s Government. For this reason, the working-classes in the towns were demanding a reform of Parliament universal male suffrage, lower taxation, and relief from their poverty.
With the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, everybody had hoped for better times. However, the ‘masked prosperity’ of wartime ended, and the period between 1815 and 1830 proved to be one of deep depression. The depression shook the nation at a time when poor living and working conditions, population growth, unemployment, and economic insecurity, had already created a state of discontent. These problems were aggravated by the fact that Lord Liverpool’s Government’s immediate reaction was to protect the interests of the wealthy-classes. For example the commercial groups and the landed gentry put pressure on the Tory Government to abolish income tax. As it happens taxation was already crippling, due to the fact that the interest on the massive war debt still had to be paid. On 12th March 1816, Manchester local authorities presented a petition to the House of Commons against Property Tax. Although the Prime Minister William Pitt had introduced the Income Tax as an emergency measure during the war years, its selfish withdrawal led to a large increase in indirect taxation.
The Government was forced to raise revenue by increasing sales tax on essential goods such as shoes, salt, tea, soap, paper, candles, tobacco, and even bricks. This meant for example a labourer earning £18 a year was forced to pay out half of his wages in the form of indirect taxation. Another major concern of the Government was to prevent agricultural depression. In an effort to preserve the investments of wealthy landowners and to make England self-supporting in corn, the Corn Laws were passed to prevent foreign corn from being imported until the price of English corn reached 80s.0d. per quarter. This forced the price of bread to a cost of about 1s. for a 2 lb. loaf, at a time when the usual wages of a labourer were 7s. a week. As a result for the next twenty years, the main subsistence of the working-classes was meal, potatoes and turnips, bread became a luxury.
The Corn Law of 1815 highlighted the need for Parliamentary Reform and the working-classes led the way demanding radical reform, to enfranchise them selves. On the other hand the middle-classes and the Whigs took alarm and stood aloof, disapproving both of the Radical agitation and the Governments reprisals. Although the Whigs wanted to lead the middle-class they were divided on the Corn Laws because most of their leaders were nearly all from the landlord-class.
There is also no doubt of course, that in 1816 the British people were still held down by force. In spite of this it was largely in Lancashire where the Radical Reform Movement emerged. For example, as early as October 1816, there was an orderly open-air meeting in Blackburn. In January 1817, an Oldham meeting was preceded by a procession, complete with a band. The procession was headed by a Quaker apothecary to symbolize the peaceable intentions of the demonstrators. In addition, the radicals carried on their propaganda by holding meetings, distributing pamphlets and the formation of clubs. As a result of this it was not long ‘before Lancashire men and women became the most, well informed and the most politically-conscious in the country.’
Marlow highlights the fact that early radical activity had centred in London. This was largely because from the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the people had been given the right to petition the reigning monarch about their grievances. Although at this time the Prince Regent was standing in for King George III, who in 1811 had lost his mind so that petitions were presented to the Prince Regent instead. Another way the radicals aired their grievances in London was by calling for a mass-meeting. After the petition had been adopted, the crowds usually dispersed peacefully.
Henry Hunt travelled to London to extend his reputation as an open-air orator and gained much popularity by declaring for manhood suffrage. This was a proposal which Cartwright had abandoned in deference to Burdett and other moderate members of the Hampden Club. On 2nd December 1816, Hunt was the main speaker at a large popular meeting held in the Spa Fields, London. At this time of course, the main interest of the working class in demanding political reform was to gain representatives in Parliament who could legislate on their behalf to put an end to their poverty. In fact it was Henry Hunt who ‘inaugurated the radical mass platform to put pressure on the central government for constitutional reform, to include universal manhood suffrage, annual parliaments and the ballot for all. There is no doubt that this offended some members of the reform movement and middle-class reformers who favoured direct-taxation, universal suffrage and close co-operation with the Whig opposition.’ After the Spa Fields meeting there was some rioting and many demonstrators were arrested.
Following the Spa Fields riots Lord Liverpool’s Government introduced the Gagging Acts in 1816, forbidding public meetings except under licence from the magistrates. Later in the year a stone was thrown through the window of the Prince Regents coach. The following year also witnessed the Derbyshire Insurrection, a pathetic outbreak of unemployed framework knitters, deliberately set up by one of the Governments most active secret agents Oliver the Spy, an agent provocateur. Following a trial three men were convicted and hanged while eleven other men were transported to Australia for life as convicts.
There were a number of Radical Reform meetings in Manchester throughout 1816 and 1817, for example on November 4th 1816, John Knight addressed about 5,000 people assembled in St Peter’s Field to ‘take into consideration the present distressed state of the country.’ This first reform meeting in St Peter’s Field caused considerable alarm to the authorities and in the next January a meeting of the inhabitants was held to consider ‘the necessity of adopting additional measures for the maintenance of peace.’
The Blanketeers plan was first announced at an open-air meeting held in Manchester on 3rd March 1817. The purpose of the meeting was to petition against the Suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, which was to receive the royal assent on the following day. Another meeting followed on 10th March 1817, when 12,000 people gathered in St Peter’s Field to support the march of the Blanketeers. This meeting had been largely organised by John Bagguley, Samuel Drummond and John Johnston. A number of those assembled decided to march en masse to London in order to personally present to the Prince Regent a petition for the redress of their grievances. It has been described as the first hunger march in British history. They were protesting about the government’s economic policies and in particular the Corn Laws which had driven up the price of bread. Each man carried a blanket in preparation for the journey. Those who took part in the march were nicknamed the Blanketeers. However, this action turned out to be ill-advised, and ended with disastrous consequences for the men who took part.
The machinery of repression was already in motion however, and the Manchester magistrates called out the Kings Dragoon Guards to disperse the meeting. Then, fearing a mass demonstration in London the Manchester, authorities sent the soldiers in pursuit of the Marchers. The Reverend Mr Hay’s account of the Blanketeers meeting of 10th March 1817 to the Home Secretary appears in an extract in (H. O. 40. 5, Manchester Papers, No. 11.). He explains that the magistrates had conferred with Major-General Sir John Byng on the previous day and had agreed upon the course of action. He writes:

At an early hour this morning large parties were seen flocking to St. Peter’s Church-the place of the meeting-and soon afterwards a very large concourse of people as I have estimated about 12,000 had assembled. Some very numerous parties marched two abreast regularly and many others with knapsacks bags and &c. The ground was occupied much earlier than usual, and about a quarter before ten the orators began to harangue the mob from the cart...After a certain time part of the mob was observed to move off in a regular march, those who had knapsacks and bags amongst them...It was ascertained who the orators were, and that Bagguley & Drummond were two of them. Agst. These warrants had been issued by the Magistrates here, and a further warrant from your Lordship had just arrived. Notice being given to the Magistrates that the parties who were to seize these two men were ready, we all proceeded to the ground & had the satisfaction of seeing these two men taken as well as one Williams who acted as Secretary. This was effected by a very ready and neat movement of the military. The Cart whence the orators harangued was-taken the owner of the Cart is in custody. Mr H. Watson both before and after this requested the populace to disperse –but with no visible effect. The ground was now kept by a party of the King’s Dragoon Guards under Col. Teesdale-about 20 other persons were taken, [arrested] It was soon determined that a party of the Military accompanied by 2 Magistrates, Mr. H. Watson & Mr Ethelston shd. Follow the mob who had marched, as I have described towards Stockport on their way to London...it was overtaken on the Lancashire side of the river, just before wd. have got into Stockport & that 215 were taken. They were brought back under two escorts. The 1st party of prisoners consisted of 48; the latter of 167. Short examinations were taken of the first party the second did not arrive until too late. The proceedings will go on as fast as may be & the result communicated to Your Lordship.

Yet in spite of this 200 Blanketeers arrived at Macclesfield, 50 got as far as Leek, 20 reached Ashbourne, and a few reached Derby. In fact one man, Abel Couldwell, of Stalybridge, actually reached London and managed to present his petition to Lord Sidmouth to be delivered to the Prince Regent.
Shortly after the Blanketeers meeting the magistrates and the local authorities were formally thanked by Lord Liverpool’s Government for their decisive action in dispersing the meeting and arresting offenders. Michael Kennedy in his Portrait of Manchester (1970) suggests that only ‘some of the leaders were arrested and some of the marchers went as far as Macclesfield before their disorganised action fizzled out in failure.’ When in fact over two hundred men were arrested and thrown into the New Bailey Prison [now Strangeways] for taking part in the March of the Blanketeers. Five men regarded as ringleaders were sent to London under warrants from the Home Secretary. Nine other men were sent to Lancaster to be tried on the charge of ‘tumultuous petitioning,’ but were released after five months imprisonment as it was doubtful that a jury would convict them. Twenty-one other marchers were committed to Chester Gaol, although fifteen of these men were released after they had taken the ‘oath of allegiance.’ John Bagguley, John Johnson, Samuel Drummond and John Knight, were committed by the Privy Council to various county gaols.
The ill-treatment and wholesale arrests of these Blanketeers had created indignation, and leading Manchester Radicals met in a secret committee to discuss what should be done. This came to be known as the Ardwick Conspiracy. However, after receiving information from government spies the local authorities were convinced that an insurrection would begin on 30th March. Samuel Bamford and seven others were arrested for complicity in the Ardwick scheme and were taken to London. However, the Home Office complained ‘that they had been arrested for high treason without any depositions having first been given against them’ and later they discharged the men concerned.
In 1817, Lord Liverpool’s Government feared revolution and suspended the Habeas Corpeas Act. The Act made it illegal to keep a man in prison without trial and its suspension meant that men suspected of being agitators or revolutionaries could be imprisoned for as long as the government wished. ‘The local authorities in Manchester reflected the government anxiety.’ Later in 1817, the Manchester authorities announced that they had received information of ‘a most daring and traitorous conspiracy the subject of which is nothing less than open Insurrection and Rebellion.’ This hysterical outburst led to the formation of the Manchester Yeomanry Cavalry, a volunteer force of which more was to be heard in August 1819. On 21st June 1817, The Manchester Chronicle reported:

A meeting at the Manchester Police Office on June 19th decided under the present circumstances a force of yeomanry cavalry should be embodied.

In fact the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry had been formed in 1817 especially to deal with the Radical Danger.
Another aspect of Lord Sidmouth’s policy was the employment of paid spies who often also acted as agents provocateurs. The Home Office had a special fund which it distributed to magistrates to maintain their spies. Very often the Home Office was approached by volunteers who were anxious to be employed as spies or informers. These people included soldiers, labourers, convicts and members of the general public. Records show that the Manchester magistrates used this fund freely. After the great success in which Yorkshire Luddites had been arrested in 1812 and convicted on the evidence of spies, it was now being used in Manchester. The Reverend Mr Hay supplied cash to Deputy Chief Constable Nadin to operate his own web of spies. As early as 1817 when John Bagguley and John Drummond were organising workers meetings they were always on the lookout for Nadin’s spies. During the great strike of 1818, according to a government spy: ‘The spinners marched by Piccadilly on Tuesday and was 23½ minets in going by.’
Throughout the time frame of these years Government spies including the notorious Oliver the Spy were busily stirring up starving operatives to sedition. However, Oliver went too far while trying to implicate some middle-class reformers in Lancashire and the spy business which had long been carried out with impunity among the working-classes was promptly exposed in Parliament by the Whig opposition.
Although the Hampden Clubs did not survive 1817 the radical campaign was kept alive through similarly organised Union Societies. The first was founded in Stockport in October 1818, which was largely the work of the Reverend Joseph Harrison, with the unusual title of the Stockport Union for the Promotion of Human Happiness. Moreover the Union Societies spread through the cotton districts as rapidly as the Hampden Clubs during the renewed economic depression of 1819. By August 1819 all of Manchester’s surrounding towns had at least one Union Society who sent contingents to Peterloo. Women’s Union Societies were also established who also founded Radical Sunday Schools to attract pupils away from loyalist schools.
The Union Societies were supported by the Radical Press. By 1819 the Radical Reform Movement spread throughout the country through three main channels namely, Union Societies, mass meetings and through the Radical Press. In the absence of a national organisation, local societies took their lead from the Radical Press. Between 1816 and 1820 Radical propaganda found its voice in the hand-press and the weekly periodicals. T. J. Wooler, the editor of Black Dwarf, commanded the largest Radical audience at this time. Radicals who preferred a newspaper could read the Manchester Observer whose circulation approached that of the Black Dwarf by the end of 1819. However, a wave of prosecutions against the Radical Press resulted in some heavy sentences and some triumphant acquittals as in the cases of Hone and the Black Dwarf newspaper.
Between 1817 and 1819, the works of Cobbett and Hone were extensively read by the working-classes, and in many districts reading groups were formed for the purpose of hearing them read. At the time readers were scarce and Radicals like Elijah Ridings in Manchester were selected to act as reader for the groups to which they belonged. There is no doubt that periodicals like Cobbett’s Register and the Black Dwarf played a big part in co-ordinating the Reform Movement. In addition the ‘caricaturists in the Radical Press mercilessly ridiculed and criticised what they believed to be an extravagant and corrupt ruling-class headed by the decadent Prince Regent the future George IV.’ Thomas Wooler however, the editor of The Black Dwarf, found himself in gaol for most of the time for inciting the public to overthrow the government. At the end of 1819 at the height of Hone and Cruikshank’s brilliant lampoons The Political House that Jack Built was reported to have sold over 100,000 copies.
Both Hone and Wooler were on bail, awaiting trial for ‘sedition’ and ‘blasphemy’ when on the 9th June the Spa Fields prisoners faced trial at the Old Bailey for High Treason. On the other hand when the Habeas Corpus Act was suspended, William Cobbett, suspecting quite rightly perhaps, that he was in the firing line migrated to America. William Hone immediately stepped in to Cobbett’s place and published his own Reformists Register. In 1819 a number of new periodicals appeared in London. These included the Medusa, the Democratic Recorder the Cap of Liberty, and the Republican, each displaying their own aggressive style. However, except for the Republican none of these periodicals lasted more than several months.
In 1819, following wave of economic distress Reform agitation flared up again. Since Habeas Corpeas was no longer suspended monster meetings of the working-classes were held in the industrial districts to demand universal suffrage. On 18th January 1819 Henry Hunt presided over a meeting of 8,000 workers on St Peter’s Field which unanimously voted against petitioning to be replaced by a remonstrance instead. Another meeting was held on St Peter’s Field on 21st June 1819. This meeting was called for by the distressed weavers to petition either for relief for their distresses or for assisted emigration to North America. However, the weavers were dissuaded from petitioning for assisted emigration as the answer to their problems. Instead the Radicals Saxton and Walker convinced them that the Radical Reform Movement was their answer.
Working-class radicalism drew most of its support from the industrial areas of Manchester and all the surrounding districts and had a massive following, due to the hard times. Although some of this support came from the union societies, most of it came from the thousands of handloom weavers, ‘whose fervour and fanaticism gave to Manchester radicalism an intensity which was unrivalled throughout the land.’ A correspondent wrote to a Manchester newspaper in 1819 who declared: ‘A radical complete constitutional reform, we want nothing but this…to mend our markets and give every poor man plenty of work and good wages for doing it.’
In fact there were a number of mass open-air meetings in most large towns throughout June and July 1819. Lord Liverpool’s Government, local authorities and even middle-class reformers were alarmed at the proliferation and character of these demonstrations, fuelled by government informants and spies who maintained that ‘insurrectionary plotting lay behind them.’ This explains why by 1819, Manchester and the surrounding districts were practically under military occupation.
By way of explanation, Manchester’s ‘loyalists’ in 1819 were those who actually supported the action of the authorities at Peterloo. They were divided into two groups, the High Tory on the one hand and the Pittites on the other. The High Tories wanted to maintain the status quo in church and state. Whilst the Pittites were mostly cotton manufactures who wanted commercial reform in the form of greater freedom for trade and limited reform of Parliament to give Manchester some commercial representation at Westminster. The High Tories were almost all Anglicans and either magistrates or clergy. ‘It was this group that included many of the men responsible for the Peterloo Massacre.’ There is no doubt that the ‘loyalists’ in Manchester associated the Radical Reform Movement with revolution. On the other hand the Tory magistrates, yeomanry, constables, and radical leaders were usually identified with the social classes they represented.
During the summer of 1819 there occurred a mass mobilization of popular support for political reform. This was reflected by the fact that the weeks leading up to Peterloo witnessed lots of small meetings followed by more impressive demonstrations in regional centres like Manchester in June, and in Birmingham, Leeds and London in July. In addition there had been a number of reform meetings held in various parts of Lancashire over the previous two months. These meetings took place at Oldham, Ashton and Stockport in June, followed by Blackburn, Rochdale, Macclesfield, in July, and Leigh in early August. These meetings were a clear demonstration of the extent of popular support which the Radical Reform Movement enjoyed. It also showed how well the movement was organised, with Reform Unions drawing massive crowds much to the alarm of the Manchester authorities.


Orator Henry Hunt
Manchester Library and Information Service:
Manchester Archives and Local Studies.
Orator Henry Hunt had come forward as a champion of the people’s rights. Although he came from a privileged background he had earned the reputation as being the best public speaker in England. He was also the most popular radical leader in Lancashire, drawing large crowds. It was reported that during 1819, Hunt was welcomed in a Lancashire village with the road carpeted with flowers. Records of songs that were sung in Lancashire and around Manchester in particular included this single verse:

With Henry Hunt we’ll go, we’ll go,
With Henry Hunt we’ll go;
We’ll raise the cap of liberty,
In spite of Nadin Joe.

At a Radical Sunday School in Manchester it was reported that the ‘monitors wore locket-portraits of Henry Hunt around their necks.’
As it happens, unlike the working-class Radicals, the middle-class reformers in Manchester by 1819 controlled no extensive network of agitation. They remained no more than a group of like-minded friends ‘a small but determined band’ and disliked Hunt, ‘dismissing him as a vain publicity seeker.’ In fact the middle-class reformers seem to have been completely cut off from the working-class reformers. For example John Knight a small manufacturer was the secretary of the Manchester Constitutional Society but he was the only representative of that class in the Society. Furthermore Knight was unable to induce any of the gentlemen or any of the respectable-reformers to take the chair at the inaugural meeting. Throughout 1819, the Tory newspapers criticised the Radical Reform meetings that had been held during the year. Furthermore, the Tories got together and on the 9th July at a police office meeting formed a new Special Committee of Magistrates to strengthen the civil power, suggesting the swearing in of extra special constables. This was soon followed by advertisements appearing in newspapers calling for volunteers to join the local yeomanry.
The Radical Manchester Observer claimed to have a circulation of 4000 by the middle of 1819, with a readership of several times that number. Hunt believed that the Manchester Observer was ‘the only newspaper in England...fairly and honestly devoted to such a reform as would give the people their whole rights.’ In more recent years David Ayerst in his book Guardian Biography of a Newspaper describes the Radical newspaper as the ‘extremist Manchester Observer.’ However, although the Manchester Observer continued its coverage of reform meetings in support of the radical cause, by the end of 1819 its owners faced indictments for libel and fines for failure to pay stamp duties. There seems little doubt that the Radical Reformers on the one hand and the Loyalists on the other expected some form of confrontation to tip the balance in their favour. Therefore it is not surprising that the animosity between them was becoming very intense.
The policy in Regency England was to call on the regular army in troubled times to act as a police force but the main representatives of law and order were the local magistrates, many of whom, like the Manchester magistrates, belonged to an elite oligarchy having little sympathy with the working-class or even with the new smaller mill owners. Their main anxiety was that there would be an assault on property by the mob. Because there was no organised police force, they often swore-in special constables or asked to the Home Secretary Lord Sidmouth to authorise the use of the army.
The local authorities responsible for maintaining law and order in Regency England had four organisations to call on. These were the police, voluntary defence associations, yeomanry or militia and the regular armed forces. However, the police were almost non-existent. The regular professional police force of modern times was introduced during the next decade. Therefore lacking a force of regular paid constables the towns and villages had to depend upon special constables, either paid or unpaid. Whenever danger threatened one of the first steps the authorities took was to enrol a force of unpaid special constables. These men were sworn in as special constables and peace officers and given authority to disperse mobs and arrest offenders upon a magistrates warrant. Large numbers of these constables, mostly unpaid, were enrolled during Regency England disturbances. There is no doubt that this was the policy adopted by the Manchester authorities before the Radical Reform meeting held on 16th August 1819. In fact preparations by the Manchester authorities were very similar to those made the day before the Blanketeers meeting held in St Peter’s Field in 1817.
As we have seen by 1819, deference had been considerably weakened in whole regions of England by Dissent, Methodism and also challenged by Luddism, the Hampden Clubs and the Union Societies. In addition Radical activity in Lancashire in 1819 was particularly strong. This was due to a Radical Press, Radical mass meetings, Radical schools and societies, and of course the Radical programme itself. This largely explains although it does not justify the fear and panic of the local authorities at Peterloo. On the one hand the Manchester magistrates were more concerned with what was happening in Lancashire, whilst on the other Lord Sidmouth and the government at Westminster could see a pattern of Radical activity emerging throughout the country. Therefore by 1819 the Radical background to Peterloo can only be described as being nation-wide.
To conclude, the background to Peterloo lay in the social and political discontent which helped create the Radical Reform Movement in Britain during the late 18th and 19th centuries. With the ending of the Napoleonic War in 1815, when Napoleon was defeated at the Battle of Waterloo, 300,000 soldiers and sailors were disbanded and returned home. This along with unprecedented population growth, high food prices created by the Corn Laws, along with mass unemployment, social and political unrest became widespread. The existing out dated system of parliamentary representation meant that many of the urban centres that had grown rapidly in the Industrial Revolution, like Manchester and the surrounding towns, had no Member of Parliament to look after their interests.
It was against this background that the mood was set for the August meeting which was the climax of a series of political meetings held in Manchester, and its satellite towns in 1819, a year of industrial depression and high food prices. The organisers intended that a mass-meeting would be a great peaceful demonstration of discontent and its political purpose was to put pressure on the Central Government to bring about Parliamentary Reform. However, working-class demands for political and economic reform were more often than not met with brutal government action.