Biographical Sketches

Biographical Sketches

Any assessment of the political background to Peterloo must begin with a series of biographical sketches.

Baines, Edward, Reporter for the Leeds Mercury at Peterloo. Edward Baines, the son of Richard and Jane Baines, was born in Preston on 5th February, 1774. Richard Baines worked as an exercise officer until he opened a small grocer's shop in the village of Walton-le-dale. After hearing about Richard Arkwright and his successful business in Cromford, Richard Baines became involved in the textile industry. In 1793 he purchased some carding and roving machines from Arkwright and started up business in the village of Brindle, seven miles from Preston.

Edward was educated at Preston Grammar School until the age of sixteen when he went to work for Thomas Walker, a printer and stationer in Preston. In 1793 Walker began publishing the Preston Review. The political views expressed in the newspaper upset powerful Tories in the town and the following year it was forced to closed.

Unable to work as a journalist in Preston, Baines decided to move to Leeds where he found work with Binns and Brown, the publishers of The Leeds Mercury. In 1797 Edward Baines asked his father to loan him £100. With this money he joined forces with his friend John Fenwick, to go into business as a general printer.

After obtaining a loan of £950 from some Whig friends Baines bought the The Leeds Mercury in 1801. Although the overall cost was £1 552, his down payment was £700 followed by £500 in 1802 and £352 in 1803.

Edward Baines was a staunch Methodist and supported the cause of the Dissenters. He advocated that industrial towns and cities such as Manchester and Leeds should be represented in Parliament. His greatest journalistic scoop came in June 1817 when he revealed that the Government of Lord Liverpool was using agent provocateurs.

Bamford, Samuel, (1788-1872) the celebrated weaver-poet from Middleton, author of Passages in the Life of a Radical, in which he gave his own account of Peterloo. He was an active member in the Hampden Club and although he disapproved of the Blanketeers meeting was nevertheless arrested by the authorities and sent to London for questioning but was later released. At Peterloo he led the Middleton contingent, to Peterloo and was arrested for his part in the meeting.

Birley, Captain Hugh Hornby, a wealthy manufacturer who owned a mill in Oxford Road. He was the second officer-in-charge of the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry on 16th August 1819 who led the charge of the yeomanry into the crowd at Peterloo. Afterwards he became a magistrate and the founder of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce. Over one hundred and twenty men volunteered to serve in the Manchester & Salford Yeomanry. The occupations of these men included shopkeepers, publicans, watchmakers, insurance agents, tobacconists, farriers, horsebreakers and brewers. Members of the Yeomanry tended to hold Tory political opinions and had a deep hatred of Radicals.

He was later appointed Deputy Lieutenant of the County Palatine of Lancashire..

Burdett, Sir Francis, was recognised as the leader of the Radicals in the House of Commons. He introduced motions for parliamentary reform and supported all attempts to expose corruption in government circles. In 1819, he was responsible for leading the campaign to press for an independent inquiry into the Peterloo Massacre.

Byng, General Sir John, In 1793, he joined the 33rd Regiment of Foot as an Ensign and fought under Col. Arthur Wellesley (later Duke of Wellington) in Flanders from 1793-95 and was wounded at Geldermalsen. From 1797-98, he was aide-de-camp to General Vyse in Ireland, where he was again wounded, this time in the Irish Rebellion of 1798. In 1799, he became a Major in the 60th Regiment of Foot, a Lieutenant-Colonel in the 29th Regiment of Foot a year later, and was stationed at Halifax, Nova Scotia from 1802-04. In 1804, he transferred to the 3rd Regiment of Foot Guards and took part in the Hanoverian Expedition in 1805, the Siege of Copenhagen in 1807 and the Walcheren Expedition in 1809.
In 1811, Byng was promoted to a Brigadier-General and fought in the Peninsular War under General Hill. He was engaged in Spain and southern France at the battles of Vitoria, the Pyrenees, Pamplona (where he was wounded), the Nivelle (where he was again wounded) and the Nive in 1813. He fought in actions at Espelette, Garris, Orthez, Aire-sur-l'Adour and Toulouse in 1814. During the Battle of Waterloo he led a brigade of Guards (2/2nd Guards and 2/3rd Guards) in the 1st Division. He was involved in the advance on Paris soon after and occupied the heights of Montmartre. He was appointed a KCB in 1815, twice received thanks from both Houses of Parliament, was promoted to a Lieutenant-General in 1825 and was appointed a GCH in 1826.
Commander of the Northern District in 1819. In later life he became the Whig, M.P. for Poole.
Pages 494-497. Item details HO 79/3/329
H Hobhouse to Major General Sir John Byng, York. Hobhouse thanks him for his letter of 7 August, and for his offer to visit him in London, but Sidmouth sees no reason for him to do so at present. The Manchester Observer newspaper states that the meeting is now planned for 16 August. Drilling [parading] in itself is not illegal, but becomes so when organised for a bad purpose, yet the Magistrates have no evidence of the purpose. Hobhouse recently explained this in a letter to Norris, but Sidmouth also wants Byng to know. It may be necessary to recall Parliament. Mentions the difficulty regarding Chelsea Pensioners. The edition of Sherwin enclosed [note in margin: No.13 Vol.5. 31 July 1819] is being examined by the Law Officers. Hobhouse doubts whether Hunt has been at Leeds, although he has been invited.
Pages 498-499. H Hobhouse to Major General Sir John Byng. Sidmouth thanks him for the admirable district order contained in his letter of 8 August, and for making an arrangement with Major General Hope. Trusts he will not need to diminish his own resources [ by sending troops to Hope]. Hobhouse approves of Byng's answer to Norris' application, and adds that 'the Manchester gentry will let you do their work if you let them'.
Pages 499-501. H Hobhouse to Major General Sir John Byng, Pontefract, stating that the Magistrates of Manchester appear to have thought that Hunt had tricked them, and that the meeting was to take place as originally intended. Sidmouth is glad that Byng did not respond to their call, which was obviously not justified. Byng's thoughts on drilling [parades] were welcome, and Colonel Fletcher has apprehended four Sergeants. Similar measures are planned for Rochdale, Middleton and Oldham.
Pages 504-507. H Hobhouse to James Norris. Acknowledges his letter of 12 August. Information on the"designs" and motivation of the leaders of the disaffected would be very useful. This was obtained in 1817 in Manchester with good effect. Suggests Norris contact Hay who was involved at the time. Johnson appears to be the man to watch this time. Advises Norris to learn his habits, and identify his contacts so that, in gaining the confidence of one of them, Johnson's secret plans might be obtained. With this knowledge the number of surprises and false alarms would be few. Sidmouth asks for the depositions so that a body of evidence will be ready should their be a Parliamentary enquiry.
Pages 509-511. H Hobhouse to Major General Sir John Byng, Pontefract. Hobhouse states that Sidmouth entirely approves of Byng's absence from Manchester. His presence would have given too much importance to Hunt, and the impression that Government was predisposed to use military force. He congratulates Byng on his confidence in Colonel L'Estrange, who employed Yeomanry in the rear. He hopes that Byng will not need to visit Lancashire again as a decisive blow has been given to the"treasonable and seditious spirit prevailing there." Byng's district order seems to have stopped the circulation of Sherwin's address among the troops, and copies are no longer available from the usual shops.
Pages 548-550. H Hobhouse to Major General Sir John Byng, Pontefract. Hobhouse thanks him for his letter of 5 September and agrees that Manchester needs a"Head" [Leader ?] but doubts whether Norris will continue in his role. Sidmouth is already looking for a successor should a vacancy occur. He mentions that XY's intelligence is always reliable, and hopes that what happens in Lancaster will help to keep things quiet. If the publisher of the newsbill enclosed in his letter of 28 August,"News from Scotland" can be traced the Attorney General will prosecute him. However, the one Byng sent bears no mark of anyone at Hull, and it is likely that further copies cannot now be bought from the printer, J Howe, 3 Scale Lane.
Byng said, that he was not actually present when the affray which formed the subject of the Motion took place, but he was on the spot within two hours after its occurrence. He being then in command of his Majesty's troops stationed in that district, he, of course, had deemed it his duty to inquire into their conduct on the occasion, and, as he was not what could be considered an interested person, he trusted the House would give at least as much credence to his testimony as to that of the hon. member for Middlesex, whose information could only have been derived from, in all probability, interested persons. That hon. Member had been pleased to charge the military employed by the Magistrates on that occasion with the crime of murder. To say the least of it, that was a harsh term to apply to the conduct of individuals who were compelled to perform a most unpleasant duty.

Carlile, Richard, (1790-1843), a Devonshire shoemakers son, journeyman tinsmith and mechanic in London in 1813. Later in 1818 he published Thomas Paine’s The Rights of Man. He escaped from the hustings at Peterloo and hid in a house nearby. Later in 1819 he was prosecuted for publishing The Rights of Man and was imprisoned at Dorchester Gaol 1819-1825. He later became the proprietor of Sherwin’s, Political Register changing its name to the Republican editing twelve volumes whilst still in prison. He was finally released in 1825.One of his famous quotations "Free discussion is the only necessary Constitution --
the only necessary Law of the Constitution."

Cartwright, Major, John, formed the first Hampden Club in 1812. The first attempt to mechanise weaving was the work of Edmund Cartwright from 1785. He built a factory at Doncaster and obtained a series of patents between 1785 and 1792. In 1788, his brother Major John Cartwight built Revolution Mill at Retford (named for the centenary of the Glorious Revolution. In 1791, he licensed his loom to the Grimshaw brothers of Manchester, but their Knott Mill burnt down the following year (possibly a case of arson). Edmund Cartwight was granted a reward of £10,000 by Parliament for his efforts in 1809.[3] However, success in power-weaving also required improvements by others, including H. Horrocks of Stockport. Only during the two decades after about 1805, did power-weaving take hold. This led ultimately to hardship among handloom weavers, whose wages were driven down by competition from machine. This led to machine breaking by the Luddites. Textile manufacture was one of the leading sectors in the British Industrial Revolution, but weaving was a comparatively late sector to be mechanised. However, ultimately, the various innovations took weaving from a home-based artisan activity (labour intensive and man-powered) to mass-production under the power of steam undertaken in factories. He then toured the country encouraging other parliamentary reformers to follow his example. His main objective was to unite middle-class moderates with radical members of the working-class. This frightened the authorities and led to his arrest at Huddersfield in 1813 and 1815. He recruited John Knight who founded the first Hampden in Lancashire who invited him to speak at the Peterloo meeting in 1819 but he was unable to attend.

Castlereagh, Viscount Stewart, Robert, Leader of the House of Commons in Lord Liverpool’s government. He was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1769 the son of Robert Stewart (1739 - 1821), a landowner who was created Baron Londonderry in 1789, Viscount Castlereagh in 1795, the Earl of Londonderry in 1796 and the Marquess of Londonderry in 1816 by King George III, . He was a great-nephew of Robert Cowan, a wealthy and successful Governor of Bombay for the British East India Company. Even before his father's election to the Irish House of Commons in 1771, this heritage put him squarely in the landed gentry class of Ulster Presbyterians whose ancestors first arrived in Ireland during the Plantation of Ulster.[3] Stewart was born with a club foot which was successfully treated.
He received his secondary education at The Royal School, Armagh, and later attended St. John's College, Cambridge for one year.[4] There, he learned Latin in addition to his native English. Later, he learned French, the language of his trade of diplomacy.

Cobbett, William, In 1802 he founded his newspaper The Political Register. To begin with Cobbett supported the Tory Government but gradually became a Radical. By 1806 he was a strong advocate of parliamentary reform largely due to his unsuccessful attempt to be elected as M.P. for Honiton, which convinced him of the unfairness of Rotton Boroughs. However, after Habeas Corpus was suspended and suspecting he was in the firing line for prosecution by the government, he migrated to America.

Entwistle, John, Member of the Select Committee of Magistrates.

Ethelstone, Reverend, Charles, Wickstead, (1767-1830), who was a Manchester Magistrate, although not a member of the Special Committee of Magistrates he signed the warrant for the arrest of the speakers and read the Riot Act at Peterloo.

Fielden, Mr., a member of the Select Committee of Magistrates.

Fildes, Mary Pritchard The Manchester Female Reform Group was formed in the summer of 1819. One of the main figures in the group was Mary Fildes. In his autobiography, Passages in the Life of a Radical, Samuel Bamford claims that women first became involved in the struggle for universal suffrage in the summer of 1818. Bamford describes a meeting at Lydgate in Saddleworth where women were allowed to vote for and against resolutions. Bamford points out that: "This was a new idea; and the women, who attended numerously on that bleak ridge, were mightily pleased with it." One August afternoon in 1819 a vast orderly concourse of working men andwomen assembled on St. Peter's field outside of Manchester - where on the orders of the magistrates they were charged by troops of Yeomanry. A numberof the orderly concourse were killed and several hundred were seriously wounded. Mary Fildes was wounded severely while riding on the box sear of Hunt's carriage. In the confusion of the massacre she tumbled off the carriage seat. Eye-witness account 'Mrs. Fildes hanging suspended by a nail on the platform of the carriage had caughter her white dress. She was slashed across her exxposed body by a brave cavalry'.

In June 1819 the first Female Union was formed by Alice Kitchen in Blackburn. Later that year there were Female Reform Groups in Manchester, Oldham and Royton. The leader of the Manchester Female Reform Group was Mary Fildes. A passionate radical she named her two sons after John Cartwright and Henry Hunt. Fildes was also involved in the campaign for birth control and when she attempted to sell books on the subject she was accused in the local press of distributing pornography. Fildes was one of the speakers at the St. Peter's Field meeting on 16th August, 1819. Some reports claimed that the Manchester & Salford Yeomanry attempted to murder Mary Fildes while arresting the leaders of the demonstration. A passionate radical Mary named her two sons after John Cartwright and Henry Hunt. Fildes was also involved in the campaign for birth control and when she attempted to sell books on the subject she was accused in the local press of distributing pornography.

Fildes was one of the main speakers at the St. Peter's Field meeting on 16th August, 1819. Some reports claimed that the Manchester & Salford Yeomanry attempted to murder Fildes while arresting the leaders of the demonstration. One eyewitness described how "Mrs. Fildes, hanging suspended by a nail which had caught her white dress, was slashed across her exposed body by one of the brave cavalry." Although badly wounded Mary Fildes survived and continued her campaign for the vote.
In the 1830s and 1840s Mary Fildes was active in the Chartist movement. Fildes later moved to Chester where she ran the Shrewsbury Arms in Frodsham Street. She also adopted her grandson, Luke Fildes, who was later to become one of Britain's most successful artists. Mary Fildes died in May 1875 while visiting friends in Manchester.

Fletcher, Colonel Ralph, Member of the Select Committee of Magistrates. Col Ralph Fletcher was born 1758, and died in 1832 at the age of 74.
His life, therefore spanned a most absorbing and important period of Bolton through and after the Industrial Revolution which so completely changed the face of Bolton.
He was probably the best known local citizen of his time. He was one of the most active of magistrates. In 1803 he raised a regiment of Volunteers, and commanded them until 1815. He lived at The Hollins, Radcliffe road.
His cenotaph on the south wall of the Parish Church (it was transferred from the old church) commemorates that "through many years of difficulty and danger" he "faithfully served his King and his country."
Fletcher St, which was planned when Bolton Moor was enclosed in 1792, was named in honour of him, He was, in fact, one of the three commissioners appointed under the Act for setting out, allotting, enclosing and disposing of the commons and grounds according to the Act.
George, III, King from 1760-1820.

Gregg, Robert, Hyde, the owner of Quarry Bank Mill in Style, Cheshire near Manchester and his wife’s cousin, Francis Philips witnessed the Peterloo Massacre in 1819. Gregg later gave evidence in defence of the Radicals.

Harrison, Reverend, Joseph, was a local Nonconformist Preacher who called himself ‘Chaplin to the poor and needy.’ His politico-religious sermons became regular features of Stockport Radicalism. As a result of three speeches that he made, one on 15th August 1819, the other on 18th December 1819 and for a speech he made at Stockport on 28th June 1820, he was sentenced to three and a half years, imprisonment. Harrison’s three leading associates in Stockport in 1818 were John Bagguley, Samuel Drummond and John Johnston. All three had been leading promoters of the March of the Blanketeers in 1817 and were arrested for violent speeches to the strikers in Stockport on 1st September 1818.

Hay, Reverend William, Robert, (1761-1839), Clerical magistrate at the time of Peterloo. Later appointed vicar of Rochdale in 1820, but also served as a Clerical magistrate and until 1823 as the Stipendiary Chairman of the Salford Quarter Sessions.

Pages 529-532. H Hobhouse to Major General Sir John Byng, Pontefract, thanking him for his letters of 22 and 23 August. Hobhouse states that Hay is not the man he was two years ago. Hay's trip to town [London] was not very productive, and he did not provide written details of what he knows, and Hobhouse feels that if he had done so it would have omitted many facts which have already been gathered elsewhere. Sidmouth is pleased with Byng's vindication which appears in this morning's Times, and hopes that public opinion is turning on the Manchester question, which has lowered the tone of the 'disaffected'. Use will be made of Byng's observations on the conduct of the Regulars [Soldiers] and the Yeomanry. Whilst conveying the Prince Regent's thanks Sidmouth did not wish to praise the Yeomanry for"Forbearance," nor differenciate between the two forces, and he therefore used the word"exemplary" in his letter to Byng. Johnson has yielded a little, but must be more communicative before receiving any favours.







Letter from Mr W.R. Hay, a magistrate from Lancashire, to Lord Sidmouth, 16 August 1819
(Catalogue ref: ZHC 2/41 p.259-62)
Healey, Dr., (1780-1830), A leading Radical Reformer and in 1819, he led the Saddleworth, Lees, and Mosley Union contingent to Peterloo headed by a black flag, and this caused great consternation in local ‘loyalist’ circles. It was chiefly because of this that he was arrested at the meeting. His wife was secretary to the Manchester Female Reformers and the sub editor of the Manchester Observer.

Hobhouse, Henry, (1776-1904), Permanent under-secretary for the Home Office in Lord Liverpool’s Government and keeper of state papers, 1817-1827.

Item details HO 79/3/341

Pages 532-533. H Hobhouse to Major General Sir John Byng, Pontefract. Hobhouse states that the meeting in London yesterday was 'contemptible', comprising the"scum of the earth," estimated attendance being 5000, not a tenth of whom held up their hands. He adds that prosecutions in Manchester will be for misdemeanor rather than treason. If Johnson's attorney prevents him from providing the papers he has promised then he must be included in the indictment and prosecuted.
Pages 515-516. H Hobhouse to Major General Sir John Byng, Manchester. Sidmouth thanks him for going to Manchester, and confirms that his suggestions as to the drilling [parading] will be taken seriously.
Covering dates 1819 Aug 20
Pages 512-514. H Hobhouse to Reverend W R Hay, Manchester. Hobhouse states that Sidmouth considers the offences of those in custody as overt acts of High Treason in proposing war. If they are not found as such then they must be treated as traitors without the consideration of the Law Officers of the Crown. The letters which Hunt published, together with all points of notoriety connected with him should be used in evidence, and the identities obtained of those who marched into Manchester and who were previously drilled [paraded]. Those in custody have probably destroyed their papers. Sidmouth will probably send a Solicitor of the Treasury to assist in arranging the evidence.

Pages 541-542. H Hobhouse to Major General Sir John Byng, Pontefract, thanking him for his letters of 31 August and 1 September, and the extract from Major Graham. Hobhouse states that the authors of the papers mentioned should be traced. Sidmouth had received a letter concerning the Chester Depot but did not wish to trouble Byng with it. He mentions the large turn-out at Nottingham, and the fact that all is quiet there at present. Norris has told Hobhouse that the Magistrates and well affected people of Manchester are paralysed through fear and require vigorous support. Hobhouse was 'forced to scold'.
Covering dates 1819 Sept 3
Pages 543-546. H Hobhouse to Ralph Fletcher, thanking him for his letter of 2 September and the 'striking facts' it contains, although he says none could be used as legal proof. Ministers were going to prosecute those in custody for High Treason, but no evidence that the meeting on 16th August could be obtained that it had a revolutionary aim, so a capital indictment became a misdemeanor. Facts unknown by Sidmouth until Fletcher's letter, including the extortion of money between Rochdale and Bury, and the threats made at Worsley Hall and other places, might change the prosecution if proof can be obtained, although the identities of those supplying intelligence must remain secret. The vendors of the 13th and 16th numbers of Sherwin's volume 5, published on 31 July and 31 August, will be prosecuted. Asks Fletcher to forward the enclosed copy of number 13, and instructions will be sent to the Solicitor of the Treasury.
Covering dates 1819 Sept 4






Letter from the Home Office on the conduct of the Manchester magistrates, 23 August 1819
(Catalogue ref: HO 41/4 f.496)


Hone, William, Radical, illustrator, caricaturist and author of The Political House that Jack Built, (1819), Hone’s pamphlets attacking George IV forced the king to attempt to bribe him.

Hulton, William, (1787-1864), The chairman of the Special Committee of Lancashire and Cheshire Magistrates formed in July 1819. As for William Hulton, he was never able to live down the incident in the eyes of working people. He had to turn down a safe parliamentary seat in 1820, and even in 1841, while campaigning for the Tory candidate in Bolton, he was attacked and had to be rescued by party workers as his assailants chanted ‘Peterloo’.
He continued to believe he had done nothing wrong and described August 16th 1819 as ‘the proudest day of my life.’ It was not his only questionable action. Seven years before, at the age of 25, having inherited his father’s post as High Sheriff, he arrested twelve Luddites accused of torching a Westhoughton woollen mill. Four of them, one a boy of only 12, were hanged.


Hunt, Henry, (1773-1835), known as Orator Hunt, was the chief speaker at Peterloo. In 1817 he first came into contact with Lancashire Radicalism through the Hampden Club movement. His capacity as an orator soon won him a large personal following throughout the country and especially in Lancashire. He was found guilty of seditious assembly and sentenced to two and a half years imprisonment. In 1830 he was elected as the M.P. for Preston.

Johnson, Joseph, (1791-1872), the most active local ra3dical, organiser behind the Peterloo meeting. In June 1818 he became the part-owner of the Radical local newspaper the Manchester Observer. It was about this time also he became secretary of the Manchester Patriotic Union Society, were responsible for inviting Orator Hunt to speak at the Peterloo meeting. In 1788, Mary Wollstonecraft began to work for her publisher, Joseph Johnson, first as a translator and then as a reviewer for his monthly periodical, The Analytical Review. Mary was brought up as an Anglican, she soon began attending Richard Price's chapel. Price held radical political views and had encountered a great deal of hostility when he supported the cause of American independence. At Price's home Mary met other leading radicals including the publisher, Joseph Johnson. He was impressed by Mary's ideas on education and commissioned her to write a book on the subject. In Thoughts on the Education of Girls, published in 1786, Mary attacked traditional teaching methods and suggested new topics that should be studied by girls. Two years later Wollstonecraft helped Johnson to found the journal Analytical Review.

Jolliffe, Lieutenant William, a nineteen-year old officer in the 15th Hussars on St Peter’s Field, whose eyewitness account was latter published in Pellew’s Life of Sidmouth which was printed in Bruton 1921.

Kitchen, Alice In June 1819 the first Female Union was formed by Alice Kitchen in Blackburn. Later that year there were Female Reform Groups in Manchester, Oldham and Royton. The leader of the Manchester Female Reform Group was Mary Fildes. A passionate radical she named her two sons after John Cartwright and Henry Hunt. Fildes was also involved in the campaign for birth control and when she attempted to sell books on the subject she was accused in the local press of distributing pornography. Fildes was one of the speakers at the St. Peter's Field meeting on 16th August, 1819. Some reports claimed that the Manchester & Salford Yeomanry attempted to murder Mary Fildes while arresting the leaders of the demonstration.
Knight, John, (1763-1838), a small-scale Manchester cotton manufacturer and a well established figure in local radical circles. As early as 1811 he had published a reform pamphlet, and in 1812 he was arrested for administering illegal oaths to a committee formed to prepare a reform address to the Prince Regent.

Lord Liverpool, Robert, Banks, Jenkinson, (1770-1828), Prime Minister 1812-1827.

John Lees, 22 soldier who fought at Waterloo.There was no inquest for the others who died, but John Lees, a young man of 22 who had fought at Waterloo, was the son of a mill owner and magistrate. John Harmer, a radical lawyer from London, appeared at the start of the inquest and it was through his persistence that the witnesses’ testimonies began to reveal the awful truth, a reality the coroner and his superiors had hoped to brush away in one perfunctory day.
It was only late in the three-week inquest that Lees’ father revealed to the court – to the furious astonishment of the perpetrators of the massacre – that he had brought in Harmer just to make sure that the circumstances of his son’s death were properly investigated. By this time, the High Sheriff, William Hulton, and Roger Entwistle, another magistrate, both directly responsible for ordering the actions of the Yeomanry, were becoming increasingly uneasy at Harmer’s success in bringing out the truth and discomfiting witnesses they themselves had ‘encouraged’ to give false testimony.
In the end they won, in that the coroner adjourned the inquest ‘for six weeks’ and left the court. It was never resumed. To the lawyer John Harmer, looking sadly at the deserted courtroom (in a pub in Oldham) it must have seemed like defeat. But it was a completely hollow victory for Hulton and the magistrates, in that it spurred the process of parliamentary reform.
By allowing the witnesses to speak for themselves, with just a commentary by the dead John Lees to guide the viewer, Channel 4 produced a riveting programme. The Times of London had a correspondent at the inquest and quickly the horror of St Peter’s Fields was revealed to a wider public. Even some of the masters were scandalized by what had happened. One Rochdale mill owner, Thomas Chadwick, described the massacre as ‘an inhuman outrage committed on an unarmed, peaceful assembly.’


L’Estrange, Lieutenant-Colonel, George, the military commander in Manchester 1819 under Major-General Sir John Byng, commander of the northern district.
GUY CARLETON L’ESTRANGE AND THE MASSACRE OF PETERLOO
hird son of Henry Peisley L’Estrange I. Joined the 31st Regiment of Foot. This regiment had been raised at the end of the 17th century during William III’s wars against the France of Louis XIV. For a century it consisted of one battalion, but in 1804, when a French invasion of England was feared, a second battalion was raised. During the Napoleonic wars the first battalion served in the Kingdom of Naples and in Sicily. The second battalion, in which Guy L’Estrange was a major, sailed for the Peninsula and disembarked at Lisbon on the 5th November, 1808. At that stage Sir John Moore, in command of the British forces, had marched into Spain, but was deflected to the north-west of the country by the French commanded by Napoleon himself. The 31st marched off with the intention of reinforcing Moore, but returned to Lisbon then unfavourable intelligence was received that Moore was retreating on Corunna. Moore at Corunna turned and fought the French, thereby gaining time to embark the British forces on ships sent to effect a Dunkirk-style rescue.
Thereafter Guy together with Edmund L’Estrange joined Benjamin D’Urban of the Quartermaster-General’s staff on reconnaissance to observe the movements of a French corps on the frontier between Portugal and Spain. In later years D’Urban, by then a general, was engaged in driving the Boers out of Natal and The City of Durban in Natal is named after him.
In April 1909 Wellesley captured Oporto and entered Spain. More than halfway between the Portuguese border and Madrid he fought the battle of Talavera in July of that year. At this battle, when a first wave of French columns was being battered into defeat, a brigade of Guards and two brigades of the King’s German Legion, mad with excitement hurled themselves forward far into a second and unbroken mass of French columns. Six hundred of the Guards’ 2000 men fell so leaving an ugly hole which was about to be filled by a roaring tide of French cavalry and guns. Into the gaping centre Wellesley ordered the 31st Regiment, together with the 24th, 45th and 48th. They opened ranks to allow the Guards to retire to the rear and then, in Napier’s words ‘resumed their proud and beautiful line’. The Guards and the King’s German Legion reformed behind this line and the French advance came to a halt. Victory had been plucked from the grasp of the French.
Guy particularly distinguished himself at the battle of Albuera, fought on the 16th May, 1811. This battle is described in chapter eight. As a result he was recommended for promotion, and later in the same year became Lieut-Colonel of the 26th Regiment. In December 1812, he was made a companion of the Order of the Bath. Towards the end of the war the 26th Regiment was stationed in Gibraltar.
The war in the Peninsula ended when the allies drove the French back into France over the Pyrenees and defeated Marshal Soult’s army at the battle of Toulouse, fought on the 10th April, 1814. The 31st Regiment occupied Toulouse. George in his ‘Recollection’ writes:
My regiment had passed through the town, and just before we arrived at some charming suburban villas where we were to take up our quarter. I was rather startled by a loud cheer and seeing the caps of every soldier in the regiment waving in the air over their heads. What in the world is the matter?, I enquired, when I was informed that my uncle, the late General Guy Carleton L’Estrange, had suddenly appeared on the line of march. At the battle of Albuera, where he commanded the 31st Regiment, he certainly distinguished himself by an impromptu manoeuvre which overthrew the Polich Lancers, and which is still practised in the old regiment, and called the Albuera movement. He was promoted to the command of the 26th Regiment, and was stationed at Gibraltar. He could not resist the temptation of witnessing the winding up of the war. He and his friend, Colonel Alexander Saunderson, of Castle Saunderson (on upper Loch Erne), having provided themselves with good horses, set out to ride across Spain. The manner in which his old regiment, who had not seen him for more than two years received him, is proof of his popularity as a commanding officer. I naturally felt very proud of it.
On arrival at Toulouse, Guy obtained a billet close to where his old regiment was stationed, about a mile to the south of the city. George says that he and his uncle generally rode into the town every morning to hear the news and amuse themselves. George mentions in particular the triumphal entry of the Duc d’Angouleme (one of the now restored Bourbons) into the town, when an enormous cavalcade of British and other officers, numbering several hundreds, rode out some miles to meet him and then escorted him into the town.
Guy must have returned to the command of the 31st Regiment, for he was in command of it at the ‘massacre’ of ‘Peterloo’ at Manchester on the 16th August, 1819In his later military career Guy spent seven years in Bermuda and retired from the army with rank of Lieut-General. George in his ‘Recollections’ gives this last glimpse of him:
He afterward (i.e. after the Napoleonic wars) married Miss Sarah Rawson, of that beautiful seat, Nidd Hall, in Yorkshire, and they never lost an opportunity of doing me a kindness, or failed to receive me hospitably into their house; in fact I had no relations to whom I was more sincerely attached, or whose memories I more revere than Uncle Guy and Aunt Sarah. They rest in peace side by side, having died without issue, in the ancient burying-ground of the old family of Rawson at Nidd Hall.

On the 16th August 1819 , a crowd of at least 60,000 men and women and children gathered in St Peter’s Field, Manchester to demonstrate in favour of parliamentary reform. Shortly after the proceedings began in the early afternoon the crowd was dispersed by a cavalry charge. Eleven persons were killed and about five hundred injured. All the troops, with the exception of the Manchester Yeomonry, were under the command of Lt. Guy L’Estrange.
If one were to remove large modern buildings in Manchester such as the Central Library and the Free Trade Hall the lay out of the streets and buildings in 1819 would be much the same as it is to day. The open space of today’s St Peter’s Square is the successor of the larger and grass-covered St Peter’s Field of 1819. St Peter’s Field was used from time to time by the citizens ofManchester and the surrounding cotton towns and villages as the venue for monster meetings held in protest against the miseries and evils of the time.
For the industrial revolution, the product of technical inventions, was well under way by 1819. Social conditions were appalling. Wages were low, while the corn laws kept the price of food high; housing often consisted of shacks furnished with sacking and straw, and the death rate was extremely high. How were these conditions to be changed? The answer was either by parliamentary reform or revolution. To the Radicals, who eventually won the day, the answer was reform, and they enrolled the working classes under their banner. In the unreformed House of Commons before 1832 a rapidly growing town such as Manchester, together with the other cotton towns of Lancashire, had no parliamentary representation at all. This had to be changed before the lot of the working classes could be improved. On the other hand the Tory government of Lord Liverpool and the land-owning and professional classes feared revolution. In fairness to them it must be borne in mind that the French Revolution and the Terror were of ery recent memory. Government policy, instead of introducing gradual and reasonable reforms was one of repression of all working class demands. The Magistrates present at Peterloo were faithful representatives of the government. They were in such a state of fright as they witnessed the enormous crowd that they panicked and jumped to the conclusion that it was their duty to disperse a revolutionary mob.
Monster meetings demanding reform had taken place in Lancashire and in London before, but the meeting in St Peter’s Field on this occasion was intended to be the most impressive the country had ever seen. Those who attended came not only from Manchester, but contingents, some numbering 8000 persons, started at dawn from the Lancashire industrial towns to march to the rendezvous. They carried their banners and were accompanied by their bands. They had prepared members by drilling under ex-army instructors, not for the purpose of aggression but that some order could be preserved when they converged on Manchester. All these preparations were well know to the authorities. A constant stream of reports reached Lord Sidmouth, the Home Secretary, from the Magistrates and from paid local spies. The Home Office had organised the provision of troops in Manchester and in the principal Lancashire and Cheshire towns. If the crowd in Manchester turned into a mob, pillaging and looting the cavalry stationed in the surrounding towns could be summonsed as re-inforcements.
The general in command of the Northern Command was Sir John Byng. In the Peninsula Guy L’Estrange had served under him. Byng having told the Home Office that he had absolute confidence in L’Estrange, appointed the latter to command the troops in Manchester when the meeting took place. Byng himself did not intend to be present, although he had previously commanded the troops at such meetings.
The troops commanded by L’Estrange consisted of 6 troops of cavalry of the 15th Hussars and 7 companies of infantry of the 31st and 88th Regiments. These totaled over 1000 men and would be enough to subdue any violence offered by an unarmed crowd. In addition L’Estrange had under his command units of the Cheshire Yeomanry, not regular troops, but experienced and well founded and consisting of country gentlemen and their employees. The one group of soldiers not under L’Estrange’s command was the Manchester Yeomanry. This body of cavalry had been founded as recently as 1817 and lacked experience. They were brash townsmen and had already been described as mounted tyrants. They came under the direct control of the Magistrates. To have a separate ‘private army’ of this kind under the command of a magistrate, who had no military experience and who could make no military judgement of what action was required was a recipe for disaster. L’Estrange has been criticised for permitting any troops to operate outside his command, but General Byng knew of the arrangement and acquiesced in it.
L’Estrange stationed his main body of troops in Byrom Street and St John’s Street (at the extreme left of the first plan). These troops consisted of six troops of the 15th Hussars commanded by L’Estrange’s subordinates Lt. Colonel Dalrymple, who had a leg shot off at Waterloo, and the men of the Cheshire Yeomanry commanded by Lt. Col. Townshend. The one troop of Manchester Yeomanry in Byrom Street was of necessity under L’Estrange’s command for they were separated from the two main troops of the Manchester Yeomanry in Portland Street (upper right hand corner of the plan). It was this contingent in Portland Street which caused the trouble. At this point a further criticism of L’Estrange arises. Historians point out that he should have left his forces in Byrom Street and St John’s Street under the command of their two commanding officers and taken up his own position with the magistrates. Then he could have advised and restrained them. He would hardly have allowed them to let loose the Manchester Yeomanry on their own for the purpose of arresting Mr. Hunt. This, as we shall see, is what they did.
The Magistrates were assembled on the first floor of a terraced house overlooking the field. Some distance away from them at the side of Windmill Street two wagons had been roped together as the hustings from which the speakers would address the crowd. Between the Magistrates and the hustings there stretched two lines of constables, several hundred in number. The purpose of this formation was to provide a clearway by which to arrest Hunt if the necessity arose. But before the meeting started the wagons had been pushed away from the lines of constables and surrounded by members of the crowd. These people would have to be removed if an arrest took place.
At 1p.m. Hunt drove up to the hustings in a carriage followed by a large crowd. When he mounted the hustings a great shout went up. On hearing the shout L’Estrange ordered his cavalry to mount. On the field the combined bands played the “ See the Conquering Hero Comes” and “ God Save the King”. The magistrates gazed with growing apprehension at the vast crowd and their banners. More sinister than the banners were the numerous caps of liberty the symbol the French Revolution, held aloft on poles. Hunt began to speak his words could not be heard by the magistrates or by most people in the crowd. The nerve of the magistrates cracked. They decided to arrest Hunt. They were under an immediate duty to preserve the peace and to suppress unlawful force and violence and it would be enough for them to act if violence were immediately threatened. But Hunt had not been heard to utter any incitement to violence and no violence had taken place. At the same time we must be fair to the magistrates and put ourselves in their position for throughout England the propertied classes were gripped by fear of the revolution.
For the constables to arrest Hunt would be to put their lives at risk. The chairman of the magistrates, therefore, sent two mounted runners, one to L’Estrange and the other to Major Trafford commanding the Manchester Yeomanry in Portland Street. To each they carried the following message: ‘I request you to proceed immediately to No. 6 Mount Street, where the magistrates are assembled. They consider the Civil power wholly inadequate to preserve the peace’.
This message must have been sent in panic by frightened men. It might have been appropriate if this crowd was an armed mob engaged in looting property. But the crowd was peaceable. Many present were women with their children, and some had babies in their arms. After the event the chairman explained that when he wrote the two messages he considered that the lives and properties of all persons in Manchester were in the greatest possible danger and that the meeting was part of a great scheme being carried on throughout the country. This meant a conspiracy to overthrow the government. This view was based on panic, not reason .
To send the messages to two independent military commanders was another recipe for trouble. Because the route to the Manchester Yeomanry was shorter, that force galloped first into Mount Street. On their way one of the horses knocked down a women, and her baby was trampled to death under the horses hooves.
The Manchester Yeomanry lined up in front of the magistrates’ house. They were told to surround the hustings in order that the constables could reach Hunt and arrest him. they advanced five or six abreast between the tow lines of constables. Their pace quickened to a canter. When they reached the crowd surrounding the hustings they lashed out indiscriminately with the flats of their sabres. Not only civilians but also constables were knocked down. A cloud of dust arose from the hooves. Hunt, to save further trouble, succeeded in surrendering himself to a head constable and was led under a hail of blows from the Yeomanry to the magistrates’ house.
Colonel L’Estrange at the head of the Hussars galloped up by the shortest route which was still clear. He could have had no understanding of the fracas taking place at the hustings. Accordingly he spurred his horse to the magistrates’ house and shouted up to them asking what they wanted him to do. He received the shouted reply: ‘Good God Sir! Do you not see how they are attacking the Yeomanry? Disperse the crowd!’ The phrase ‘attacking the Yeomanry’ was far from the truth, but it reflects the magistrates’ state of mind. L’Estrange passed the necessary order to Dalrymple and the Hussars lined up facing the field in front of the magistrate’s house. The Cheshire Yeomanry lined up at approximately right angles to the Hussars. A trumpeter sounded the charge.
L’Estrange was obviously not fully informed as to the facts of the situation. Matters would have been different had he been with the magistrates from the start. Meanwhile the Manchester Yeomanry had already got into the crowd and were slashing at them with the blades of their sabres.
L’Estrange’s cavalry used the flats of their sabres not the blades and more than once a Hussar shouted at a Manchester Yeoman such words as: ‘For shame, won’t you give the people time to get away?’ The presence of the indisciplined Manchester Yeomanry made a controlled advance of the regular troops difficult. Several Hussars were knocked or torn from their horses and some horses were slashed. Bricks were thrown and cudgels used by some in the crowd and an accurately aimed brick struck L’Estrange on the head. Half-way across the field L’Estrange ordered the retreat to be sounded. Within a quarter of an hour of the initial intervention by the Manchester Yeomanry the field had been cleared, the crowd having taken precipitate refuge in the surrounding streets. On the ground lay the injured and the dead, broken banners and the smashed musical instruments of the bands. The Manchester Yeomanry were still pursuing the crowd in the streets.
Peterloo caused a wave of protest and condemnation. The press coined the ironic name ‘Peterloo’. But no public enquiry was held into the event. An inquest was held into the death of one victim, a veteran of Waterloo. It was adjourned on a technicality and never resumed. Hunt and his associates were prosecuted and convicted at York Assizes of conspiring to alter the law by force or threats and attending an illegal riotous and tumultuous meeting. Hunt was sentenced to two and a half years imprisonment. In 1822 a banner bearer who had been cut several times by sabres brought a civil action against four named members of the Manchester Yeomanry. The defendants were successful on the ground that their actions were justified in dispersing an illegal assembly. In fact the assembly was not an unlawful one. The event might have passed off peacefully enough had it not been for the panic of the magistrates and the irruption onto the field of the Manchester Yeomanry.
Lord Sidmouth through General Byng wrote expressing the Prince Regent’s ‘high approbation of the exemplary manner in which Lt. Col. L’Estrange and his troops assisted and supported the civil authorities’. The magistrates wrote to L’Estrange to thank him and his troops ‘for the energy, tempered by the greatest humanity, displayed in their conduct yesterday, conduct peculiarly characteristic of the British soldier’.
Later generations might not describe Peterloo as a massacre but that word widely used by the contemporary press, indicates the horror which the public felt when they learned what had happened. The shameful episode disgusted the middle classes as much as dismayed the working classes. Here in grim reality were ‘the two nations’, a phrase coined by Disraeli in 1845, which has come into existence during and as a result of the industrial revolution.


Mallory, Reverend, A member if the Select Committee of Magistrates.

Marriott, Mr., a member of the Select Committee of Magistrates.

Marsh, Richard, a member of the Select Committee of Magistrates.

Nadin, Joseph, (1765-1884), The Deputy Chief Constable of Manchester during and following Peterloo.He had been upwards of twenty years deputy-constable at
Manchester, resigned in March, and was succeeded by Stephen Lavender, of London.

Norris, James, a Barrister, large landowner and a member of the Select Committee of Magistrates.
Item details HO 79/3/343
Pages 517-518. H Hobhouse to James Norris, Manchester. Hobhouse states that Norris' letter of 19 August has opened a new door of information. Sidmouth is anxious to receive Johnson's information, and if he deals fairly he should make a strong case against Hunt. It is presumed that the Magistrates will hold Hunt until Johnson's evidence has been considered. Even if Treason is proven the Cabinet do not wish to bring the prisoners for examination before the Privy Council, since many witnesses would be lost and inconvenience caused. Better that the case proceeds before the local Magistrates.
Pages 519-521. H Hobhouse to Charles Bourchier, Manchester. Because Johnson appears likely to confess, which will strengthen the case against Hunt, Hobhouse is enclosing copies of letters that Bourchier should see. They may be useful if Johnson claims the originals have been destroyed, and again if Johnson"hangs back," to let him know that copies of his letters exist which would secure his conviction unless he discloses the whole truth. However, he must keep their existence secret as much as possible. Has heard that Haimer and Pearson, the attorneys, are to travel to Manchester.
Pages 523-526. H Hobhouse to James Norris, Manchester. Hobhouse explains that he has written a letter which Norris may read to Johnson, unless he becomes more communicative. Dealing with points in Norris' letter of 21 August, Mr Bourchier unfortunately did not send the important depositions of Slater and Willey. Hobhouse asks him to clarify whether a warrant against Carlisle has been issued. Carlisle is actually in custody in London charged with libel, but bail has been offered. Suggests he arrests the Manchester publishers of Sherwin's Paper of Saturday. Wroe is concealed in London, and Hobhouse asks whether Norris has a warrant against him? The threatening letter to Nadin appears to have come from Cobbett - the writing can be inspected if Norris sends it up. Charles Wright has given Norris information which should go to the Attorney and Solicitor General. Hobhouse has paid £15 to Hay for Norris. Hopes that Banford may be arrested. Drilling [parading] has again taken place in Rochdale.



A letter sent to Manchester on behalf of Lord Sidmouth, the Home Secretary, 4 August 1819
(Catalogue ref: HO 41/4 f.434)

Oliver, William, aka 'Oliver the Spy' aka W.J Richards - was a 19th century informer, and suspected agent provocateur, employed by the English Home Office against the Luddites and similar groupings. He appears to have played a significant role in thwarting the Pentrich Rising of 1817, leading to the execution of Brandreth, Ludlam and Turner. See eg E. P. Thompson's The Making of the English Working Class.Her was a building surveyor who had been imprisoned for debt before he was recruited by the foreign office.His shadowy role is commemorated in Charles Lamb's poem, 'The Three Graves'. He was one of the most active and energetic of Lord Liverpool’s’ Governments’ secret agents nick named ‘Oliver the Spy.’

Paine, Thomas, (January 29, 1737 – June 8, 1809) was a British pamphleteer, revolutionary, radical, inventor, and intellectual. He lived and worked in Britain until age 37, when he emigrated to the British American colonies, in time to participate in the American Revolution. His principal contribution was the powerful, widely-read pamphlet Common Sense (1776), advocating colonial America's independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain, and The American Crisis (1776–1783), a pro-revolutionary pamphlet series.
Later, he greatly influenced the French Revolution. He wrote the Rights of Man (1791), a guide to Enlightenment ideas. Despite not speaking French, he was elected to the French National Convention in 1792. The Girondists regarded him as an ally, so, the Montagnards, especially Robespierre, regarded him as an enemy. In December of 1793, he was arrested and imprisoned in Paris, then released in 1794. He became notorious because of The Age of Reason (1793–94), the book advocating deism and arguing against Christian doctrines. In France, he also wrote the pamphlet Agrarian Justice (1795), discussing the origins of property, and introduced the concept of a guaranteed minimum income.
He remained in France during the early Napoleonic era, but condemned Napoleon's dictatorship, calling him "the completest charlatan that ever existed".[1] In 1802, at President Thomas Jefferson's invitation, he returned to America.
Thomas Paine died, at the age of 72, at 59 Grove Street, Greenwich Village, New York City, on June 8, 1809. He was buried at what is now called the Thomas Paine Cottage in New Rochelle, New York, where he had lived after returning to America in 1802. His remains were later disinterred by an admirer, William Cobbett, who sought to return them to England. The bones were, however, later lost and his final resting place today is unknown.
Pitt, William, British Tory Prime Minister and 1st Earl of Chatham, who died in 1812 and was succeeded by Lord Liverpool.

Philips, Francis, was a cotton manufacturer and a prominent member of the Pitt Club and Tory party. Soon after Peterloo Philips published An Exposure of the Calumnies circulated by the Enemies of Social Order and reiterated by their abettors Against the Magistrates and Yeomanry Cavalry of Manchester and Salford, (1819), defending the behaviour of the Manchester magistrates and the Cavalry at Peterloo.

Prentice, Archibald, (1792-1857), watched the start of the meeting in St. Peter’s Fields, from the window of a friend’s house in Mosley Street. He helped to found the Radical newspaper the Manchester Gazette in 1821 which was incorporated with the Manchester Times in 1828 and he became the sole manager of this paper. Some years later Prentice published his book, Historical Sketches and Personal Recollections of Manchester, (1851).

Prince Regent, stood-in for George III who in 1811 had lost his mind. He later became George IV.

Redford, Thomas, Radical plaintiff in Redford v Birley, April, 1822.

Ridings, Elijah, (1802-1872), Manchester working-class poet, weaver and bookseller, Peterloo veteran, anti Corn Law campaigner and Chartist. In 1819, being then 17years of age, he was appointed leader of a section of parliamentary reformers at Newton Heath and Miles Platting on the memorable march to Peterloo and narrowly escaped being trampled by Yeomanry horses with the help of an officer of the 15th Hussars.

Saxton, John, assistant editor of the Manchester Observer and a radical orator who was arrested on the hustings on 16th August but later acquitted at his trial at York. John Saxton and his wife Susanna were both active in the campaign for universal suffrage. Susanna Saxton was secretary of the Manchester Female Reformers and a writer of several political pamphlets

Saxton, Susanna, was the secretary of the Manchester Female Reformers. Susanna wrote several pamphlets on universal suffrage. The most popular was The Manchester Female Reformers Address to the Wives, Mothers, Sisters and Daughters of the Higher and Middling Classes of Society. Although Saxton addressed women as "Sisters of the Earth", she argued that women's main role was to support their husbands in their struggle for universal male suffrage. They were also urged "to install into the minds of our children, a deep and rooted hatred of our corrupt and tyrannical rulers.
Central to the Peterloo Massacre in 1819 was the high public profile of working-class women who attended the parliamentary reform meeting that preceded it in all-female contingents, carrying their own flags, distinctively dressed in white and with their own women leaders prominently displayed on the speakers' platform. In the circumstances, the military's brutal attack on the crowd appeared to be incited, among other things, by a sense of manhood under serious threat from this provocative female presence.
Shelley, Percy Bysshe the son of Sir Timothy Shelley, the M.P. for New Shoreham, was born at Field Place near Horsham, in 1792. Sir Timothy Shelley sat for a seat under the control of the Duke of Norfolk and supported his patron's policies of electoral reform and Catholic Emancipation.

Shelley was educated at Eton and Oxford University and it was assumed that when he was twenty-one he would inherit his father's seat in Parliament. As a young man he was taken to the House of Commons where he met Sir Francis Burdett, the Radical M.P. for Westminster. Shelley, who had developed a strong hatred of tyranny while at Eton, was impressed by Burdett, and in 1810 dedicated one of his first poems to him. At university Shelley began reading books by radical political writers such as Tom Paine and William Godwin. At university Shelley wrote articles defending Daniel Isaac Eaton, a bookseller charged with selling books by Tom Paine and the much persecuted Radical publisher, Richard Carlile.

Smith, John, Reporter from the Liverpool Mercury at Peterloo.

Stanley, Reverend, Edward, (1779-1849), Formerly the Rector of Alderly and later Bishop of Norwich, whose eyewitness account of the scene at Peterloo and his evidence in Redford v Birley supported the radical accounts.

Sidmouth, Addington, Henry, (1757-1844), 1st Viscount, was the Home Secretary in Lord Liverpool’s Cabinet.
Page 552. Sidmouth to The Post Master General stating that it is no longer necessary to detain and open letters addressed to those persons named in the Warrant dated 26 June last, which is hereby cancelled.
Covering dates 1819 Sept 11
Pages 552-553. Sidmouth to The Post Master General stating that it is no longer necessary to detain and open letters addressed to the persons named in the Warrants dated 1 and 5 July which are hereby cancelled.

Swift, George, Young Radical Reformer arrested on the hustings along with Henry Hunt. He was placed on trial with Hunt but acquitted of all charges.

Sylvester, J., Member of the Select Committee of Magistrates.

Taylor, John, Edward, Founder of The Manchester Guardian, who along with John Tyas, a correspondent from The Times witnessed the events at Peterloo from the hustings.

Tatton, Thomas, W., Thomas William Tatton married Emma Grey on 20 October 1807 at London, England..and lived at Wythenshaw Hall, Northenden, England.Member of the Select Committee of Magistrates. Tatton of Wythenshawe, Esq. born 29 Oct. 1783, High Sheriff of Cheshire, 1809, resumed by Royal Licence dated 9 Jan 1806 the name and arms of Tatton on succeeding to the Wythenshawe estates. Died in London on 2 March 1827.

Teesdale, Colonel, Commander of the King’s Dragoon Guards at the Blanketeers meeting held in St Peter’s Field in 1817. First commissioned in 1793 he was promoted Captain in 1795, Major in 1805, and Lt Colonel in the Army 1st January 1812. he was employed away from the Regiment but after the death of Lt Colonel Fuller while leading the Regiment at Waterloo he was appointed to take over command on the 7th September 1815, and remained in command until the 11th May 1838. He was apparently a somewhat corpulent officer and is so shown in a portrait by Digton. He also figures in three caricatures published in Ireland in 1822. One of these shows him on one balance of a pair of scales with seven Hussars officers well outweighed on the other, with the caption ‘’One Heavy Son of Mars ‘gainst Seven Light Hussars’’ and another, entitled ‘’ Military Prodigies-or the Fattest (sic) the Tallest and Smallest’’ identifies him with two of his Cornets Richard Heaviside who was well over 6ft and Richard Martin who was diminutive. Teesdale was made a Knight of the Royal Guelphic Order by William IV.
One heavy Son of Mars 'gainst 7 Light Hussars


Thistlewood, Arthur, Radical who planned the Cato Street Conspiracy in 1820 and was hanged on the 1st May 1820 along with four of his accomplices.

Trafford, Major Thomas, Joseph, manufacturer and the Senior Officer commanding the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry Cavalry who managed to escape the criticism directed at Captain Hugh Hornby Birley, his second in command.

Trafford, Trafford, one of the magistrates who accompanied Lieutenant L’Estrange onto St Peter’s Fields on 16th August, 1819.

Tyas, John, London reporter for The Times newspaper at Peterloo.

Walker, Thomas, A rich Unitarian cotton merchant who established the Manchester Constitutional Society in October, 1790.

Wolseley, Sir Charles, (1769-1846), like Hunt was more than a local leader. He was one of the founders of the Hampden Club and was elected ‘Legislatorial Attorney’ for Birmingham at a meeting on 12th July 1819. He was imprisoned for eighteen months for a violent speech he made at Stockport along with Harrison on 28th June 1819. After his release he continued to play an active part in Radical affairs.

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797), was brought up as an Anglican, she soon began attending Richard Price's chapel. Price held radical political views and had encountered a great deal of hostility when he supported the cause of American independence. At Price's home Mary Wollstonecraft met other leading radicals including the publisher, Joseph Johnson. He was impressed by Mary's ideas on education and commissioned her to write a book on the subject. In Thoughts on the Education of Girls, published in 1786, Mary attacked traditional teaching methods and suggested new topics that should be studied by girls. Two years later Wollstonecraft helped Johnson to found the journal Analytical Review.
Mary Wollstonecraft could look to her own life history and to the lives of women in her family. Abuse of women was close to home. She saw little legal recourse for the victims of abuse. For women in the rising middle-class, those who did not have husbands -- or at least reliable husbands -- had to find ways to earn their own living or a living for their families. Writings on the "rights of man" including one by Wollstonecraft were part of the general intellectual discussion in England and France before, during, and after the French Revolution. Wollstonecraft moved in the same circles as Thomas Paine, Joseph Priestley, Samuel Coleridge, William Wordsworth, William Blake and William Godwin.
• Women ought to have representatives, instead of being arbitrarily governed without any direct share allowed them in the deliberations of government.


William Godwin

William Godwin married Mary Wollstonecraft when she became pregnant, though they continued their separate apartments. Tragically, Wollstonecraft died within two weeks of delivery of the baby, of "childbed fever" or septicemia. The daughter, raised by Godwin with Wollstonecraft's older daughter, later married the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley in a shocking elopement -- and is known to history as Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, author of Frankenstein.
Wright, Mr., a member of the Select Committee of Magistrates.

Wroe, James, (1788-1844), Between June 1819 and February 1820 was the editor of the Manchester Observer. He was also the chief Radical printer. One of his opponents described him as the ‘Printer Devil to the Radical Reformers.’ He was hounded by the Manchester local authorities and indicted for seditious publications and distribution. In February 1820 poverty-stricken by the cost of litigation, he was forced to give up the Manchester Observer. Nevertheless, he maintained his commitment to the Reform Movement throughout the 1820’s and 1830’s. In 1838 he was elected as one of Manchester’s delegates to the first Chartist National Convention.

Wooler, Thomas, Jonathan, The editor of the Radical newspaper the Black Dwarf.
Thomas Worrel, 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. 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. Piles of brushwood had been placed at the end of the field nearest to the Friends Meeting House