The Peterloo Massacre - The Historiography

The Historiography of Peterloo

It is part of a Left-wing dogma that Peterloo was an act of class war perpetrated by Lord Liverpool’s government on the working class, that the 60,000 people peaceably assembled in St Peter’s Field on 16^th August 1819 to listen to Hunt’s speech on reform were unprovokedly dispersed by drunken cavalry who savagely sabred several innocent people to death and wounded many others, all on the orders of the panic-stricken specially formed select committee of magistrates. It needed a Mancunian antiquarian bookseller of today, Mr. Robert Warmsley, to put the factual record straight 150 years after the event and after thirty years of patient and scrupulous research for his monumental book, Peterloo: The Case Re-opened. [Michael Kennedy] [1]

Although it became known as the Peterloo Massacre, the events in and around St. Peter’s Field on 16^th August 1819 were regarded by both sides with a great deal of passion. At the time the Peterloo massacre divided English society as a whole, with petitions and mass meetings being organised for and against the position taken by the authorities.[2] As Philip Lawson emphasises contention lies at the heart of Peterloo because ‘one side argues that the reformers went too far in their protest or demonstration at St Peter’s Field and that in the aftermath of Peterloo, support for the established order was reaffirmed by the mass of the population’ and ‘on the other side exists the view that a legitimate movement of popular constitutionalism ended in a massacre, betrayed on all sides by middle-class equivocation and a corrupt and repressive political system.’ [3]

In the aftermath of Peterloo an examination of the historiography shows that Peterloo quickly grew into a battle between the loyalist authorities on the one side and the reformers on the other. [4] In the words of the radical Manchester Observer, Peterloo was ‘a day of paramount importance to the liberties of our country,’ and as ‘Big with the fate of Freedom and of Albion.’ In contrast, the Reverend Mr Hay thought that; ‘The meeting was looked upon, on both sides, as an experiment-a touchstone of the spirit of the Magistrates, and of courage of the mob.’ [5]

Within two weeks after Peterloo Francis Philips, a cotton manufacturer and a prominent member of the Pitt Club and Tory party, 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 yeomanry cavalry on the day. This prompted John Edward Taylor to write his riposte Notes and Observations Critical Explanatory, on the Papers Relative to the Internal State of the Country recently presented in Parliament; To which is intended a Reply to Mr Francis Philip’s Exposure, London, (1820). Meanwhile the Radical press continued to report on protest meetings and trials in an attempt to have the aggressors identified and punished without success. In contrast the Tory newspapers continued to make excuses for the Manchester magistrates and the yeomanry cavalry praising them and the military for their conduct.[6]

I would agree with Neville Kirk’s analysis that since the late 1950s the historiography of Peterloo has been dominated by three conflicting interpretations.[7] The first interpretation by Donald Read, Peterloo The ‘Massacre’ and its Background, (1957), identifies Peterloo as a massacre although he qualifies this in the preface to his book:

The successful designation of Peterloo as a ‘massacre’ represents another piece of successful propaganda. Perhaps only in peace-loving England could a death-roll of only eleven persons have been so described.[8]

Read argues that the ‘massacre’ was the result of panic and a serious lack of foresight on part of the Manchester magistrates rather from central government direction or premeditation. Read also argues that blame for the deaths and injuries at the August 16^th meeting lies with the magistrates but not with the Home Secretary, Lord Sidmouth, who advised the magistrates to use caution and only to use force as a last resort.[9] According to Read:

The evidence of the Home Office papers was used to show how Lord Sidmouth, the Home Secretary, had advised the Manchester magistrates to act with very great circumspection at the meeting, to collect evidence of any seditious intention, but not to intervene unless violence broke out.[10]

Read’s final conclusion is that the central government was not responsible for the massacre. Instead Read argues:

Ominously, on August 3^rd the ‘loyalist’ Manchester Mercury newspaper, reported that the Cheshire magistrates had ‘come to a determination to act with decision, and to suppress all Seditious Meetings immediately as they assemble.’ It was this policy, not the one advocated by the Home Office, which produced the Peterloo Massacre. [11]

Read also argues ‘How far the attitude of the Home Office differed from that of the Manchester magistrates responsible for the Peterloo massacre was shown in a letter written by Hobhouse to James Norris one of the Select Committee of Magistrates twelve days before Peterloo.’ Henry Hobhouse was the under-secretary to the Home Office and urged the magistrates simply to gather evidence of what took place at the meeting to ignore any illegal proceeding for the time being and not to use force. Read produces the following letter as evidence in support of his claim:

Lord Sidmouth has no doubt that you will make arrangements for obtaining evidence of what passes; that if anything illegal is done or said, it may be the subject of prosecution. But even if they should utter sedition or proceed to the election of a representative, Lord Sidmouth is of the opinion that it will be the wisest course to abstain from any endeavour to disperse the mob, unless they should proceed to acts of felony or riot...His Lordship [concluded Hobhouse in a similar letter to a Rochdale magistrate eight days later] considers that on various Accounts this mode of proceeding is far preferable to an attempt to disperse the Assembly by force.[12]

Read also stresses ‘as the evidence of the Home Office shows, it was never desired or precipitated by the Liverpool Ministry as a bloody repressive gesture for keeping down the lower orders. If the Manchester magistrates had followed the spirit of Home Office Policy there would never have been a massacre.’ [13]

The second interpretation by E. P. Thompson in The Making of The English Working Class, (1963) argues that:

We shall probably never be able to determine with certainty whether or not Liverpool and Sidmouth were parties to the decision to disperse the meeting by force.[14]

Thompson is critical of Read’s book and a highly charged historical debate followed after Thompson writes:

Dr. Read succeeds in writing an entire book on Peterloo without finding space for a single eye witness account by a member of the crowd...It is difficult to follow the argument that an historical technique which screens all the evidence, accepting O.K. witnesses and official papers but rejecting the evidence of people who were ridden down or sabred, is likely to turn out ‘scientific’ or ‘objective’ work.[15]

Thompson goes one step further and writes:

There is reason enough to suppose that the Government had determined upon a show-down with the reformers before Peterloo. At some point Old Corruption, faced by swelling demonstrations, a full-blooded Radical press, the election of national representatives, drilling...and threats to withhold taxes, together with ominous symptoms of a growing middle and working-class alliance, was bound either to retreat...or to resort to repression.[16]

It can be seen how these two historical interpretations vary. Donald Read argues that Peterloo was the unfortunate consequence of the lack of foresight on the part of the Manchester magistrates. Whilst E.P. Thompson suspects that it may have been ‘planned as a show-down with the radicals’ definitely in the case of the magistrates and possibly involving Lord Liverpool’s government. Nevertheless, both Read and Thompson agree that the evidence suggests that the crowd at Peterloo were ‘orderly and generally peaceful.’ [17]

The third interpretation by Robert Warmsley in his book Peterloo: the Case Reopened, (1969), disagrees with Thompson on practically every issue and with Read in one issue in particular. Warmsley says that ‘No one has ever seriously tried to refute the radical interpretation of Peterloo,’ and that he intends ‘to put the record straight.’ Firstly, Warmsley agrees with Donald Read that the central government was not responsible for Peterloo. Secondly, Warmsley attempts to absolve William Hulton the magistrates and the yeomanry from any blame at the Peterloo meeting. He also disagrees with both Read and E. P. Thompson along with the majority of other historians of Peterloo. In fact Warmsley’s assertions are nothing more than an endorsement of the testimony given by William Hulton, members of the yeomanry cavalry and special constables. Warmsley’s argument is that the yeomanry rode into the crowd not to injure and kill but to arrest Hunt, and that, only when assailed by missiles from a minority of the crowd, did the yeomanry react in self defence. William Hulton, upon seeing the yeomanry under attack, ordered the 15th Hussars to disperse the crowd.[18] Warmsley concludes:

All the actors in the tragedy were victims. The radicals on the platform, the militants in the crowd, the peaceable in the crowd, the Yeomanry, the constables, the magistrates in their room, and the captives in the New Bayley, were each and severally as much the victims of the tragic chain of circumstances as the dead special constable lying in the Bull’s Head, the wounded in the infirmary, and Mrs Partington, crushed to death, lying at the bottom of the cellar steps. The Statesman sardonically wrote of a Victory; there were no victors and no vanquished, only victims.[19]

The 150^th anniversary of Peterloo witnessed the appearance of Jane Marlow’s The Peterloo Massacre, (1969), a valuable contribution and general reader on this controversial historical topic.[20] At the same time Warmsley’s book received some complimentary press, when Michael Kennedy a journalist from the Daily Telegraph in his article ‘What really happened at Peterloo?’ wrote ‘Warmsley’s massive research challenges the accepted version,’ his book ‘leaves no fact unchallenged and uncorroborated, no document unread in full, no source unchecked,’ and that it ‘utterly discredits the accounts in Prentice and Bamford,’ furthermore ‘In the melee the crowd fled. It seems that most of the casualties were caused by panic and that several people were trampled to death by their fellows.’ [21] This was followed by Michael Kennedy’s book Portrait of Manchester, London, (1970), in which he also endorses Warmsley’s view and asserts:

It is part of a Left-wing dogma that Peterloo was an act of class war perpetrated by Lord Liverpool’s government on the working class, that the 60,000 people peaceably assembled in St Peter’s Field on 16^th August 1819 to listen to Hunt’s speech on reform were unprovokedly dispersed by drunken cavalry who savagely sabred several innocent people to death and wounded many others, all on the orders of the panic-stricken specially formed select committee of magistrates. It needed a Mancunian antiquarian bookseller of today, Mr. Robert Warmsley, to put the factual record straight 150 years after the event and after thirty years of patient and scrupulous research for his monumental book, Peterloo: The Case Re-opened.[22]

In addition Michael Kennedy writes:

Why is Peterloo, a comparatively trivial affair not to be compared with the riots in Bristol and Nottingham...the facts of Peterloo and the motives behind it are a good deal less lurid than Socialist propaganda has made out over the years...It was an inspired journalist on the staff of the Manchester Observer, who, with Waterloo but four years in the past, coined the word Peterloo and by this single idea alone probably ensured that the incidents on St. Peter’s Field would have a place in history far beyond their merits or deserts.[23]

Michael Kennedy in defence of the Manchester authorities writes ‘before they are condemned utterly as reactionary oppressors let it be remembered that the excesses of the French Revolution were still fresh in the minds of governing authority.’ [24]

In marked contrast on 11^th December, 1969, an anonymous review of Robert Warmsley’s book appeared in The Times Literary Supplement, which was later discovered to be written by E. P. Thompson. This review was later re-published as ‘Thompson on Peterloo,’ in the Manchester Regional History Review, (1989), and later in a series of essays by Thompson in Making History: Writings on History and Culture, New York, (1994). In this publication Thompson who argues that:

Warmsley is mainly interested, in the events of the day of Peterloo, and even more closely in the events of one half-hour of that day-between 1.15 and 1.45 p.m. and yet the fact is that Mr Warmsley has no new facts to adduce about this half-hour at all. Because the main thrust of Mr. Warmsley’s argument is that, what happened on the day was unintentional, and the crowd (or part of it) was the first aggressor.’ [25]

Thompson also argues that Warmsley ‘would have us believe that the Yeomanry were ordered to support the special constables in the execution of the warrant to arrest the speakers and then advanced in reasonable order and without aggressive intention or action into the crowd; and then that the crowd closed in upon them in a menacing manner and the Yeomanry were assailed, at some point close to the hustings, by brickbats and sticks hurled by a portion of the crowd, but that most of the Yeomanry kept their heads until Hunt and his fellow speakers had been arrested, and then, increasingly assailed by brickbats and hemmed in on all sides by a threatening crowd they were forced to beat off their attackers only using the flats of their sabres, in self defence.’ [26]

Thompson says ‘from the outset Warmsley asserts that both Samuel Bamford and Archibald Prentice, ‘continued to pass on their own version…as wilful deceivers of posterity’ and stresses that:

Mr. Warmsley became convinced, not only that William Hulton had been unfairly treated by historians, but that he and his fellow magistrates were victims of nothing less than a Radical conspiracy to falsify the events of the day-a conspiracy fostered by Hunt, Bamford and Richard Carlile, and furthered by Archibald Prentice, (author of Historical Sketches of Manchester), and John Edward Taylor, of the Manchester Guardian, and in which John Tyas, the correspondent of The Times who witnessed the events from the hustings, the Rev. Edward Stanley, and dozens of others who were witting or unwitting accessories-a conspiracy so compelling that even Donald Read, in his sober and by no means radical study of Peterloo (1957), failed to detect it. [27]

Soon afterwards, Donald Read wrote his contrasting review of ‘Peterloo: The Case Re-opened, by Robert Warmsley,’ in History, Volume, 55, (1970), in which he says:

It was probably inevitable that a right wing reassessment of the responsibility for the Peterloo Massacre would follow the emotional left wing interpretation offered by E. P. Thompson in The Making of the English Working Class.[28]

Read further points out that both Warmsley and Thompson are dissatisfied with his distribution of responsibility for the massacre in his Peterloo: the ‘Massacre’ and its Background, (1957), although they differ from him for contrasting reasons. Read stresses that Thompson rejected his interpretation arguing that ‘Sidmouth was anxious for a violent showdown with the Radicals, and that the absence of evidence for this in the Home Office papers was proof only of Establishment cunning in fixing the record.’ Read continues; ‘Nevertheless extreme left-wing and extreme right-wing observers of early Radicalism seem to share a propensity to be deeply impressed by the lack of evidence.’ [29]

Further Read argues, ‘However, Warmsley dismisses Thompson’s argument and agrees with Read that, ‘the Home Secretary and his assistants were not responsible for the massacre.’ and ‘Warmsley is agitated because this inevitably lays responsibility for the tragedy exclusively upon the magistrates, and especially upon their chairman at Peterloo, William Hulton.’ Moreover, Read says, ‘Warmsley’s explicit chief intention is to defend Hulton from what he regards as the calumnies of both contemporaries and historians.’ [30]

It can be seen how historical interpretations vary. Firstly Donald Read identifies Peterloo as a massacre, albeit of a peculiarly English kind which resulted from panic and serious lack of foresight on part of the Manchester magistrates rather than from central government direction or premeditation. Secondly, E. P. Thompson, sees Peterloo as a bloody class-based massacre in which premeditation was definitely evident in the case of the Manchester magistrates and possibly by Lord Liverpool’s government. Thirdly, Robert Warmsley has offered the revisionist argument that Peterloo constituted an unfortunate tragedy rather than a massacre, resulting from a series of mishaps and misunderstandings, and in which there were only victims as opposed to victors and vanquished. [31]

In conclusion the three historical interpretations discussed all have their flaws. Both Read and Warmsley ignore the eye witness accounts and inevitably give a pro loyalist bias to their work. On the other hand E. P. Thompson seeks to implicate Lord Liverpool’s Government in the massacre without the support of documentary evidence and in the face of the contradictory evidence presented by Donald Read. Other writers have of course, merely repeated one of these interpretations depending on their sympathy or inclination. For example most recently Robert Poole writes ‘A conservative strain of history has downplayed Peterloo, which in some versions is relegated to the status of a ‘tragedy’ or even an ‘incident.’ [32] In another study the Yeomanry were described as the ‘‘murders of Manchester’’ while another reduced all the events of 16^th August to ‘‘the St Peter’s Field incident.’’ [33] A major problem with in the historiography of Peterloo is of course, most historians have not based their research on primary source documentation and eye witness accounts. Instead the history of Peterloo has been largely based on the assumptions of previous writers and their analysis of the facts taken from secondary works which have simply been repeated in every generation. However, I must agree with Robert Poole that ‘the contrived debate over ‘blame’ for the massacre has been unproductive and attempts to exonerate the Manchester authorities have been wholly unconvincing.’ [34]

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[1]Michael Kennedy, Portrait of Manchester, (The Portrait Series), London, (1970), p. 66.

[2] W. A. Speck, A Concise History of Britain 1707-1975, Cambridge, (1995), p. 67.

[3] Philip Lawson, ‘Reassessing Peterloo,’History Today, March, (1988), pp. 24-25.

[4] Philip Lawson, ‘Peterloo: A Constables Eye-View Re-Assesed,’ Manchester Regional History Review, Vol. iii, (1989), p. 39.

[5] Diana Donaldson, ‘The Power of Print: Graphic Images of Peterloo,’ Manchester Regional History Review, Vol. iii, (1989), p. 21.

[6]Turner, op. cit., pp. 266-268.

[7] Neville Kirk, ‘Commonsense, Commitment And Objectivity: Themes in The Recent Historiography of Peterloo,’ Manchester Regional History Review, Vol. iii, (1989), p. 61.

[8] Read, op. cit., p. vii.

[9] Kirk, op. cit., p. 61.

[10] Read, op. cit., p. 207.

[11]Ibid, p. 122.

[12]Ibid, p. 120. Citing, Hobhouse to Norris, 30^th June 1819, ; Hobhouse to Crossley, 10^th August 1819, (H.O. 41/4).

[13] Ibid, p. 207.

[14] Thompson, op. cit., pp. 749-50. Working Class

[15] E. P. Thompson, ‘God and King and Law,’ New Reasoner, 3, (1957-8), p. 79.

[16] Ibid, p. 81.

[17] Kirk, op. cit., pp. 61-66.

[18] Ibid, p. 64.

[19] Warmsley, op. cit., p. 233.

[20] Birkhamstead Gazette, 8^th August, 1969.

[21] Daily Telegraph, 16^th August, 1969.

[22] Kennedy, op. cit., p. 66.

[23] Ibid, pp. 68-69.

[24] Kennedy, op. cit., p. 63.

[25] Thompson, op. cit., p. 68. On Peterloo

[26] Ibid, pp. 68-69.

[27] Ibid, pp. 68-69.

[28] Donald Read, ‘Peterloo: The Case Re-opened, By Robert Warmsley,’ History, Vol. 55, (1970), pp. 138-140.

[29] Ibid.

[30] Ibid.

[31] Kirk, op. cit., p. 61.

[32] Poole, op. cit., p. 115.

[33] Lawson, op. cit., p. 39. Peterloo: A Constables Eye-View Re-Assessed

[34] Poole, op. cit., p. 112.

The Peterloo Massacre

Peterloo Massacre

There can be no doubt that the condemnation of William Hulton and the Special Select Committee of Magistrates is justified. Nobody can deny what the mass meeting was all about. The radical protesters were carrying banners demanding-Universal Suffrage, No Boroughmongering, and No Corn Laws. Hulton and the Regency Tories refused the masses their political rights, and also expected many of them to acquiesce in near starvation caused by the deep post-war economic depression.[1]

The major myths surrounding Peterloo or the Peterloo Massacre can be identified as follows: firstly, there had been no premeditation by the Select Committee of Magistrates to disperse the meeting by force and that the magistrates were only guilty of incompetence or ill-judgement and that everything happened by chance.[2] Secondly, most of the injuries were caused by the fleeing crowd. Thirdly, the 15^th Hussars only used the flats of their swords.[3] Fourthly, only 11 people were killed and only 400 people were injured.[4] An additional misconception in the historiography is that the Irish population of Manchester did not become integrated with the movement for Parliamentary Reform.[5] It will be argued that other interpretations of these issues, based on the evidence available clearly show that such myths should not be believed.

Plans to hold the meeting in St Peter’s Field began early in July and the following official announcement appeared in the Manchester Observer on 31^st July:

The pubic are respectfully informed, that a MEETING will be held here on Monday the 9^th August 1819 on the Area near St. PETER’S CHURCH, to take into consideration, the most speedy and effectual mode of obtaining Radical Reform in the Commons House of Parliament; being fully convinced, that nothing less can remove the intolerable evils under which the People of this Country have so long, and do still, groan: and also to consider the propriety of the ‘ Unrepresented Inhabitants of Manchester’ electing a Person to represent them in Parliament; and the adopting Major Cartwright’s Bill.

H. HUNT, Esq. In the Chair.[6]

However, after the magistrates were informed that the meeting would include the election of a ‘representative to Parliament’ they declared the meeting to be illegal and on the same day the 31^st July, the magistrates in Manchester published their response assuming that it would be in accordance with Home Office advice, which read as follows:

Whereas it appears by an advertisement in the Manchester Observer paper of this day, that a PUBLIC AND ILLEGAL MEETING is convened for Monday, the 9^th day of August next, to be held on the AREA NEAR SAINT PETER’S CHURCH in Manchester. We, the undersigned Magistrates, acting for the Counties Palatine of Lancaster and Chester, do hereby caution all Persons to abstain AT THEIR PERIL from attending such ILLEGAL MEETING.[7]

Consequently the organisers postponed the meeting. However by the 6^th August the Radicals had amended their notice which was accompanied by hundreds of signatures and the following notice appeared in the Manchester Observer:

A requisition having been presented to the Borough-reeve and Constables of Manchester, signed by above 700 inhabitants, requesting them to call a public meeting ‘to consider the propriety of adopting the most LEGAL AND EFFECTUAL means of obtaining a REFORM in the Commons Houses of Parliament,’ and they having declined to call such a meeting, therefore the under-signed Requisitions give NOTICE that a public meeting will be held, on the area, near St Peter’s Church, for the above mentioned purpose on Monday the 16^th instant. The Chair to be taken by H. Hunt Esq, at 12 o’clock.[8]

In fact the magistrates had no power to prohibit meetings for such a lawful purpose, and therefore kept silent. Therefore the reformers interpreted this as a tacit permission to proceed, and announced that the meeting would be held in St Peter’s Field on the 16^th August.[9] However as Read points out ‘by allowing the people to assemble…the magistrates gave them the impression that they accepted the meeting as legal and that they would not interfere.’ [10] Nevertheless although the magistrates had no power to prohibit the meeting beforehand, they assumed that it would turn out to be illegal, and made plans to disperse it by the use of civil and military force.[11]

In the descriptive words of Joyce Marlow ‘from first light, thousands of men women and children walked in from villages and hamlets clad in their best clothes, shabby as those were, clutching their packets of food. The majority were aware of the seriousness of the meeting and the tensions that existed, the occasion was regarded as a day out, a few hours away from the handloom or mill or the miseries of their existence.’ [12]

On the 16^th August 1819 the Manchester Observer reported that the morning was extremely fine and ‘well calculated to produce the attendance of an immense assemblage.’[13]As expected throughout the morning contingents of radical Reformers marched in an orderly formation to music played by local amateur bands. They came from Bolton, Bury, Chadderton, Cheadle, Failsworth, Middleton, Newton Heath, Miles Platting, Oldham, and Rochdale, Royton, Saddleworth, Stockport and other surrounding towns.[14]

In the early hours of the 16^th August the bill-posting men were out in force in the streets of Manchester, pasting notices on every spare wall and notice board:

The Borough Reeves and the Constables of Manchester and Salford most earnestly recommend the peaceable and well disposed inhabitants of the two towns, as much as possible, to remain in their own houses, during the whole of this day, Monday, August 16^th inst., and to keep their children and servants within doors.[15]

The author’s maternal Great, Great, Great grandfather Elijah Ridings who was a radical poet in the post–Napoleonic era took an active part in the Reform Movement, and at the age of 17 years led the Newton Heath and Miles Platting contingents to the Peterloo Meeting in 1819.[16] Most families that are long-term residents of Manchester and the surrounding towns can almost certainly guarantee that some of their ancestors were there too.

All reports agree that reformers were waving flags and many were carrying banners inscribed with statements like Vote by Ballot, Annual Parliaments, Universal Suffrage, No Boroughmongering, and No Corn Laws. The Lees and Saddleworth Union contingent led by Dr. Healy carried a black banner with the words in white letters, Equal Representation or Death; this was also accompanied by a heart and two clasped hands with Love, inscribed on it. This disturbed the Manchester authorities and it was largely because of this that Dr. Healy was arrested after the meeting.[17] Some of the radical contingents were led by ex-soldiers who had fought at Waterloo. These men acted as drill masters, and there is no doubt that the reformers were proud of them. However, they marched at the front of their contingents not as ‘paramilitaries but as patriots.’ [18]

There were also large numbers of working-class women in all-female contingents, dressed in white and with their own women leaders and carrying their own flags.[19] The vicious portrayal of women in the cartoons and press reports of the time deliberately denies women their femininity as they are seen as a dual threat not only to the aristocracy’s dominance over society but also of male dominance over women. Thus: in the eyes of the authorities if female reformers wanted to behave like men they would be treated with equal ferocity with no gallantry shown in order to teach them an unforgettable lesson.[20]

The 180^th anniversary of Peterloo witnessed an essay by Tom Waghorn in his article the Killing Field appearing in The Making of Manchester, (1999), in which he says:

Many of the weavers had marched from Oldham and Middleton over bare moorland, or across the fields from Stockport. They had arrived at Peter’s Field in dignified cohorts, preceded by bands and banners, and complaining about the appalling conditions in mills and cottages….Mancunians were puzzled by the action of magistrate William Hulton, who ordered the dispersal of the meeting. He had the reputation of being a sincere and conscientious man, and townsfolk said he made a disastrous mistake in a moment of blind panic.[21]

Tom Waghorn’s description is not really a true picture and in contrast I agree with Donald Read who says:

There can be no doubt that the condemnation of William Hulton and the Special Select Committee of Magistrates is justified. Nobody can deny what the mass meeting was all about. The radical protesters were carrying banners demanding-Universal Suffrage, No Boroughmongering, and No Corn Laws. Hulton and the Regency Tories refused the masses their political rights, and also expected many of them to acquiesce in near starvation caused by the deep post-war economic depression.[22]

In the words of Robert Poole ‘the reformers played out the role of unenfranchised citizens, presenting the government with the unanswerable physical presence of vast bodies of freeborn Englishmen and women assembled to proclaim their lost rights.’ [23] There is little doubt that Orator Henry Hunt had come forward as a champion of the people’s rights and he was well suited to appeal very effectively to the exited passions of the crowd.[24] The majority of the crowd however, attended in the belief that the political reforms he proposed would persuade the government to look after their interests and relieve them from absolute poverty. The working-classes attributed their poverty to large scale unemployment, low wages and high food prices, which they ‘ blamed upon a corrupt political system and the favours it showed on those that controlled it, especially the aristocracy and clergy.’ [25]

The Reform meeting was held under the surveillance of the Select Committee of Magistrates, responsible for policing the day’s events in Manchester on 16^th August 1819. They included the Reverends William Hay, Charles Wickstead Ethelston, and the Reverend Mallory, James Norris, Colonel Ralph Fletcher, Mr Richard Marsh, Mr J. Sylvester, Thomas Tatton, William Hulton, Mr Wright, Mr Marriott and Mr Fielden. These men were a typical example of Britain’s ruling class at this time. For example, William Hulton and Thomas Tatton were both large landowners James Norris was a barrister, and the Reverends William Hay, Charles Wickstead Ethelston and Mallory were Anglican Ministers.[26] In defence of the Special Committee of Magistrates, Michael Kennedy in his Portrait of Manchester, (1970), argued that:

When the great Radical meeting was called for on 16^th August it is hardly surprising that the authorities considered the possibility that it represented a flashpoint for revolution and that property in Manchester might be destroyed or damaged.[27]

Saddleworth Museum and Art Gallery

Saddleworth Museum and Art Gallery

There is no doubt that the Select Committee of Magistrates were alarmed at the size and the discipline of the massive crowd who had assembled on St Peter’s Field.[28] Some of the contingents were singing Methodist songs and it was more like a ‘revival meeting than a revolution.’ Nevertheless the Magistrates were determined to break up the meeting. [29] However, if the aim of the Radical organisers was to ‘frighten the authorities rather than persuade,’ then perhaps they succeeded only too well.[30]

On the 16^th August 1819 the Radical contingents were closely watched by government spies.[31] However, the Radical organisers were aware of this and knew that the Manchester authorities were waiting for a ‘pretext to use their muscle.’ As a result they had taken precautions to ensure that the meeting would be a peaceful one.[32] When Hunt heard that preparations for the Manchester meeting had involved secret drilling on the moors with pikes and even firearms, he demanded that the Lancashire radicals ‘cease playing soldiers’ and stressed that they come to the meeting ‘armed with no other weapon but that of a self-approving conscience.’ [33] On 11^th August Hunt issued An Address to the Reformers of Manchester and its Neighbourhood which read as follows:

You will meet on Monday next, my friends, and by your steady, and temperate deportment, you will convince your enemies, that you feel you have an important and imperious public duty to perform…The eyes of England, nay, of all Europe, are fixed upon you and every friend of real Reform and Rational Liberty, is tremblingly alive to the result of your Meeting on Monday next. Our enemies will seek every opportunity, by means of their sanguinary agents, to excite a Riot, that they may have a pretence for spilling our blood…Come then my friends, to a Meeting on Monday, armed with NO OTHER WEAPON but that of a self-approving conscience; determined not to suffer yourselves to be irritated or excited, by any means whatsoever, to commit any breach of the public peace.[34]

In fact Hunt had spent the week prior to the meeting in Manchester visiting the leaders of the radical contingents, to ensure that his instructions for peace and discipline were understood and would be strictly obeyed. On Saturday 14^th August 1819 Hunt offered to surrender himself to the magistrates so that ‘they should not have any pretence for interrupting the meeting.’[35] However, the magistrates declined his offer and instead began organising their forces of Yeomanry, Hussars, infantry, artillery and Special Constables to police the centre of Manchester. [36]

Later Samuel Bamford an organiser of the mass meeting in his Passages in the Life of a Radical, (1841), explained:

We had frequently been taunted by the press, with our ragged, dirty appearance…and the mob like crowds in which our numbers were mustered; and we determined…that we should disarm the bitterness of our political opponents by a display of cleanliness, sobriety, and decorum.[37]

Obviously Hunt’s warning worked because the men, women and children arrived at St Peter’s Field without weapons of any kind. Thompson stresses the fact that ‘the presence of so many women and children was overwhelming testimony to the pacific character of a meeting which the reformers knew all England was watching.’ [38] Not only were the reformers wearing their best Sunday clothes, they stood respectfully at one stage while the band played ‘God save the King.’ Anything less like a revolutionary meeting could not possibly have been imagined.[39]

The estimates of the crowd numbers differ considerably as is to be expected. For example according to the Magistrate Thomas Tatton, the total figure assembled was 30,000. Samuel Bamford on the other hand estimated 80,000, the Manchester Observer 153,000, The Annual Register 80,000, whilst The Times printed figures of 80,000 and later, 100,000.[40] William Hulton estimated 30,000.[41] Finally, Orator Henry Hunt and Archibald Prentice estimated 60,000, and this figure became the one generally accepted by historians.[42] However, I must agree with Alan Kidd who emphasises the fact that even the highest and lowest estimates represent the ‘arithmetic of propaganda rather than reliable assessments of numbers,’ but even the lowest estimate would suggest a crowd of unprecedented numbers for a meeting for the time.[43]

The meeting was expected to be a significant occasion. Therefore the Manchester newspapers and the reforming press from other towns were there in force. They included John Tyas from The Times, Edward Baines from the Leeds Mercury and John Smith from the Liverpool Mercury. Naturally Archibald Prentice and John Taylor from the Manchester Observer were also there.[44]

Archibald Prentice, watched the start of the meeting in St. Peter’s Field from the window of a friend’s house in Mosley Street, but he left the area to travel home just before the attack by the yeomanry took place. Some years later Prentice published his Historical Sketches and Personal Recollections of Manchester, (1851) recording what he had seen and heard on the day. According to his eyewitness account:

The morning of the 16^th of August came, and soon after nine o’clock the people began to assemble. From the window of Mr. Baxter’s house in Mosley-Street, I saw the main body proceeding towards St. Peter’s Field, and never saw a gayer spectacle. There were haggard-looking men certainly, but the majority were young persons, in their best Sunday suits, and the light coloured dresses of the cheerful tidy-looking women relieved the effect of the dark frustrations worn by the men. The ‘marching order’ of which so much was said afterwards, was what we often see now in the processions of Sunday-school children and Temperance societies. To our eyes the numerous flags seemed to have been brought to add to the picturesque effect of the pageant. Slowly and orderly the multitudes took to their places round the hustings, which stood on a spot now included under the roof of the Free Trade Hall, near its south-east corner. Our company laughed at the fears of the magistrates, and the remark was, that if the men intended mischief they would not have brought their wives, their sisters, or their children with them. I passed round the outskirts of the meeting, and mingled with the groups that stood chatting there. I occasionally asked the women if they were not afraid to be there, and the usual laughing reply was- ‘What have, we to be afraid of? ’ I saw Hunt arrive, and heard the shouts of sixty thousand persons by whom he was enthusiastically welcomed, as the carriage in which he stood made its way through the dense crowd to the hustings. I proceeded to my dwelling-house in Salford, intending to return in about an hour or so to witness in what manner so large a meeting would separate. I had not been home more than a quarter of an hour when a wailing sound was heard from the main street, and, rushing out, I saw people running in the direction of Pendleton, their faces pale as death, and some with blood trickling down their cheeks. It was with difficulty I could get anyone to stop and tell me what happened.[45]

The Reverend Edward Stanley, Rector of Alderly, who had private business to take care of in Manchester on 16^th August 1819 with a Mr. Buxton, who owned the house which the Select Committee of Magistrates had chosen as their headquarters. Stanley remained there to watch the whole event from a window directly above the magistrates and later gave evidence that:

I saw no symptoms of riot or disturbances before the meeting; the impression on my mind was that the people were sullenly peaceful.[46]

Robert Hyde Gregg the owner of Quarry Bank Mill, Styal, Cheshire a wealthy manufacturer gave evidence that:

I saw Mr. Hunt’s party...the conduct of the meeting was perfectly quiet and peaceable in every part...I felt no alarm.[47]

Robert Reid in his book The Peterloo Massacre, (1989), highlights the fact that prior to the meeting, Manchester and surrounding districts were practically under military occupation. The overall military commander Major-General Sir John Byng listed the full complement of troops under his command at this time:

Military List and Muster Roll

Manchester 6 troops of Cavalry : 15^th Hussars

7 companies of Infantry 31^st & 88^th Regt.

Bolton 2 troops of Cavalry : 6^th Dragoon Guards

Oldham 2 troops of Cavalry : 6^th Dragoon Guards

Ashton 2 troops of Cavalry : 7^th Dragoon Guards

Rochdale 2 companies of Infantry: 88^th Regt.

Stockport 1 troop of Yeomanry Cavalry:(CheshireYeomanry) 4 companies of Infantry: 31^st & 88^th Regt.

Macclesfield 1 squadron of Cavalry: (Cheshire Yeomanry) 3 companies of Infantry : 31^st Regt.

Altrincham And Knutsford

5 troops of Cavalry : (Cheshire Yeomanry)

Warrington 3 companies of Infantry : 31^st Regt.

Preston 1 troop of Cavalry : 15^th Hussars

Blackburn 1 troop of Cavalry : 15^th Hussars [48]

It must be noted that there is no mention of the Manchester Yeomanry Cavalry on Major General Byng’s military list and muster-roll. This is because on the day of the meeting the Yeomanry were to be under the direct command of the Select Committee of Magistrates.[49] Sir William Jolliffe who rode in charge as Lieutenant of Hussars on the day later described the Manchester Yeomanry Cavalry as:

Consisting of about forty members, who, from the manner they were made use of greatly aggravated the disasters of the day. Their ranks were filled chiefly by wealthy manufacturers; and without the knowledge possessed by a military body, they were placed unwisely as it appeared, under the immediate command and order of the civil authorities.[50]

We have been asked to believe that there had been no premeditation by the Select Committee of Magistrates to disperse the meeting by force and that the magistrates were only guilty of incompetence or ill-judgement and that everything happened by chance. An example of this view can be identified in J. Stevenson, in Popular Disturbances in England, 1700-1870, (1979), who argues,

Whether the magistrates had intended all along to disperse the meeting once Hunt had arrived cannot be proved with certainty; at the very least they had acted with spectacular incompetence.[51]

Based on the evidence available this view should not be believed. Stevenson’s view is also a view repeated in many histories. In contrast, attention must be drawn to the following documentary evidence. The Reverend Mr. Hay writing to the Home Secretary Lord Sidmouth on 7^th October 1819, when attempting to justify his actions after Peterloo writes:

The Committee continued to meet, and did so on Saturday [August] 14^th Sunday, and Monday. Prior to the Saturday, different points had been discussed as to the propriety of stopping the Meeting and the manner of doing so. They were of the opinion that Multitudes coming in columns with Flags and Marching in Military array were even in the approach to the Meeting a tumultuous assembly; and it was for a little time under consideration whether each column should not be stopped at their respective entrances into the Town, but this was given up-it was considered that the Military might then be distracted and it was wished that the Town should see what the meeting was, when assembled, and also that those who came should be satisfied they were assembled in an unlawful manner. Being satisfied….that in point of Law [the Meeting] if assembled as it was expected, would be an illegal Meeting, we gave notice to Lieut-Col L’Estrange….of our wish to have the assistance of the Military on the 16^th. [52]

Perhaps it should be noted at this point that 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.[53] The Reverend Hay’s account is a clear statement of the Select Committee’s intentions. It is also clear that the magistrates had a ‘contingency plan’ on 16^th August 1819 for dispersing the meeting by force before it even started with the assistance of the Manchester Yeomanry Cavalry, regular armed forces and special constables.[54]

Finally the Magistrates contingency plan was put into action and the military forces were assembled. As planned Lieutenant Colonel George L’Estrange was the overall military commander on 16^th August 1819. Directly under his command were 600 members of the 15^th Hussars, several hundred members of the 31^st and 88^th Infantry Regiments and a detachment of the Royal Horse Artillery. His initial plan was to surround St. Peter’s Field with his troops. The cavalry in the front line was to be used to disperse the crowd if the Magistrates decided this was required, whilst the Royal Horse Artillery were to be used as a last resort. However, the Yeomanry were under the immediate command of the Select Committee of Magistrates. [55] Sir John Byng, the overall commander of the military forces in the north of England was notably absent on the day, having a pressing engagement at a horse-race meeting.[56]

All reports agree that from early morning of 16^th August, 1819 some 1500 soldiers were busily taking up their positions, like the Radical contingents. Completely unaware of the ‘troop movements surrounding them,’ the crowds waited patiently for Henry Hunt and the other speakers to arrive.[57] One Troop from the Manchester Yeomanry had assembled in Portland Street, whilst another had assembled in and around St John’s Street along with a troop of the 15^th Hussars and the Cheshire Yeomanry. Another detachment of Hussars and a troop of the Royal Horse Artillery with two six pounder field guns were stationed in Lower Mosley Street. In addition troops of the 31^st Infantry Regiment were assembled in Brazennose Street, whilst a company of the 88^th Infantry Regiment waited patiently in Dickenson Street.[58] In addition to the military two to three hundred Special Constables had been recruited to police the day’s events. The Reverend Stanley, in his eyewitness account declared that:

In the centre [St. Peter’s Field] were the hustings surrounded to all appearances by a numerous body of constables, easily distinguished by their respectable dress, staves and hats on….The chain from this main body was continued in a double line, two or three deep, forming an avenue to Mr. Buxton’s house, by which there seemed to be free and uninterrupted access, to and from the hustings.[59]

At 10.a.m. the Select Committee of Magistrates first met at the Star Inn before moving on to Mr Buxton’s house at 6, Mount Street overlooking St. Peter’s Field arriving there by 11.00 a.m.[60] They assembled some thirty ‘loyalists’ citizens including Francis Philips who signed a sworn affidavit and the necessary arrest warrant for Henry Hunt and the other speakers was drawn up stating:

Richard Owen [pawnbroker and special constable] hath this day made an oath before us, His Majesty’s Justices of the Peace...that Henry Hunt, John Knight, Jos. Johnson, and – Moorhouse, at this time (now a quarter past one o’clock) have arrived in a car, at the area near St. Peter’s Church and that an immense mob is collected, that he considers the town in danger.[61]

John Edward Taylor the founder of the Manchester Guardian who witnessed the events at Peterloo recorded in his notes that:

Early in the forenoon on August 16^th persons supposed to be acquainted with the intentions of the magistrates distinctly asserted that Mr Hunt would be arrested on the hustings, and the meeting dispersed. I myself was more than once told so, but could not conceive it possible.[62]

At about 1.15 p.m. a carriage made its way across St Peter’s Field with Hunt standing up in it. Mrs Mary Fildes, the President of the Manchester Female Reformers was also in the carriage. Whilst the female committee all dressed in white walked behind. At 1.20 p.m. Hunt arrived at the hustings which sparked off a great cheer from the crowd. At the same time reformer bands struck up ‘See the Conquering Hero comes.’ [63] In response, ‘the Manchester Yeomanry Cavalry, the Special Constables, and the ‘Loyalists’ in general replied to the Radical cheer with one of their own.’ [64]

At 1.35p.m. The Reverend Charles Ethelston made a feeble attempt to read the Riot Act from an upstairs window of Mr Buxton’s house at 6 Mount Street as follows:

Our Sovereign Lord the King chargeth and commandeth all persons being assembled, immediately to disperse themselves, and peaceably to disperse to their habitations of their lawful business upon the pains contained in the Act made in the first year of King George the First for preventing tumults and riotous assemblies. God save the King.[65]

Although it is highly unlikely that the crowd would have heard the Riot Act being read and a large number of witnesses later gave evidence to that effect.[66] Nevertheless, this procedure was required by law to give legitimacy to the military action that was about to follow.[67]

Then at 1.40 p.m. Orator Henry Hunt began to address the crowd. At this point a warrant was handed to Joseph Nadin, the Deputy Chief Constable of Manchester to arrest the speakers. Nadin argued that the special constables were not a strong enough force to execute the warrant and without the assistance of the military. In order to assist Nadin mounted messengers were despatched calling for the assistance of the military and the special constables ‘were ordered to withdraw from the field.’ [68]

The messengers rode to Portland Street for the Manchester Yeomanry and to St. John’s Street for the Hussars and the Cheshire Yeomanry. Reports generally agree that the Yeomanry first made their way towards the meeting along Cooper Street. It was here that the first fatality occurred when Mrs Ann Fildes, [not to be confused with Mary Fildes on the hustings] and her two year old son were both knocked down to the ground by the Yeomanry and the little boy was killed, becoming the first casualty of Peterloo.[69]

Meanwhile Major Thomas Trafford, the Senior Officer commanding the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry Cavalry had taken up a position in Pickford’s Yard nearby. Trafford was the first man to receive the order from the Select Committee to arrest the speakers on the hustings. He then ordered his second-officer-in command, Captain Hugh Hornby Birley a wealthy manufacturer who owned a mill in Oxford Road to carry out the order of the Magistrates.[70] All reports agree that the Manchester Yeomanry arrived first on the scene.[71] According to the evidence of Bishop Stanley the Yeomanry ‘halted in great disorder, and so continued for a few minutes they remained on the spot. This disorder was attributed by several persons in the [magistrates] room to the undisciplined state of their horses, little accustomed to act together, and probably frightened by the shout of the populace which greeted their arrival.’ [72]

The fact that the Manchester Yeomanry who were Tory partisans were the first on the field was the last link in the chain of events leading up to the Peterloo massacre. These men were ardent in their politics, and had suffered from the taunts of the Radicals. There was also a feeling in the air that they were not likely to show much moderation in a crisis. In addition their prejudices had been further aggravated by the fact that during the morning of the 16^th August, ‘while gathering in the taverns to have their boots cleaned and their horses curried, [currie combed] they had become half-drunk.’ [73]

The Reverend Stanley in his eyewitness account describes the actions of the Manchester Yeomanry Cavalry as follows:

Their sabres glistened in the air, and on they went, direct for the hustings. At first for a very few paces, their movement was not rapid, and there was some show of an attempt to follow their officer in regular succession, five or six abreast. They then soon increased their speed and with a zeal and ardour...seeming individually to vie with each other which should be first.[74]

At the same time the Yeomanry ‘made a dash for the hustings, striking with their swords as they entered the crowd. Raw and untrained as they were, they were soon entangled and dispersed so that the chairman of the magistrates William Hulton later described them as ‘‘completely defeated.” [75]

According to Stanley’s eyewitness account ‘as the cavalry approached the dense mass of people used their utmost efforts to escape; but so closely were they pressed in opposite directions by the soldiers, the Special Constables, the position of the hustings, and their own immense numbers, that immediate escape was impossible. The rapid course of the troop was of course impeded when it came in contact with the mob, but passages were forced in less than a minute; so rapid indeed was it that the guard of constables close to the hustings shared the fate of the rest.’ [76] Furthermore Stanley says ‘one special constable, with a cut down his head, was brought to Mr. Buxton’s house. I saw several others in the passage, congratulating themselves on their narrow escape, and showing the marks of sabre-cuts on their hats.’[77]

When the Yeomanry reached the hustings Stanley says ‘a scene of dreadful confusion ensued. The orators fell or were forced off the scaffold in quick succession; fortunately for them, the stage being rather elevated, they were in great degree beyond the reach of many of the swords which gleamed around them. Hunt fell or threw himself-among the constables, and was driven or dragged, as fast as possible, down the avenue which communicated with the magistrates house; his associates were hurried after him in a similar manner.’ [78]

On their way from the hustings to the magistrates’ house, the prisoners were ‘hissed and pushed by the Special Constables.’ Moreover, a well known ‘Loyalist’ in particular using a stick knocked Hunt’s white hat down over his face. The Reverend Mr Hay was forced to address the special constables, ‘urging them to restrain themselves.’ [79] Stanley also says that:

I saw nothing that gave me the idea of resistance, except in one or two spots where they showed some disinclination to abandon the banners; these impulses, however, were but momentary, and banner after banner fell into the hands of the military power.[80]

It was at this point the Hussars and the Cheshire Yeomanry came cantering up to Lower Mosley Street. The Cheshire Yeomanry rode along Windmill Street to the hustings and halted there. The Hussars lined up along Mount Street, in front of the magistrates’ house, and awaited further orders. According to William Hulton when their commanding officer Lieutenant-Colonel L’Estrange asked what they were to do, the Chairman of the Magistrates William Hulton replied “Good God Sir! Don’t you see they are attacking the yeomanry? Disperse the meeting.” Thereupon the Hussars charged through the crowd from Mount Street to Deansgate using generally the flats of their swords, but almost ‘inevitably sometimes using the edge of their swords.’ [81]

Altogether eleven people, including two women, were arrested and imprisoned with Hunt as the main ‘culprits of the day.’ They were Johnson, Knight, Saxton, Healy, Moorhouse, Jones, Swift, Wild, Mrs Gaunt and Mrs Hargreaves. Thirty others were also arrested on minor charges. Richard Carlile was the only leading Radical on the hustings who was not arrested. After helping four women down from the hustings he escaped from the field and hid in a house nearby.[82]

At 8.45 p.m. on the evening of Peterloo, the senior magistrate the Reverend Mr Hay reported to the Home Office:

The Riot Act was read, and the mob was completely dispersed, but not without very serious and lamentable effects…one of the Manchester Yeomanry, Mr. Hulme, was, after the parties was taken, struck by a brick-bat; he lost his power over his horse, and is supposed to have fractured his skull by a fall from his horse. I am afraid he is since dead; if not, there are no hopes of his recovery. A special constable of the name of Ashworth has been killed – cause unknown; and four women appear to have lost their lives by being pressed by the crowd; these, I believe, are the fatal effects of the meeting. A variety of instances of sabre wounds occurred, but I hope none mortal; several pistols were fired by the mob, but as to their effect, save in one instance deposed to before Colonel Fletcher, we have no account. [83]

With the passage of time historical accounts of Peterloo vary. For example in more recent years E. P. Thompson highlighted the fact that Robert Warmsley in Peterloo: The Case Re-opened, Manchester, (1969),which he describes an apologist account on behalf of William Hulton, would have us believe that:

The Yeomanry were ordered to support the special constables in the execution of the warrant to arrest the speakers and then advanced in reasonable order and without aggressive intention or action into the crowd; and then that the crowd closed in upon them in a menacing manner and the Yeomanry were assailed, at some point close to the hustings, by brickbats and sticks hurled by a portion of the crowd, but that most of the Yeomanry kept their heads until Hunt and his fellow speakers had been arrested, and then, increasingly assailed by brickbats and hemmed in on all sides by a threatening crowd they were forced to beat off their attackers only using the flats of their sabres, in self defence.[84]

On the other hand Michael Kennedy in his Portrait of Manchester, (1970), without producing any evidence whatsoever in support of his claim asserts:

The Hussars drew their swords, held above their heads and moved into the crowd. In the melee, the crowd fled, some trying to unseat the riders and cut their girths. Against such actions the rider’s only defence was to retaliate with his sabre.[85]

Obviously at the trial of Henry Hunt the Chairman of the Special Committee of Magistrates William Hulton was called as the chief prosecution witness.[86] He gave evidence that on 16^th August 1819:

When the Yeomanry advanced to the hustings I saw bricks and stones flying. I wish to convey to the jury those stones and bricks were thrown in defiance of the military. I saw them attacked, and under that impression I desired Colonel L’Estrange to advance. On my saying to Colonel L’Estrange ‘Good God, Sir, they are attacking the Yeomanry-disperse the crowd,’ he advanced, and the dispersion of the crowd took place. Many of the people did not fly when the first body of the cavalry road amongst them. The moment Colonel L’Estrange advanced with his squadron, the general flight took place.[87]

In contrast, John Tyas of The Times in his eyewitness account reported:

As soon as Hunt and Johnson had jumped from the wagon [hustings] a cry was made by the Cavalry, ‘Have at their flags.’ In consequence, they immediately not only dashed at the flags which were in the wagon, but those which were posted among the crowd, cutting most indiscriminately to the right and to the left in order to get at them. This set the people running in all directions, and it was not until this act had been committed that any brickbats were hurled at the military. From that moment the Manchester Yeomanry lost all command of temper.[88]

Captain Hugh Hornby Birley, a manufacturer and second officer-in-charge of the Manchester Yeomanry Cavalry did not dispute the attack on the flags. In his account he declared that, after the magistrates’ warrant had been executed:

Considerable tumult prevailed, and a struggle ensued between the constables and those persons in the cart, who wished to save the caps of liberty, banners. Some of those who resisted were taken into custody, and the soldiers cut with their sabres. In doing this, it was possible that some persons had been hurt, but not intentionally.[89]

On the question of the controversial stones and brickbats John Smith of the Liverpool Mercury gave evidence at Hunts trial that:

I saw no stone or brick-bat thrown at them [Yeomanry] in my judgement, if any stones or brick-bats had been thrown I was in a situation likely to have seen it, my eyes and countenance were in a direction towards the military up to the moment of their reaching the hustings.[90]

The Reverend Edward Stanley in his eyewitness account also confirmed that:

I indeed saw no missile weapons used throughout the whole transaction…but, the dust at the hustings soon partially obscured everything that took place near that particular spot. [91]

William Harrison, a cotton spinner in the crowd on St Peter’s Field on 16^th August 1819, later gave his eyewitness evidence at the inquest of John Lees in Oldham as follows:

Harrison: We were all merry in the hopes of better times.

Coroner: Were you not desired to disperse?

Harrison: Only with the swords-nobody asked us to disperse-only trying to cut our heads off with their swords…The soldiers began cutting and slaying, and the constables began to seize the colours, and the tune was struck up; they all knew of the combination. Amidst such music, few paused to distinguish between flats and sharps.

Coroner: Did they cut at you near the hustings?

Harrison: No, as I was running away three soldiers came down upon me one after another…there was whiz this way, and a whiz that way, backwards and forwards…and I, as they were going to strike, threw myself on my face, so that, if they cut, it should be on my bottom.

Coroner: You act as well as speak?

Harrison: Yes, I’m real Lancashire blunt. Sir, I speak the truth…whenever any cried out ‘mercy,’ they said ‘Damn you, what brought you here.’ [92]

Attention is also drawn to the evidence of Major Dynely, the commander of the Royal Horse Artillery and the two six pounder field guns held in readiness on the 16^th August 1819 in Lower Mosley Street who writes:

The first action of the Battle of Manchester is over…and I am happy to say has ended in the complete discomfiture of the Enemy….I was very much assured to see the way in which the Volunteer Cavalry knocked the people about during the whole time we remained on the ground; the instant they saw ten or dozen Mobites together, they rode at them and leathered them properly.[93]

Samuel Bamford, who was part of the crowd, described the scene immediately after the attack in his eye witness account:

In ten minutes from the commencement of the havoc, the field was an open and almost deserted place. The sun looked down through a still and motionless air…The Hustings remained, with a few broken and hewed flag-staves erect, and a torn and gashed banner or two dropping; whilst over the whole field were strewed caps, bonnets, hats, shawls and shoes, and other parts of male and female dress; trampled, torn and bloody. The Yeomanry had dismounted–some were easing their horses’ girths, others adjusting their accoutrements; and some were wiping their sabres. Several mounds of human beings still remained where they had fallen, crushed down and smothered. Some were still groaning others with staring eyes were gasping for breath, and others would never breathe more.[94]

Sir William Jolliffe, Lieutenant of Hussars, described the scene after entering the Field in his eye witness account as follows:

An extraordinary sight: the ground was quite covered with hats, shoes, musical instruments and other things. Here and there lay the unfortunates who were too much injured to move away and the sight was more distressing, by observing some women among the sufferers.[95]

The majority of the panic stricken crowd running from St Peter’s Field found it difficult to escape along the side streets because the main escape route along Peter Street was cut off by the 88^th Infantry Regiment.[96] As a result the fleeing crowd were caught in a trap. In the words of Donald Read ‘the fleeing mob found escape impeded by the presence of the military blocking their exit ways.’ [97] In fact these troops had fixed bayonets, forming a line across the exit routes to the north side of town. Reports show that they inflicted serious wounds on the fleeing crowd either by ‘stabbing with the ends of their bayonets or clubbing with their musket-butts.’ Those that turned back found themselves under attack from the sabres of the cavalry. This incident was described by an anonymous eyewitness:

The 88^th troop were marched to a station at the south end of the Quaker Meeting House to interrupt the people[as] crowds passed who might fly in that direction and there indeed most dreadful slaughter to this quarter and were forced back by bayonets of the infantry, the cavalry cutting them in the rear.[98]

Another eye-witness account of John Railton appeared in the Manchester Guardian on 18^th August 1819, reporting a similar thing:

The cavalry were pursuing the mob and they were met and goaded by the infantry who were advancing upon and pricking them with fixed bayonets.[99]

The latest historical research has revealed that at least fifteen entries in the casualty lists describe the injuries which were caused by the 88^th Foot Regiment. ‘They show how the 88th Regiment, stabbed people in the head, belly, back and arms with their bayonets or clubbed them to the ground with the butts of their muskets.’ These entries relate to:

William Batsan, John Boulter, John Brookes, Joseph Brookes, Thomas Buckley, Mary Evans, John Goodwin, John Hardman, Mark Howard, William Hurdies, William Moores, Joseph Ogden, John Pimblet, John Smithies, Peter Warburton.[100]

Sir William Jolliffe reported that on the 16^th August 1819, ‘Carriages were brought to convey the wounded to the Manchester Infirmary.’ [101] Newspaper accounts appeared the next day Tuesday 17^th August 1819, a reporter from the Manchester Observer said that he saw ‘Six coaches, three carts and three litters loaded with the wounded travelling to the Manchester Infirmary.’ Another report in The Star newspaper on the 17^th August declared that:

All roads leading from Manchester to Ashton, Stockport, Cheadle, Bury and Bolton are covered with wounded stragglers, who have not been able to reach their houses after the events of Monday…There are 17 wounded persons along Stockport Road; 13 or 14 on the Ashton Road; at least 20 on the Oldham Road; 7 or 8 on the Rochdale Road, besides several others on the roads to Liverpool.[102]

At about 8.00 p.m. two troops of Hussars and two companies of the 88th Regiment were stationed in the New Cross area situated at the end of Oldham Street, Manchester. Sir William Jolliffe’s says:

Stones were thrown at the soldiers, and the Hussars many times cleared the ground by driving the mob up the streets leading from the New Cross. But these attempts to get rid of the annoyance were only successful for a moment...a town magistrate, who was with the picket, read the Riot Act, and the officer in command ordered the 88^th to fire which they did by platoon firing down three of the streets...not more than thirty shots were fired; but these had a magical effect; the mob ran away and dispersed forthwith, leaving three or four persons with gunshot wounds.[103]

There is no doubt that many of those injured on St Peter’s Field did not claim relief or seek medical treatment because their wounds were either slight or they feared victimization.[104] Archibald Prentice says ‘hundreds of persons wounded upon that fatal 16^th of August were enduring dreadful sufferings. They were disabled from work; not daring to apply for parish relief; not daring to ask for surgical aid, lest, in the arbitrary spirit of the time, their acknowledgement that they had received their wounds on St. Peter’s Field might send them to prison,perhaps, to the scaffold.’ [105]

Sir William Jolliffe gives an account of his movements on the day after Peterloo:

On the afternoon of the 17^th I visited, in company with some military medical officers, the [Manchester] Infirmary. I saw there from twelve to twenty cases of sabre-wounds, and among these two women who appeared not likely to recover. One man was in a dying state from a gunshot wound in the head; another had his leg amputated; both these casualties arose from the firing of the 88^th the night before. Two or three were reputed dead; one of them a constable, killed on St. Peter’s field, but I saw none of the bodies.[106]

According to the entries in the ‘Casualty Register Book’ at the Manchester Infirmary on 16^th August 29 people injured in St Peter’s Field had been admitted that day and two of these people had died. On the 17^th 34 people were admitted and one of these people had also died.[107] On the question of casualty numbers at Peterloo as early as 1921 Bruton summarised that:

It is a curious feature of the case that each side seems to be anxious to make its casualty list as imposing as possible. An interesting summary of the various estimates is given by MacDonnell in his State Trials. This summary includes the Official Report from the [Manchester] Infirmary, and the list of casualties to the troops. Without pursuing the matter further, we may say that a careful examination of the somewhat confusing evidence would seem to show that the estimate ‘eleven killed and between 500 and 600 wounded’ will not prove to be far wrong, provided that (1.) we understand ‘killed’ to include those who died of injuries received on the field; (2.) we include in the general total the casualties incurred during the disturbances some hours later in the neighbourhood of New Cross. At least one list, published subsequently, brings the total killed up to fourteen.[108]

The following year in 1922, G. M., Trevelyan in his article, The Number of Casualties at Peterloo, suggested that there should be full disclosure of the surviving casualty lists and that they should also be published.[109] His recommendations were largely ignored until 1989, when Malcolm and Walter Bee in their article The Casualties of Peterloo, compiled and re examined the lists as far as they were able. Producing a casualty figure of 630, the Bees showed that the number of those injured exceeded the previous estimates of about 400. They also showed that police and soldiers caused most of the injuries and not as previously asserted ‘from being crushed in the crowd during the dispersal.’ [110]

Finally however, Michael Bush in The Casualties of Peterloo, (2005), 186 years after Peterloo, put Trevelyan’s recommendations into practice and by careful examination and analysis of all the lists, built on the work of Malcolm and Walter Bee. Bush emphasises that the principal evidence for the injured at Peterloo lies in the casualty lists compiled at the time or soon afterwards. There are eight surviving lists, six of which were completed by January 1820, a seventh by 1831 and the final one by 1844. Together these lists contain detailed information on the number of casualties, along with the names, addresses, occupations and ages of the injured, the nature of the injury sustained.[111] His vigorous reinvestigation has revealed that without a shadow of doubt there were ‘at least 654 casualties, eighteen who died from their injuries.’ and ‘of the 654 injured 168 of these were women.’ [112]

Malcolm and Walter Bee also drew attention to the fact that as early as 21^st August 1819, Radicals meeting in London recommended that ‘a subscription etc. in behalf of the Manchester Sufferers, should be made.’ By October Radicals in Westminster and Southwark had each formed their own committees who later combined to establish the Metropolitan and Central Committee Appointed for Relief of the Manchester Sufferers and it was this committee who became the principal relief agency for the victims of Peterloo. They collected subscriptions and also received the subscriptions from other provincial appeals.[113]

In the meantime the journalist Archibald Prentice and his group of respectable middle-class reformers had established a local committee in Manchester.[114] However, at the beginning of November the Metropolitan and Central Committee sent a deputation to assist the Manchester Committee. During the next six weeks members of this deputation visited around 500 claimants in their homes during which time they ‘kept a journal of the names, residences, ages, professions, number of family, extent and nature of the injury, if any, and what pecuniary relief each sufferer had received.’ [115] The deputation from London also reported:

In no one instance among the weavers did your Deputation see a morsel of animal food, and they ascertained that in most families where there were children the taste of meat was unknown from one year to another, and Six shillings a week was the average wage of an able-bodied and industrious weaver. Many could not get this. [116]

By February 1820 a grand total of £3,408 in subscriptions had been collected by the Relief Committee. Most of the subscriptions had been collected in the larger towns including Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, and London but many of the smaller provincial centres contributed also. However, 42 per cent of the subscriptions went on legal and administrative costs.[117] In addition ‘‘The Committee paid out £710 on account of the Trial at York; the Manchester Committee voting £100 for the same object.’’ [118] Moreover only 31 per cent of the subscriptions that were collected were actually paid to the injured and over 80 per cent of the payments that were made amounted to £2 or less. Whilst those payments amounting to £5 or over were payed to only 3 per cent of those injured. The pathetic amounts of payments made to the suffers only added insult to injury.[119] The following extracts from the casualty lists illustrate the seriousness of some of the injuries and the amount of compensation received:

Lees, John, Oldham: sabred. Killed. A Coroner’s Inquest on the body adjourned without a verdict. He is a rover [i.e. spinner] by occupation, working in his father’s factory.

Fildes, Ann, Mrs, of 3 Comet-street: aged 27 with 5 children. Beat about the head by constables when escaping from the hustings. Her house was searched by Police, and she was obliged to leave home for a fortnight. £4 received in relief.

Fletcher, John, Eccles: aged 31 and a weaver with 4 children. Thrown down and trampled on by Yeomanry horses; knee hurt and body crushed. 1 week disabled. 11/- received in relief.

Johnson, Margaret, Back of 24, Fawcett-street [Manchester] aged 27 with 3 children. Knocked down, beat by constables truncheons. 8 days disabled. £1 received in relief.

Taylor, Jonathan, High Knowles, near Lees: aged 29 and a weaver with 2 children. Sabre-cut on his nose and upper lip by a Yeoman, the toenails of his right foot trod off by cavalry horse. 3 weeks disabled. £1.10.0, received in relief. [120]

The majority of the cases investigated by the Relief Committee related to the side of the Reformers. However, the ‘loyalist’ side claimed to have serious injuries casualties also. For example Francis Philips listed the casualties to the military personnel. In addition a subscription list was opened for the families of the Special Constables and apparently that appeal met with a generous response.[121]

There is no doubt that some members of the civil and military authorities were also injured. For example ‘one special constable was killed.’ The 15^th Hussars reported that 2 officers and 21 other ranks were injured as the result of stone throwing or being hit by sticks. Whilst the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry named 3 officers and 41 other ranks sustaining injuries of a similar nature.[122] The Cheshire Yeomanry reported 4 men injured ‘one of them dangerously.’[123] The names of the special constables injured included:

John Ashworth (killed by sabre); James Chesworth (sabred), Robert Derbyshire (sabred), William Evans (trampled and dying), Henry Roggatt (sabred), Samuel McFadden (trampled), Mr Petty (trampled), John Routledge (trampled and nearly killed) [124]

The popular belief that only 11 people were killed and only 400 injured has been disproved by recent research that has established that there were ‘at least 654 casualties, 18 of whom died of their injuries.’ [125] However, when we examine the historiography of Peterloo we find that as early as 1923 Trevelyan highlighted the fact that ‘Mr. Temperley’s admirable chapter in Vol. X of the Cambridge Modern History p. 581, stated ‘‘The result was the ‘Manchester Massacre,’ or ‘Battle of Peterloo,’ one man was killed and some 40 were wounded.’’ [126] In more recent years Michael Kennedy in his Portrait of Manchester (1970) writes:

No one knows the exact casualty figure. Hunt always said that fourteen were killed and 648 wounded, but the truth seems to be nearer six dead (who included two of those on the side of authority) and about 30 hurt.[127]

The statements by Temperley that only ‘one man was killed and only forty were injured’ along with those made by Kennedy that only ‘six were killed and only 30 were hurt,’ do not bear scrutiny.

The popular belief that only 11 people were killed and 400 were injured was largely developed by Donald Read in Peterloo: The ‘Massacre’ and its Background, (1958), and his figures have simply been copied into many histories. [128] For example, John Stevenson in Popular Disturbances in England 1700-1832, (1979), citing Read says ‘Within ten or fifteen minutes 11 people had been killed and 400 injured.’ Asa Briggs in The Age of Improvement 1783-1867, (1979), says ‘eleven people were killed and over 400 wounded.’ [129] Howard Martin in Britain in the 19^th Century, (1996), says ‘eleven were killed and 400 injured.’ [130] Stuart Hylton in A History of Manchester, (2003), puts the number at ‘eleven dead and about 420 wounded.’ [131] However, there are dozens of similar examples.

The popular belief that most of the injuries were caused by the fleeing crowd is not supported by the evidence. This myth began with Sir William Jolliffe, a lieutenant in the 15^th Hussars who had taken part in the dispersal of the crowd, who later said that:

Beyond all doubt…the far greater amounts of injuries were from the pressure of the routed multitude.[132]

This myth was further developed by Donald Read in his Peterloo, (1958), in which he makes the point that 60,000 were dispersed in ten minutes, and says:

little wonder that hundreds were hurt, and many more by crushing than by sabring...with the exception of 140 cut by sabring many more were crushed or thrown down as a result of the pressure of the crowd. [133]

Read’s assertion has been repeated in many histories. Although Michael Kennedy in his Portrait of Manchester, (1970), writes ‘Most of the casualties were caused by panic, and several people were trampled to death by their fellows. No one knows the exact casualty figure.’ [134] Norman Gash in Aristocracy and People, (1979), also asserts that ‘Possibly half the deaths, probably even more of the non-fatal injuries, were among those who were trampled underfoot by horses and the crowd in the panic that ensued.’ [135] More recently by Alan Kidd, in his History of Manchester, (2002), asserts:

It was their rapid clearance of the crowd which caused most of the injuries, many of the wounded being trampled on or crushed in the panic of the dispersal.[136]

The recent research of Michael Bush has also revealed that ‘many more injuries were caused by weapons’ than were crushed by the fleeing crowd. He also argues:

that the military and police deliberately inflicted severe injuries, both on the field and in the surrounding streets, attacking women, men, children and the elderly without respect for sex or age. Though the crowd was unarmed and unresisting they proceeded ruthlessly and with brutality in a sustained onslaught that lasted much longer than was necessary to fulfil their appointed task of clearing the field. Its real purpose was to teach a salutary lesson by terror and humiliation. [137]

The popular belief that the Hussars only used the flats of their swords is not supported by the evidence. For example Alan Kidd in his book Manchester, (2002), asserts ‘the Hussars reportedly used only the flats of their swords’ [138] In marked contrast the eyewitness account of Sir William Jolliffe who rode in charge as Lieutenant of Hussars on the day later recorded:

The Hussars generally drove the people forward with the flats of their swords, but sometimes, as is almost inevitably the case when men are placed in such situations, the edge was used, both by the Hussars, and as I have heard by the yeomen, but of this later part, I was not cognizant; and believing though I do that nine out of ten of the sabre wounds were caused by the hussars, I must still consider that it redounds to the human forbearance of the men of the 15th. That more wounds were not received, when the vast numbers are taken into consideration with whom they were brought into hostile collision. [139]

Most recently Michael Bush highlights the fact that other entries in the casualty lists, show the Hussars acting with the same brutality as the yeomanry. For example the eyewitness account of John Fell, a Manchester shopkeeper says that:

The Hussars dispersed themselves in all directions, not in line and cutting the same as the others [Yeomanry] had done.’ [140]

Generally the Hussars were seen as more restrained than the Yeomanry. Several reports indicate that members of the Hussars were also seen as acting with restraint and even of intervening to protect people against the vicious attacks of the Yeomanry and the Special Constables.[141] A good demonstration of this restraint shown by the Hussars was the case of Elijah Ridings, among the crowd at Peterloo, who escaped injury through the help of an officer of the Hussars who called out to him, ‘Be quick young man; this way,’ pointing out to him a way of escape with his sabre.[142] In fact Hunt himself stated in a letter to the Manchester Observer on 6^th September, 1819, that the massacre ‘would have been worse,’ but for the regulars ‘who were heard to threaten these cowardly fellows with summary justice if they did not desist from cutting down the fleeing people.’ [143]

Michael Bush draws attention to the fact that ‘the perception of the event as a massacre, however, has been questioned in view of the small number of injuries resulting in death.’ [144] For example Robert Walmsley in Peterloo: The Case-reopened, (1969), has offered the revisionist argument that ‘Peterloo constituted an unfortunate tragedy rather than a massacre.’ [145] A similar view is expressed by Norman Gash in Aristocracy and the People 1815-1865, (1979), who says ‘Peterloo was a blunder, it was hardly a massacre.’ [146] Donald Read, in Peterloo: The ‘Massacre’ and its Background (1957), identifies Peterloo as a massacre but writes in the Preface to his book:

The successful designation of Peterloo as a ‘massacre’ represents another piece of successful propaganda. Perhaps only in peace-loving England could a death-roll of only eleven persons have been so described.[147]

On the other hand, E. P. Thompson in The Making of the English Working Class, (1963), says ‘It really was a massacre.’ [148] Joyce Marlow in her book The Peterloo Massacre, (1970), writes ‘Hardly a massacre! Yes and No. The definition of a massacre is general slaughter or carnage which was what occurred on Saint Peter’s Field.’ [149] Michael Kennedy a journalist with the Daily Telegraph in his article ‘What really happened at Peterloo?’ writes ‘It was certainly no massacre by any standard.’[150] This was followed by his Portrait of Manchester, (1970), in which he says ‘It was certainly no massacre, as the term would usually be understood.’ [151] Most recently Michael Bush argues that:

In showing that most injuries were inflicted by the military and police and how deaths and severe injuries resulted from sabring, bayoneting and truncheoning of unarmed people, they render the term ‘massacre’- though technically an overstatement in that Peterloo did not witness a large number of killings-an appropriate expression which encapsulates the enormity of what actually happened.[152]

The popular belief that the Irish population of the Manchester region did not become integrated with the Reform Movement is unsupported by the evidence. This notion was largely developed by E. P. Thompson who believed that:

‘while sympathising with the agitation of 1816-20,’ Manchester’s Irish population ‘did not become integrated with the movement.’ [153]

Thompson’s assessment has been proved to be incorrect. To begin with one of the most notorious districts of Manchester was ‘little Ireland’ where the Irish community lived on the banks of the River Medlock many of whom attended the meeting.[154] There is also evidence that Irish handloom weavers from Newtown[ Newton Heath] situated just outside Manchester also attended the reform meeting in St. Peter’s Field on the 16^th.[155] Finally however, Michael Bush has demonstrated that large numbers of Irish did attend the meeting and, in so doing, demonstrated a deep commitment to the cause of the reform movement. Because at least ‘ 97 of the recorded casualties were of Irish extraction, either immigrants from Ireland, or born in England of Irish parents-against 19 Welsh and one or two Scots.’ [156] Many of the Irish who were injured at the Peterloo meeting also appear in the casualty lists for example:

Kelly, John, 10 Clowes-street, Salford: aged 33 and a weaver with 2 children. Sabre-cut over his left eye, two inches long. He fell and was trampled on by the crowd. 5 weeks disabled. Spit blood for some time. £2 received in relief.

Mclone, Thomas, Short-street, Bolton: thrown down and trampled on. Eye hurt. 10/- final.

McKenna, Mary, 16 Nicholas Street [Manchester]: an interesting girl much bruised in the back part of the head by being trampled on. 40/- final [£2 more in pencil]. Manchester Committee 20/-.[157]

To summarise a massive crowd attended the reform meeting at St. Peter’s Field which included a high proportion of women and children. None of them were armed and their conduct was peaceable. The Select Committee of Magistrates was obviously nervous before the event and alarmed at the size and discipline of the crowd. They ordered the Manchester Yeomanry to arrest the speakers on the hustings immediately after the meeting began. The unrestrained Manchester Yeomanry did not confine themselves to seizing the speakers but instead, wielding their sabres, made a deliberate and general attack on the crowd. William Hulton, the Chairman of the Select Committee of Magistrates, then ordered the 15^th Hussars and the Cheshire Yeomanry to rescue the Manchester Yeomanry and disperse the crowd. Evidence was presented in this Chapter to show that within the space of 10 minutes St Peter’s Field was cleared except for the bodies of the dead and injured.[158]

The popular belief that there had been no premeditation by the Select Committee of Magistrates to disperse the meeting by force and that the magistrates were only guilty of incompetence or ill-judgement and everything happened by chance is contradicted by the evidence. In fact two days before the meeting the Reverend Mr Hay stated that magistrates were satisfied that the meeting ‘if assembled as it was expected, would be an illegal Meeting.’ [159] Therefore, although the magistrates had no power to prohibit the meeting beforehand, they assumed that it would turn out to be illegal and made plans to disperse it by the use of civil and military force.[160] The forces were assembled and warrants were issued to arrest the speakers before the meeting began. The popular belief developed that most of the injuries were caused by the fleeing crowd is simply a myth. Evidence in this Chapter has shown that most of the injuries were caused by the use of sabres, truncheons, and the use of cavalry rather than by the crowd itself. The belief that the 15^th Hussars only used the flats of their swords is equally fanciful. Evidence has demonstrated that, although the Hussars showed more restraint than the Yeomanry, with the majority using the flats of their swords to disperse the crowd, a small number used the cutting edges which inflicted serious wounds. In the same way the belief that only 11 people were killed and 400 injured has been disproved by recent research that has established that there were ‘at least 654 casualties, 18 of who died of their injuries.’ Finally, the belief that Manchester’s Irish Population did not become integrated into the movement for parliamentary reform is also unfounded. Evidence was presented in this Chapter has shown that at least ‘97 of the injuries recorded in the casualty lists of Peterloo were to persons of Irish extraction, either immigrants from Ireland or those born in England of Irish parents.’[161]

In conclusion on 16^th August 1819, a massive crowd had gathered in St Peter’s Field peacefully and carrying no weapons to put pressure on the government to bring about parliamentary reform. Yet in spite of these factors and on the orders of the Select Committee of Magistrates were ‘attacked by soldiers with sabres and bayonets, and by police with truncheons and staves. The outcome was at least 654 casualties, eighteen of whom died of their injuries.’ This latest historical research has revealed that there is no doubt that these injuries were inflicted by the authorities quite deliberately. The fact that the military and police attacked an unarmed crowd of civilians, including women and children, both in St Peter’s Field and in the streets surrounding it, goes to show that their real intention was to teach these people a terrifying and unforgettable lesson.[162]

---

[1] Donald Read, Review of ‘Peteterloo: The Case Reopened by Robert Warmsley,’ History, Vol., 55, (1970), pp. 138-140.

[2] J. Stevenson, Popular Disturbances in England 1700-1870, London, (1979), p. 284.

[3] Kidd, op. cit., p. 94.

[4] Read, op. cit., p. 140.

[5] Thompson, op. cit., pp. 707-708.

[6] Manchester Observer, 31^st July, 1819.

[7] Marlow, op. cit., p. 103. Peterloo Massacre

[8] Manchester Observer, 7^th August, 1819.

[9] Redford, op.cit., p. 252.

[10] Read, op. cit., p. 122.

[11] Redford, op. cit., p. 252.

[12] Joyce Marlow, ‘The Day of Peterloo,’ Manchester Regional History Review, Vol. iii, (1989), p. 3.

[13] Manchester Observer, 16^th August, 1819.

[14] S. Bamford, Passages in the Life of a Radical, I, Manchester, (1844), pp. 198-200.

[15] Warmsley, op. cit., p. 147.

[16] L. M. Angus Butterworth, Lancashire Literary Worthies, St Andrews, (1980), p 123. ; Swindles, op. cit., p. 187. Manchester Guardian, 19^th October, 1872.

[17] R. J. White, Waterloo to Peterloo, London, (1957), p. 190.

[18] Robert Poole, ‘The March to Peterloo: Politics and Festivity in Late Georgian England,’ Past and Present, No 192, August, (2006), p. 148.

[19] Michael Bush, ‘The Women at Peterloo : The Impact of Female Reform on the Manchester Meeting of 16 August 1819,’ History, Vol. 89, No. 293. January (2004), pp. 209-210.

[20] Bush, op. cit., p. 2. Casualties of Peterloo

[21] Tom Waghorn, ‘Killing Field’ in Paul Horrocks, (ed), The Making of Manchester, Manchester, (1999), p. 12.

[22] Donald Read, Review of ‘Peteterloo: The Case Reopened by Robert Warmsley,’ History, Vol., 55, (1970), pp. 138-140.

[23] Poole, op. cit., p. 112.

[24] Prentice, op. cit., p. 146.

[25] Bush, op. cit., p. 1.

[26] Frank Musgrove, The North of England-A History of Roman Times to the Present, Oxford, (1990), p. 274.

[27] Kennedy, op. cit., p. 67.

[28]Thompson, op. cit., p. 748.

[29] Schama, op. cit., p. 133.

[30] Williams and Ramsden, op. cit., p. 178.

[31] Read, op. cit., p. 128.

[32] Schama, op. cit., p. 133.

[33] Belchem, op. cit., p. 9.

[34] Robert Huish, The History of the Private Life of Henry Hunt Esq. II, (London 1836), pp. 178-80.

[35] Manchester Observer, 28^th August, 1819.

[36] Stevenson, op. cit., p. 284.

[37] Bamford Passages I, op. cit., pp. 176-77.

[38] Thompson, op. cit., p. 752. Working Class

[39] A. H. Stamp, A Social and Economic History of England From 1700 to 1970, Guildford, (1979), p. 133.

[40] Marlow, op. cit., p. 125. Peterloo Massacre

[41] Reid, op. cit., p. 191.

[42] Marlow, op. cit., p. 125. Peterloo Massacre

[43] Kidd, op. cit., p. 88.

[44] Ayerst, op. cit., p. 18.

[45] Prentice, op. cit., p. 159.

[46] F.A. Bruton, Three Accounts of Peterloo by Eyewitnesses, Bishop Stanley, Lord Hylton, Benjamin Smith, Manchester, (1921), p. 21.

[47] Ann Brooks and Brian Haworth, Boomtown Manchester 1800-1850, The Portico Connection, Manchester, (1993), p. 81.

[48] Reid, op. cit., p. 141.

[49] Ibid, 141.

[50] Bruton, op. cit., pp. 49-50.

[51] J. Stevenson, Popular Disturbances in England, 1700-1870, London, (1979) p. 284.

[52] E. P. Thompson, ‘Thompson on Peterloo,’ Manchester Regional History Review, Vol. iii, (1989), p. 74.

[53] Davis, op. cit., p. 32.

[54] Thompson, op. cit., p. 74.

[55] Bruton, op. cit., pp. 49-50.

[56] Stuart Hylton, A History of Manchester, Chichester, (2003), p. 87.

[57] Marlow, op. cit., p. 4. Day of Peterloo

[58] Thomson, op. cit., p. 294.

[59] Bruton, op. cit., pp. 11-12. Stanleys narrative

[60] Horton, op. cit., p. 5.

[61] Manchester Observer, 28^th August, 1819.

[62] Thompson, op. cit., p. 75. On Peterloo., John Edward Taylor, Notes and Observations, Critical and Explanatory on the Papers Relative to the Internal State of the Country, (1820)

[63] Read, op. cit., p. 131. Bruton, op. cit., p. 14.

[64] Ibid, p. 135. Prentice, op. cit., p. 161.

[65] Brooks and Haworth, op. cit., p. 80.

[66] Prentice, op. cit., p. 164.

[67] Brooks and Haworth, op. cit., p. 80.

[68] Read, op. cit., p. 133.

[69] Marlow, op. cit., p. 4. Day of Peterloo

[70] Redford, op. cit., p. 254.

[71] Bruton, op. cit., p. 28.

[72] Ibid, p. 14. Stanley’s Narrative

[73] Read, op. cit., p. 133, citing The Whole Proceedings before the Coroner’s Inquest at Oldham, c, on the body of John Lees, (ed.), J. A. Dowling, (1820), p. 459.

[74] Bruton, op. cit., p. 15. Stanley’s narrative

[75] Redford, op. cit., p. 254.

[76] Bruton, op. cit., p. 15. Stanley’s narrative

[77] Ibid, p. 19.

[78] Ibid, p. 16.

[79] Read, op. cit., p. 139. citing Memoirs of Henry Hunt, III, London, (1820), pp. 617-19.

[80] Bruton, op. cit., p. 18. Stanley’s narrative

[81] Redford, op. cit., p. 254.

[82] Read, op. cit., pp. 139-140.

[83] Poole, op. cit., p. 255.

[84] Thompson, op. cit., p. 68. On Peterloo

[85] Kennedy, op. cit., p. 68.

[86] V. I., Tomlinson, ‘Postscript to Peterloo,’ Manchester Regional History Review, iii, (1989), p. 51.

[87] William Hulton, Evidence given at the trial of Henry Hunt.

[88] Thompson, op. cit., p. 73. On Peterloo

[89] Ibid, p. 73.

[90] Ibid, p. 73.

[91] Bruton, op. cit., pp. 22-23. Stanley’s Narrative

[92] Thompson, op. cit., p. 73. On Peterloo; also see Joseph A. Dowling, (ed.), Inquest on the Body of John Lees, the Whole proceedings before the Coroner’s Inqest at Olham on the body of John Lees, who died of sabre wounds at Manchester. Taken in shorthand with a plan of St Peter’s Field., London, (1820)

[93] Marlow, op. cit., pp. 148-149., citing Major Dyneley’s letter, T.S. 11/4763/1055-56.

[94] Bamford, Passages, I, op. cit., p. 208.

[95] Bruton, op. cit., p. 55.

[96] Bush, op. cit., p. 54.

[97] Read, op. cit., p. 136.

[98] Bush, op. cit., p. 54.

[99] Ibid, p. 54; Manchester Guardian, 18^th August, 1819.

[100] Ibid, p. 54.

[101] Bruton, op. cit., p. 56.

[102] Bush, op. cit., p. 54; Manchester Guardian, 17^th August, 1819, The Star, 17^th August, 1819.

[103] Bruton, op. cit., p. 58.

[104] Thompson, op. cit., p. 754. Working Class

[105] Prentice, op. cit., pp. 166-167.

[106] Bruton, op. cit., pp. 57-58.

[107] Reid, op. cit., pp. 190-191.

[108] Bruton, op. cit., pp. 84-85.

[109] G.M. Trevelyan, ‘The Number of Casualties at Peterloo,’ History, VII, (1922), pp. 209-32.

[110] Bush, op. cit., pp. 5-6.

[111] Ibid, p. 4.

[112]Peterloo Casualty Lists, in Bush, op. cit., pp. 63-160., and for ‘Peterloo Death List,’ table see Bush, op. cit., p. 45.

[113] Malcolm and Walter Bee, ‘The Casualties of Peterloo,’ Manchester Regional History Review, Vol. iii, (1989), pp. 43-44.

[114] Turner, op. cit., p. 266.

[115] Malcolm and Walter Bee, op. cit., pp. 43-44.

[116] Bruton, op. cit., p. 84.

[117] Bush, op. cit., p. 55-56.

[118] Bruton, op. cit., p. 85.

[119] Bush, op. cit., pp. 55-56.

[120] The Peterloo Casualty Lists, in Bush, op. cit., pp. 63-160.

[121] Bruton, op. cit., p. 84.

[122] Reid, p. 193, citing English mss. 1/25a, summary of Casualties of Troops on 16^th August 1819.

[123] Ibid, p. 193, citing HO 42. 192. Lloyd to Hobhouse, August 18^th 1819.

[124] Bush, op. cit., p. 61.

[125] Ibid, Preface.

[126] Trevelyan, op. cit., p. 201.

[127] Kennedy, op. cit., p. 68.

[128] Read, op. cit., p. 139.

[129] Briggs, op. cit., p. 210.

[130] Howard Martin, Britain in the 19^th Century, London, (1996), p. 45.

[131] Hylton, op. cit., p. 89.

[132] Bruton, op. cit., p. 53.

[133] Read, op. cit., p. 140.

[134] Kennedy, op. cit., p. 68.

[135] Norman Gash, Aristocracy and the People 1815-1865, London, (1979), p. 95.

[136] Kidd, op. cit., p. 94.

[137] Bush, op. cit., p. 52.

[138] Kidd, op. cit., p. 89.

[139] Bruton, op. cit., p. 53.

[140] Bush, op. cit., p. 53.

[141] Ibid. p. 52.

[142] Swindles, op. cit., p. 187; Elijah Ridings, The Village Muse, Containing The Complete Poetical Works of Elijah Ridings, Macclesfield, (1854), p. 8.

[143] Bush, op. cit., p. 52. Manchester Observer, 6^th September, 1819.

[144] Ibid, p. 42.

[145] Kirk, op. cit., p. 61.

[146] Gash, op. cit., p. 95.

[147] Read, op. cit., p. vii.

[148]Thompson, op. cit., p. 752. Working Class

[149] Marlow, op. cit., p. 151.

[150] Daily Telegraph, 16^th August, 1969.

[151] Kennedy, op. cit., p. 68.

[152] Bush, op. cit., p. 44.

[153]Thompson, op. cit., pp. 707-8. Working Class

[154] Briggs, op cit., p. 92. Victorian Cities

[155] Bamford Passages, op. cit., I, p. 202.

[156] Bush, op. cit., p. 28.

[157] The Peterloo Casualty Lists in Bush, op. cit., pp. 63-160.

[158] Bamford Passages, I, op. cit., p. 208.

[159] Thompson, op. cit., p. 74.

[160] Redford, op. cit., p. 252.

[161] Bush, op. cit., p. 28.

[162] Ibid, p. 52.