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The Peterloo Massacre of August 16, 1819 was the result of a cavalry charge into the crowd at a public meeting at St Peter's Fields, Manchester, England. It is also called the Manchester Massacre or sometimes the Battle of Peterloo. Eleven people were killed and over 500 were injured.

Contents 1 Background 2 Attack 3 Aftermath 4 Commemoration 5 Popular culture 6 References 7 See also 8 Further reading

The meeting had been organised by the Manchester Patriotic Union Society, a political group that agitated for radical parliamentary reform and the repeal of the corn laws. They had invited a number of speakers, including Richard Carlile, John Cartwright and Henry Hunt, to a public meeting.

Local magistrates, under William Hulton, were concerned that the meeting would end in a riot or, worse, a rebellion. They arranged for a substantial number of regular soldiers to be on hand, the local volunteer yeomanry, described as "younger members of the Tory party in arms", were also ordered to disperse the meeting.^[1] The troops included 600 men of the 15th Hussars; several hundred infantrymen; a Royal Horse Artillery unit with two six-pounder (2.7 kg) guns; 400 men of the Cheshire Yeomanry Cavalry; 400 special constables; and 120 cavalry of the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry, relatively inexperienced militia recruited from among shopkeepers and tradesmen.

A considerable crowd from all around the county of Lancashire had gathered for the meeting; contemporary estimates varied from 30,000 up to 150,000; modern estimates are around 60,000 or 80,000. People expected a peaceful meeting and many were wearing their Sunday clothes. Some carried banners with texts like "No Corn Laws", "Annual Parliaments", "Universal suffrage" and "Vote By Ballot." The only banner known to have survived can be seen in Middleton Public Library. It was carried by Thomas Redford who was injured by a yeomanry sabre. One side of the banner is inscribed 'Liberty and Fraternity' and the other 'Unity and Strength'. The main speakers did not arrive until after 1:00 p.m., and Hunt was invited to speak first at 1:20 p.m.

At around 1:31 p.m. the magistrates observing the meeting decided to stop it. When the reading of the Riot Act did not help, they gave orders to Captain Joseph Nadin, Deputy Constable of Manchester, to arrest the leaders. Nadin requested military aid and magistrates sent for the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry.

Sixty Yeomanry cavalrymen, possibly drunk^{[citation needed]}, entered the field under their leader Captain Hugh Hornby Birley, brandishing their cavalry sabres and charging towards the cart that served as the speakers' stand. When some demonstrators tried to stop them by linking their hands, they began to attack them with their sabres. When the cavalry reached the cart, they arrested Hunt, Joseph Johnson and a number of others, including some journalists.

The Yeomanry then began to strike down the flags and banners of the crowd with their sabres. Outside the field William Hulton perceived the crowd's actions as an assault and ordered Lieutenant Colonel Guy L'Estrange of the Hussars into the field at 1:50 p.m., ostensibly to save the Yeomanry. Within ten minutes the Hussars had cleared the field and also pacified the Yeomanry.

Eleven people were killed and about 500, including 100 women, injured, many trampled by horses. One man had his nose severed, and others were bleeding from numerous sabre cuts. Many of those present, including local masters, employers and owners were horrified by the carnage.

The events immediately found their way into the press. James Wroe of the Manchester Observer coined the phrase "Peterloo Massacre" to describe the event (in ironic reference to Waterloo). Sympathetic Richard Carlile avoided arrest and published the story in his Sherwin's Political Register. Both Wroe and Carlile were later imprisoned for publishing the story. British poet Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote the poems England in 1819 and The Masque of Anarchy in the immediate aftermath of the massacre.

The incident also led to the organization of a group of Manchester reformers, who founded The Guardian newspaper under the editorship of John Edward Taylor, a witness to the massacre.^[1]

The government supported the action of the army and magistrates, and the Home Secretary, Lord Sidmouth, congratulated them. By the end of the year, the government had introduced legislation, later known as the Six Acts, to suppress radical meetings and publications. The widespread public anger at the massacre swelled the support of the reform movement from which the Chartists would eventually emerge.

The maximum sentence under the Riot Act would have been the death penalty. However, Henry Hunt was sentenced to 30 months in Ilchester Jail. Others received a year each or were acquitted. Hunt was later released on bail.

No public inquiry was allowed until 1820. The first Parliamentary Reform Act began in 1832.

The site of the massacre is commemorated by a blue plaque bearing the following inscription:

The site of St Peter's Fields where on 16th August 1819 Henry Hunt, Radical Orator addressed an assembly of about 60,000 people. Their subsequent dispersal by the military is remembered as Peterloo.^[2]

A growing body of opinion regards this as a less-than-appropriate memorial, with the incident being under-reported as a 'dispersal' and the deaths omitted completely, and aims to replace it with something more appropriate.^[1]

On 17 August 2007, Manchester City Council announced that it would replace the plaque with another with more appropriate wording, commemorating the anniversary of the events of 1819 and giving a clearer indication of the circumstances of the massacre. Under the heading "St. Peter's Fields: The Peterloo Massacre", the new plaque will read:

On 16th August 1819 a peaceful rally of 63,000 pro-democracy reformers, mostly impoverished workers and their families, was charged by armed cavalry resulting in 11 deaths and over 600 severe injuries.^[3]

• The British composer Sir Malcolm Arnold wrote the Peterloo Overture in 1968. Performed the following year in commemoration of the massacre's 150th anniversary, the work was commissioned by the Trades Union Congress.
• The British newspaper The Guardian published an artist's interpretation of the Peterloo Massacre on the cover of its G2 supplement.^{[citation needed]} The edition included an article by historian Tristram Hunt entitled Lest We Forget which examined several incidents of British history, including the Peterloo Massacre. Hunt noted its relevance to the 2006 Labour Party conference, held on part of St Peter's Fields.
• The thirteenth of the Sharpe television films, Sharpe's Justice, is loosely based on the Peterloo Massacre. The scriptwriters moved the date and setting to Yorkshire in 1814.
• In Terry Pratchett's novel Night Watch the "Dolly Sisters Massacre" is based on the Peterloo incidents.
• Ned Ludd Part 5 on electric folk group Steeleye Span's album Bloody Men is about the event.
• The 1947 film Fame is the Spur (based on Howard Spring's 1940 novel of the same name) references Peterloo. Though never mentioned by name, the massacre is described in a flashback, and the film's hero receives a sabre supposedly taken from one of the Hussars.
• Rochdale rock band Tractor wrote and recorded a suite of five songs about Peterloo in 1973 which later became part of their 1992 CD Worst Enemies.

1. ^ ^{a b c} [1] Guardian online
2. ^ From Peterloo To The Pankhursts: A Radical Politics Trail 24 Hour Museum
3. ^ From New plaque for massacre memorial BBC News

• Radicalism (historical)
• Free Trade Hall — built near the site of the Massacre, on what is today Peter Street (formerly St. Peters Fields)
• Six Acts
• Cato Street Conspiracy

• Marlow, Joyce, The Peterloo massacre, London: Rapp & Whiting, (1969), ISBN 0-85391-122-3
• BBC Radio 4 'In Our Time' radio broadcast about the Peterloo massacre
• UK Schoolnet information about the Peterloo massacre
• Eyewitness account of the massacre given by Samuel Bamford
• The Peterloo Masacre an information page.
• Peterloo Memorial Campaign - Campaign for a prominent appropriate and respectful monument to this historic Manchester event