One hundred and ninety five years ago, eighteen people were killed and over six hundred were injured at Peter’s Fields during a peaceful demonstration for electoral reform.
Local magistrates, watching from a window near the field, panicked at the sight of the large crowd assembled and read the riot act, effectively ordering what little of the crowd could hear them to disperse.
The Yeoman’s guard, allegedly fuelled by drink charged with bayonets fixed into a field of over fifty thousand who had gathered that Monday morning to hear speakers call for parliamentary reform.
The events of that day would inspire Shelley to write his poem which was banned for thirty years, and would be dubbed Peterloo, after the battle of Waterloo four years earlier.
This weekend Manchester is coming together to commemorate the events of that fateful sunny day.
On Sunday the 17th, there will be marches mirroring the original route of the marchers starting from Bolton, Eccles, Salford and Middleton, outside the former home of radical Samuel Bamford, who led a march from Middleton to St Peter’s Field to join protestors in August 1819. Actor Maxine Peake will give an address at the conclusion of the march at Peter Street when the names of those killed will be read out.
On Saturday 16th, Manchester Central Library will host a drop-in handling session in the Shakespeare Hall between 12 – 2pm on Saturday 16 August.
Visitors to the library will be able to view and handle archives relating to the massacre, including maps, cartoons and poetry inspired by the tragedy.
The centrepiece of the handling session is the diary of Henry Hunt, written during his imprisonment at Ilchester Gaol.
Hunt, a famed public speaker who was set to address the crowds before the intervention of the local Yeomanry, marked the first anniversary of the Peterloo Massacre with a black border around the diary entry for 16 August and the words:-
“I eat no meat this day.
“I sincerely pray that I may live to witness the punishment of every scoundrel that was instrumental as accessory or principal or in any remote degree concerned in the infamous, cruel, cowardly, impoverished & premeditated assassination, cuttings & murders of peaceable men, women & children at Manchester on this day twelvemonths.”
The Lord Mayor of Manchester, Councillor Sue Cooley, will attend Central Library to view the Peterloo archives and content on the ‘virtual stacks’ in the library’s interactive Archives+ Centre
