Peterloo Massacre (1819): Cavalry Charge in Manchester

The Peterloo Massacre took place on 16 August 1819 at St Peter’s Field in Manchester, England, when cavalry charged into a peaceful crowd of tens of thousands gathered to demand parliamentary reform. Around 15 to 18 people were killed and hundreds injured. The event shocked the nation, became a symbol of the struggle for democracy and helped inspire the founding of the Manchester Guardian.

Background: hunger and an unrepresentative Parliament

After the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, Britain faced a deep economic slump. Demobilised soldiers returned to a weak labour market, and handloom weavers in Lancashire saw their wages collapse. The Corn Laws of 1815, which restricted cheap grain imports, kept the price of bread high.

At the same time, Parliament was deeply unrepresentative. Only a small minority of men could vote, and industrial towns such as Manchester, Birmingham and Leeds had no MPs of their own, while some almost empty “rotten boroughs” returned two members. Radical reformers demanded universal male suffrage, annual parliaments and the secret ballot.

The government of Lord Liverpool, with Lord Sidmouth as Home Secretary, feared that unrest could turn into revolution, as in France in 1789. It had already suspended habeas corpus in 1817 and relied on spies and local magistrates to watch radical groups.

The meeting at St Peter’s Field

The Manchester Patriotic Union organised a great open-air meeting and invited Henry Hunt, the best-known radical orator of the day. Contingents marched in from surrounding towns such as Oldham, Middleton, Rochdale and Stockport, many in their Sunday best, carrying banners that called for universal suffrage, annual parliaments and the secret ballot. The organisers had drilled the marchers to keep order and told them to bring no weapons, so that the authorities would have no excuse to intervene.

Estimates of the crowd range from about 60,000 to more than 80,000, a large share of the local population. Women’s reform societies took a prominent part; Mary Fildes, president of the Manchester Female Reform Society, was on the speakers’ platform. The radical weaver and writer Samuel Bamford led the Middleton contingent and later wrote a well-known account of the day.

The charge

The magistrates, chaired by William Hulton, watched from a house overlooking the field. Shortly after Hunt began to speak, they issued a warrant for the arrest of the organisers and called in the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry, a volunteer cavalry force made up largely of local businessmen and tradesmen with little training.

The yeomanry rode into the dense crowd to reach the platform and became stuck. Some began striking out with their sabres. Believing that the yeomanry were under attack, Hulton ordered the regular soldiers of the 15th Hussars to disperse the meeting. Within about ten to fifteen minutes the field was cleared, leaving the injured and dead amid lost hats, shoes and torn banners.

Hunt and other speakers were arrested. Among the dead was John Lees, a cotton worker who had fought at Waterloo. Among the first victims was William Fildes, a two-year-old boy knocked from his mother’s arms by a horse.

Reaction and repression

Reporters were present, including John Tyas of The Times, who was arrested with the speakers but whose report reached London. The radical publisher Richard Carlile, also on the platform, escaped and published his own account. Within days the Manchester Observer named the event “Peterloo”, a bitter play on the victory at Waterloo four years earlier.

The government stood firmly behind the magistrates. Sidmouth sent them thanks on behalf of the Prince Regent. In December 1819 Parliament passed the Six Acts, which restricted large public meetings, sped up trials, allowed searches for weapons and raised the taxes on cheap newspapers. Hunt was convicted at York in 1820 and sentenced to two and a half years in prison; Bamford and others received shorter terms. No member of the yeomanry or the magistracy was punished.

Some radicals turned to violence, most notably in the Cato Street Conspiracy of February 1820, but most reformers continued to campaign through petitions, the press and peaceful meetings.

Key people

• Henry Hunt (1773–1835): a gentleman farmer and celebrated radical orator, known as “Orator Hunt”, who insisted on peaceful mass meetings. He was later elected MP for Preston in 1830.
• William Hulton (1787–1864): chairman of the magistrates who ordered the arrests and called in the cavalry. He defended his actions for the rest of his life.
• Samuel Bamford (1788–1872): a weaver and poet from Middleton who led his town’s contingent, was imprisoned afterwards and left one of the most vivid eyewitness accounts.
• Mary Fildes (c. 1789–1876): president of the Manchester Female Reform Society, who stood on the platform and was injured in the charge.
• Lord Sidmouth (1757–1844): Home Secretary, who approved the magistrates’ conduct and led the government’s response.

Myths and facts

Supporters of the magistrates claimed that the crowd had been armed and riotous. Eyewitness accounts, including those of journalists, describe an orderly meeting, and no significant weapons were found. Whether the Riot Act, which ordered crowds to disperse, was read at all remains disputed; if it was, almost no one in the crowd could have heard it.

The death toll was small compared with some massacres elsewhere, which has led some to question the word. But for Britain in peacetime it was shocking, and the victims included women and children. Research for the bicentenary in 2019 identified up to 18 people who died of their injuries, slightly more than earlier lists.

By the numbers

Legacy

Peterloo became one of the defining moments in the history of British democracy. The poet Percy Bysshe Shelley responded with “The Mask of Anarchy”, which ends with the call “Ye are many — they are few”, although the poem was not published until 1832. The cotton merchant John Edward Taylor, who had witnessed the events, helped found the Manchester Guardian in 1821.

Reform came slowly. The Great Reform Act of 1832 finally gave Manchester its own MPs, though most working men still could not vote. The memory of Peterloo was revived by the Chartists and other later movements. For many years the only sign at the site was a small plaque; a permanent memorial was unveiled in 2019, and the massacre was the subject of Mike Leigh’s 2018 film Peterloo.

Timeline

• 1815: The Corn Laws are passed, keeping bread prices high.
• 1817, March: Habeas corpus is suspended amid fears of unrest.
• 1819, 16 August: Cavalry charge the reform meeting at St Peter’s Field.
• 1819, late August: The Manchester Observer names the event “Peterloo”.
• 1819, December: Parliament passes the Six Acts.
• 1820, March: Henry Hunt is tried at York and later jailed.
• 1821, May: The Manchester Guardian publishes its first issue.
• 1832: The Great Reform Act gives Manchester parliamentary representation.

Why it matters

Peterloo showed how far the British state of 1819 was willing to go to suppress demands for the vote. Its victims became martyrs for parliamentary reform and press freedom, and the massacre remains a touchstone in debates about the right to peaceful protest.