At St Peter’s Field, Manchester, Lancashire, England on August 16th, 1819, ten to twenty people were killed and around six hundred and fifty injured in consequence of a radical reform campaign. The meeting was called by a group called The Manchester Patriotic Union. The reasoning for this call was to demand reforms to parliamentary representation across England to give a voice to the working class. The key speaker was Henry Hunt, a well-known radical orator. In consequence to the infamy of the event, over 50,000 people had gathered to hear Henry Hunt speak. What started out as a festive peaceful protest soon turned into a massacre as armed forces stormed the crowd. 

The reason this protest was in Manchester was because it was just one area where industrialization had taken over and had a lack of voting rights. The reason why the industrialization aspect is important to the event is because there were restrictions on trade which damaged industry. This directly causes unemployment. Voting rights before 1831 had less than 3% of the population voting and there was not one Member of Parliament to represent the working class in Manchester. This became an extreme issue with the rise in unemployment. In consequence of how big of an issue this became, Henry Hunt was chosen to speak on universal suffrage and many people appeared for the rally. 

Like mentioned before, this event was a lively one. The event included bands, dancing, and marching as around one hundred thousand people came to attend this event. In consequence of this large amount of people, everyone was cramped. This led the massacre to be more horrifying. Local magistrates called the crowd violent with revolutionary intentions. They saw the organized marching, banners, and music like a military regiment. They then felt it was justified to go and arrest Henry Hunt and the other speakers there with armed forces. The reason for them being armed was because there was a large crowd and the forces needed to safely navigate through. Once the soldiers appeared, everything went downhill from there.  

One thing that must be remembered about the crowd was that it was very cramped. People were hot and tired. Some people were there for the event and some out of curiosity. The people did not expect to have soldiers come and attack. Therefore, when the soldiers showed up, people panicked and tried to run and escape. This led to a common consequence of large crowds and people moving around, human drowning and crushing.  

In response to the massacre, the public held sympathy while the government established stricter laws on freedom of the public and press. It was called the Six Acts and part of its legislation was a requirement of the people holding any public event of more than fifty to get permission by the sheriff or magistrate and tightening the laws that gave consequences to authors who wrote “blasphemous or seditious material.” The government’s efforts were in vain of trying to halt the suffrage movement. In fact, this massacre caused the publicity for this movement to grow and reach farther than it had before. Famous poets, including Percy Shelley, newspapers, propaganda all began to cry out for a government that was fair to all. 

Works Cited

Mather, Rush. The Peterloo Massacre. British Library, 2014

https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/the-peterloo-massacre

Poole, Robert. The March to Peterloo: Politics and Festivity in Late Georgian England. Oxford University Press, 2006.

https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/citizenship/struggle_democr...