Peterloo

The massacre of Peterloo is the name given to the bloody repression of a peaceful demonstration of British workmen the August 16th 1819 on the ground of St Peter' S Fields with Manchester in England, the United Kingdom.

Context

The political context of the 19th century in the United Kingdom is marked by the Industrial revolution. A new working class, without rights but more claiming than the popular class as a whole, emerges. Some of the violent demonstrations, going until the insurrection - as the movement of the luddites in 1811 - succeeded a frightened Attentisme. The revolutionists were scalded by the business Oliver, of the name of a spy of the British government which infiltrated the head of the radical movement in London in 1817 and in made imprison all the leaders. The radicals thus wish to use only legal means to arrive at their ends, namely freedoms of organization, press and of demonstration. If the idea of a new government which would mark the end of the old mode is in all the heads, the popular movements preceding that by St Peter' S Fields express especially for rights which the leading class has of evil to refuse to them more and more.

Facts

With the call of the Manchester Patriotic Union Society , a reforming radical political group: 60000 with: 80000 people meet on the ground of St Peter' S Field on August 16th 1819. It is a peaceful demonstration. The fact that many participants wear their Sunday clothes, the presence of women and children, as well as the historical sources show that the demonstrators do not have any insurrectionary will. They especially come to listen to tenors of the movement, like Richard Carlile, John Cartwright and Henry Hunt, and to require these rights for which they have fought for several years, while carrying streamers asking the vote for all or the end of the laws on corn.

But the local authorities, under the direction of William Hulton, fear riots. A strong military presence was gathered, composed of 600 hussards, several hundreds of soldiers to foot, a unit of artillery with two guns, more than de 500 men of the cavalry of Yeomanry and 400 anti-riot police officers. The decision to disperse the demonstration is made towards 13:30, whereas the first speech hardly starts.

The reading of the Riot Act (a law of 1715 prohibiting the riots) is not enough to put an end to the demonstration; the sheriff of Manchester, Joseph Nadin, decides to disperse crowd by the force and calls some with the assistance of the troops. An about sixty riders of Yeomanry, probably drunk, charge on crowd, sabers ahead. The purpose of they are to stop the leaders, but they massacre all those which are on their passage. The hussards enter then concerned, at the same time to carry help to the riders and to calm them.

Among the demonstrators, eleven people are killed, more than 400 are wounded including at least 100 women. Trampled by the horses, gashed by the blows of sabers, they are not entitled to any pity of the soldiers at which brutality horrifies even local potentates.

The demonstration is dispersed before 14:00.

Consequences

Very quickly, the local press and main road denounce carnage. The leader-writer James Wroe, of the Manchester To observe , uses the expression “massacres of Peterloo”, in reference to St Peter' S Fields and Waterloo, to describe the event. The horror and the disapproval spread in all United Kingdom.

However, the officers having directed the operation are happiness by the government. In December 1819, the Six Laws are voted by the Parliament: they very strongly restrict the rights of demonstration, of gathering, the freedom of the press and the possibilities of public meetings. A wave of legal operations aiming to the arrest of the leaders is launched, but the penal sanctions are in lower part of what the law provides (Henry Hunt is condemned only to 30 months of prison).

However, the very negative impact of the operation on the opinion makes that the government did not repress any more also hard of popular demonstration since then. That means that in spite of the Six Laws , freedom to express is acquired in fact. Moreover, the popular discontent and the wave of sympathy to the reforming movement that the massacre of Peterloo created played much in the rise of the Chartisme.

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