England must not forget its Peterloo

This piece is taken from LINKS International Journal of Socialist Renewal the full article can be read at
http://links. org.au/node/ 1206

The 1819 `Peterloo' massacre: class struggle in the Industrial Revolution
By Graham Milner

August 16 in Lancashire was a lovely summer day with a cloudless sky and a hot sun shining. There was a confident, cheerful and festive atmosphere as the contingents gathered and prepared to march. Bands played, and the beautiful banners, woven and embroidered with great care, were unfurled. Oldham's banner was of pure white silk, emblazoned with the inscriptions: ``Universal Suffrage, Annual Parliaments -- Election by Ballot', and ``No Combination Acts: Oldham Union''. Saddleworth's was jet black, with the inscription ``Equal Representation or Death'' in white over two joined hands and a heart. One of the banners carried by the Stockport contingent read: ``Success to the Female Reformers of Stockport''. Many red caps of liberty were carried.
When all the contingents had arrived and assembled in the centre of Manchester, something like 12 per cent of the population of the county of Lancashire, and over half that of its industrial south east were present. It was the largest assembly England had ever seen.
As soon as all the contingents had filled St. Peter's Field, to the point where, according to a contemporary report, people were packed in so tightly that ``their hats seemed to touch'', the area was ringed by 1500 troops with cannon. No one in the crowd, least of all the organisers, suspected that an attempt to physically disperse the meeting was planned. Meetings such as this, even if smaller and without the same evident discipline and organisation, had been held many times before up and down the country. The ensuing massacre was completely unexpected and unprovoked, and met with little organised resistance. The city magistrates had even gone to the lengths in their preparations for the massacre of employing scavengers to remove every stone, brick or possible missile from the field and surrounding streets, so that the meeting's participants were thus left entirely without defence.
Barely had Henry Hunt, the main featured speaker, begun to address the meeting when mounted troopers of the yeomanry charged the hustings to arrest him and others on the platform. At first the crowd, which had not been aware of the presence of the troops, did not panic and Hunt shouted: ``Stand firm, my friends: there are only a few soldiers, and we are a host against them.''
But as the yeomanry, many of whom were drunk, charged with sabres drawn, slashing and cutting their way through the crowd and trampling and crushing many people, chaos and panic gripped the field. According to witnesses cited in Joyce Marlow's account The Peterloo Massacre, the yeomanry, having tasted blood, went berserk. They dragged the speakers and organisers from the hustings and would have killed Hunt had he not been quickly whisked away to jail. The yeomanry continued to slash and cut indiscriminately at men, women and children alike, while smashing wagons and platforms, and tearing the banners and the caps of liberty.
The regular cavalry then moved onto the field to complete the work. Hundreds more people suffered serious injuries from the slashing sabres and flying hooves, or were smothered under piles of falling bodies. Ten minutes from the first charge it was all over. Samuel Bamford, the Lancashire poet, described the scene
...the field was an open and almost deserted space. The hustings remained, with a few broken and hewed flagstaves erect, and a torn and gashed banner or two drooping; whilst over the whole field were strewed the caps, bonnets, hats, shawls and shoes and other parts of male and female dress; trampled, torn and bloody. The yeomanry had dismounted -- some were easing their horses' girths and some were wiping their sabres.
Many more people were killed and maimed as the troops continued to ``disperse'' the crowd through surrounding streets. That night one person was shot dead and several injured in clashes between soldiers and crowds of angry workers.
The government's attitude was made clear by its total endorsement of the massacre. The Prince Regent, then disporting himself on his yacht, made it known through Sidmouth what great satisfaction he had derived from the magistrate's ``prompt, decisive and efficient measure for the preservation of public tranquillity''. Despite repeated and widely voiced demands for one, there never was an official inquiry into the Peterloo massacre.
Wave of anger
An immense wave of anger swept across England in the wake of the massacre. The mass movement for reform was not appreciably set back by the Peterloo massacre. A huge crowd estimated by the conservative Times at 300,000 lined the streets of London to greet Hunt after his release from jail. Meetings were spurred all over England by the events at St. Peter's Field, especially in the north-east counties, where more than 50,000 miners marched into Newcastle from surrounding districts. Loyalist [pro-government] forces in this area began arming, and the pitmen took up arms to defend themselves. In the months of October and November, according to Edward Thompson, workers across the country stocked pikes and other weapons to defend themselves and their meetings. Drilling, and armed demonstrations, were reported in Newcastle, Wolverhampton, Wigan, Bolton and Blackburn.
Divisions within the radical movements's leadership between constitutionalists and revolutionaries were not resolved, and this crisis of leadership, combined with renewed government repression and an economic upturn brought this early phase of mass working-class struggle to a close. The events in Manchester on August 16, 1819 however, will remain forever inscribed in the collective memory of the international working class. Shelley's poem ``The Masque of Anarchy'' was written just after Peterloo and its final stanza carries the fighting sentiments of thousands of workers:
Rise, like lions after slumber.
In unvanquishable number!
Shake your chains to earth like dew,
Which in sleep had fallen on you!
Ye are many -- they are few!
[Graham Milner is a member of the Socialist Alliance in Perth, Western Australia.]

We must not forget that it is the British that are denying England its political recognition, the British MPs we have sent to parliament to represent England, it is these who are to blame. Until we have our own English MPs not British MPs representing England nothing is going to change.