In the nineteenth century, Manchester of course looked very different to the modern looking city of today. The Manchester Central site hosting the crafting event was for many years the city's third railway terminus, where in the 1890s, trains to Liverpool made the journey more quickly than their modern-day counterparts do now over at Piccadilly. This was the Midland Railway's flagship Manchester station, and they made sure their presence was visible in the city by building the opulent Midland Hotel just opposite not long after the station opened.But go back earlier than this and right next door to the present Manchester Central site, just off to the right in my photo, was common ground known as St Peter's field. In the early 1800s this large open space was often used for public gatherings and demonstrations, where speakers called for social reform.
In 1819, an economic slump caused by the Napoleonic Wars and the first Corn Law (keeping the price of bread artificially high) meant many poor people were starving. The rapidly expanding towns and cities in the North were also virtually unrepresented in parliament, Manchester having no MPs at all and the whole of Lancashire represented by just two. Less than 2% of adults could vote at all (and even if you did have the vote in Lancashire, you had to do so in person at Lancaster on polling day!). At the same time numerous so-called 'rotten boroughs' existed which elected their own MP despite having next to no voters at all (the most extreme elected an MP from an electorate of just 7 voters).
By August 1819, a rally calling for parliamentary reform was planned at St Peter's field where the well known reformist orator, Henry Hunt, was to speak. Marches to the demonstration were meticulously planned from over twenty nearby towns, the instruction being for peaceful demonstration with whole families walking the routes into the city, sober and clean and dressed in their Sunday best. Estimates put the total attending at around 60-70,000.The town's magistrates, keen to stop the demonstration, kept a close eye on the gathering crowd from a house on Mount St (now on the site of the Midland). As the number of people swelled, despite their good nature, the magistrates panicked and tried to disperse them by reading the Riot Act. They then had a reason to move in forceably, and when Hunt rose to speak, the magistrates called in the local yeomen to arrest him. These amateur militia force were comprised of local shopkeepers and tradesmen, and charged the crowd on horseback with swords and sabres raised. In the resulting melee, at least 15 people were killed and over 600 injured.
But go around the area today and the only commemoration is a small red plaque on the wall of the sleek Raddison Hotel on Peter Street. At least this is an improvement over the previous plaque, which didn't even acknowledge that people had died here. But surely the city should do more to acknowledge such an important event in its history? The immediate aftermath of Peterloo (the name given to the events in 1819 - an ironic comparison to the cavalry charges at Waterloo four years earlier) was that civil liberties became worse not better, with six acts of parliament being introduced to prevent demonstrations and free speech. But by 1832 the mood had changed and the Great Reform Act of that year began the slow process towards modern-day democracy we now take for granted.A campaign group is pushing for a suitable memorial to Peterloo with ideas such as a large memorial close to the Manchester Central complex on the site where the speakers stood. Another idea is for hoofprints to be embossed in the pavements all around the site to convey the scale of the gathering and the force used to quell the demonstration - click this Peterloo link for more information.
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