There is I think a danger about the present coverage of Peterloo, which is that it begins to overshadow some of the other significant events during the period following the end of the wars with Revolutionary and Napoleonic France.
The massacre in St Peter’s Field was awful but outside Manchester, it doesn’t always achieve the recognition it should as a moment when the Establishment ruthlessly challenged the legitimate call for reform.
And it is right that as we have now passed the 200th anniversary of that dreadful moment played out in front of perhaps 60,000 peaceful demonstrators, the murder of 16 people and the wounding of countless others should be highlighted.
So I am pleased at the launch of an interactive website which seeks to reconstruct the events of August 1819.
The web site features a 3D model showing how the day unfolded which will reach a new audience unfamiliar with what happened.
But the preoccupation with the day misses out that later in the evening at New Cross there was a further violent confrontation, and should always be seen against a determined policy of State repression, reflected in the Gag Acts, the arrest of suspected “agitators” and the use of paid informants.
Only two years earlier there had been the suppression of what became known as the March of the Blanketeers when after much discussion about the tactic of delivering a petition directly to the Crown.
It was a bold initiative and would lead to 5,000 leaving Manchester on March 10th 1817. Each marcher had a blanket or rolled overcoat on his back, to sleep under at night and to serve as a sign that the man was a textile worker, giving the march its eventual nickname. The plan was for the marchers to walk in separate groups of ten, to avoid any accusation of illegal mass assembly.
Samuel Bamford argued against the tactic pointing out in what would become prophetic, that
“the authorities of Manchester were not likely to permit their [the Blanketeers] leaving town in a body”**
And as it turned out, the magistrates read the Riot Act, the military broke up the demonstration, and 27 were arrested, with more violence meted out in Ancoats and Stockport.
Now while fewer were killed it was a significant event, but while there was some activity back in 2017, the March of the Blanketeers slid quickly back into history.
Does it matter that it has been eclipsed? Yes I think it does.
Will the current coverage of Peterloo stand for all the other class acts of repression?
They may do, but we shouldn’t forget the Blanketeers.
In the meantime I shall read Samuel Bamford’s book.
Location; Manchester
Pictures; demonstations a century and a bit later, Liverpool, 1980, Birmingham, 1983, from the collection of Andrew Simpson
*peterloo1819.co.uk
** Bamford, Samuel, Bamford’s Life of a Radical, Vol 2, 1905 page 32
And it is right that as we have now passed the 200th anniversary of that dreadful moment played out in front of perhaps 60,000 peaceful demonstrators, the murder of 16 people and the wounding of countless others should be highlighted.
So I am pleased at the launch of an interactive website which seeks to reconstruct the events of August 1819.
The web site features a 3D model showing how the day unfolded which will reach a new audience unfamiliar with what happened.
Only two years earlier there had been the suppression of what became known as the March of the Blanketeers when after much discussion about the tactic of delivering a petition directly to the Crown.
It was a bold initiative and would lead to 5,000 leaving Manchester on March 10th 1817. Each marcher had a blanket or rolled overcoat on his back, to sleep under at night and to serve as a sign that the man was a textile worker, giving the march its eventual nickname. The plan was for the marchers to walk in separate groups of ten, to avoid any accusation of illegal mass assembly.
“the authorities of Manchester were not likely to permit their [the Blanketeers] leaving town in a body”**
And as it turned out, the magistrates read the Riot Act, the military broke up the demonstration, and 27 were arrested, with more violence meted out in Ancoats and Stockport.
Now while fewer were killed it was a significant event, but while there was some activity back in 2017, the March of the Blanketeers slid quickly back into history.
Does it matter that it has been eclipsed? Yes I think it does.
Will the current coverage of Peterloo stand for all the other class acts of repression?
They may do, but we shouldn’t forget the Blanketeers.
In the meantime I shall read Samuel Bamford’s book.
Location; Manchester
Pictures; demonstations a century and a bit later, Liverpool, 1980, Birmingham, 1983, from the collection of Andrew Simpson
*peterloo1819.co.uk
** Bamford, Samuel, Bamford’s Life of a Radical, Vol 2, 1905 page 32
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