The leading Whigs were unanimous in their denunciation of the brutality, but were divided on how closely they should involve the party in the popular protest movement being promoted by incensed radicals. The few Whig initiatives achieved little. Earl Fitzwilliam supported the Yorkshire county meeting on 14 October. It adopted the resolutions he drafted: the right to public assembly and condemnation of unlawful interference with it and a demand for an inquiry into Peterloo.
[23] This spurred further Whig meetings in nine English counties--Norfolk, Cumberland, Yorkshire, Hertfordshire, Durham, Westmorland, Berkshire, Cornwall and Herefordshire--in October and those in Surrey, Northamptonshire, Wiltshire, Northumberland and Essex in November were unsuccessful, while in Hampshire and Middlesex they were cancelled when an emergency session of Parliament was announced. The dismissal of Fitzwilliam as Lord Lieutenant of Yorkshire on 21 October angered Whigs of all opinion and even Lord Grey, their far from animated leader, encouraged attendance for a robust parliamentary campaign. Distaste for the barbarity of Peterloo and the government’s reaction to it reinforced Whig belief that an effective measure of parliamentary reform was essential. On 18 February 1820, Lord John Russell argued the case for transferring seats from boroughs disfranchised for corruption to unrepresented industrial towns, specifically calling for the disfranchisement of Grampound. He withdrew his motion when government ministers accepted his proposals and Grampound was disfranchised in 1821, but its seats went to the county of Yorkshire.
[24]
[1] Read, Donald,
Peterloo: The ‘massacre’ and its background, (Manchester University Press), 1958, remains a useful study while Walmsley, R.,
Peterloo: the case reopened, (Manchester University Press), 1969, is a detailed study that over-reacts in its defence of government, local and national, Marlow, Joyce,
The Peterloo Massacre, (Rapp and Whiting), 1969, Reid, R.,
The Peterloo Massacre, (Heinemann), 1989, Phythian, Graham,
Peterloo: Voices, Sabres and Silence, (History Press), 2018, Riding, Jacqueline,
Peterloo: The Story of the Manchester Massacre, (Head of Zeus), 2018, and Poole, Robert,
Peterloo: The English Uprising, (Oxford University Press), 2019, provide contrasting narratives.
Manchester Region History Review, Vol. 3, (1), (1989) contains several useful articles; Poole, Robert, ‘”By the Law or the Sword”: Peterloo Revisited’,
History, Vol. 91, (2006), pp. 254-276, is the most recent reappraisal. See also, Bush, M. L.,
The Casualties of Peterloo, (Carnegie Publishing Ltd.), 2005.
[2] ‘Trials for High Treason’,
London Courier and Evening Gazette, 16 June 1817, pp. 5-6. ‘State Trials’,
Morning Chronicle, 17 June 1817, pp. 1, 2, 3, 4..
[3] ‘King v. Arthur Thistlewood’,
Morning Chronicle, 15 May 1818, p. 2.
[4] ‘Striking for Wages’,
Morning Post, 21 July 1818, p. 2,
[5] ‘Reform Meeting at Rochdale’,
Morning Advertiser, 29 July 1818, p. 2, suggests a procession of at least 5,000 people; see also, ‘State of the Disturbed Districts’,
Morning Post, 2 August 1819, p. 2.
[6] ‘State of the Disturbed Districts’,
Morning Post, 4 August 1819, p. 2.
[7] Peterloo Massacre containing A Faithful Narrative of the Events, which preceded, accompanied and followed the fatal Sixteenth of August 1819….Edited by an Observer, 3rd ed., (James Wroe), 1819 Ibid, Bamford, Samuel,
Passages in The Life of A Radical, Vol. 1, pp. 176-226, remains a central, if written in retrospect, narrative of events on 16 August 1819. Bruton, Francis Archibald,
Three Accounts of Peterloo and The Story of Peterloo, (The University Press, Manchester), 1921, prints eye-witness accounts by Rev Edward Stanley later Bishop of Norwich and written in 1821, Sir William Jolliffe, first Baron Hylton and a Lieutenant in the 15th Hussars first published in 1847, and John Benjamin Smith, businessman and strong advocate of Free Trade, probably written in the decade before his death in 1879 and strikingly corroborative of Bamford’s account.
[8] ‘Manchester Meeting’,
Morning Advertiser, 5 August 1819, pp. 2, 4.
[9] Navickas, Katrina,
Protest and the Politics of Space and Place, 1789-1848, (Manchester University Press), 2016, p. 82
[10] The military presence consisted of 600 men of the 15th Hussars, several hundred infantry, a Royal Horse Artillery unit with two six-pounder cannons, 400 men of the Cheshire Yeomanry, 400 Special Constables and 120 cavalry of the relatively inexperienced Manchester and Salford Yeomanry. The Manchester and Salford Yeomanry was largely made up of local merchants, manufacturers, publicans and shopkeepers, all rabid opponents of the radical movement.
[11] Ibid, Bush, M. L.,
The Casualties of Peterloo, p. 19.
[12] Detailed accounts of the meeting included those u ‘Manchester Reform Meeting’,
Leeds Mercury, 21 August 1819, p. 3 ‘The Manchester Meeting’,
Morning Post, 19 August 1819, p. 2, ‘The Manchester Meeting and its Dispersion by Force of Arms’,
Liverpool Mercury, 20 August 1819, pp. 7, 8,
[13] Ibid, Bush, M. L.,
The Casualties of Peterloo, pp. 30-31.
[14] Demson, Michael, and Hewitt, Regina, (eds.),
Commemorating Peterloo: Violence, Resilience and Claim-Making during th Romantic Era, (Edinburgh University Press), 2019, Morgan, Alison,
Ballads and Songs of Peterloo, (Manchester University Press), 2018.
[15] The Trial of Henry Hunt, Esq, John Knight, Joseph Johnson and others for Conspiracy, (W. Molineux), 1820.
[16] Hansard, House of Commons
, Debates, 29 November 1819. Vol. 41, cc357-370, detailed the presentation of the Manchester petition.
[17] Cookson, J. E.,
Lord Liverpool’s Administration, 1815-1822, (Scottish Academic Press), 1975, pp. 178-199, Mitchell, Austin,
The Whigs in Opposition, 1815-1830, (Oxford University Press), 1967, pp. 125-137.
[18] ‘Bishop Stanley’s evidence at the trial in 1822’, in ibid, Bruton, Francis Archibald,
Three Accounts of Peterloo and The Story of Peterloo, pp. 25-38.
[19] Hansard,
House of Lords, Debates, 23 November 1819, Vol. 41, cc1-3.[20] Hansard, House of Commons, Debates, 2 December 1819, Vol. 41, cc594-678.
Hansard, House of Lords, Debates, 2 December 1819, Vol. 41, cc578-594,
Hansard, House of Commons, Debates, 6 December 1819, Vol. 41, cc757-804,
Hansard, House of Commons, Debates, 7 December 1819, Vol. 41, cc816-851,
Hansard, House of Commons, Debates, 8 December 1819, Vol. 41, cc863-878.
[21] Hansard, House of Lords, Debates, 6 December 1819, Vol. 41, cc706-755,
Hansard, House of Lords, Debates, 10 December 1819, Vol. 41, cc977-989.
[22] Gardner, John,
Poetry and Popular Protest: Peterloo, Cato Street and the Queen Caroline Controversy, (Palgrave Macmillan), 2011, pp. 11-102, examines the cultural response to Peterloo by Samuel Bamford, William Hone and Shelley.
[23] Smith, E. A.,
Whig Principles and Party Politics: Earl Fitzwilliam and the Whig Party, 1748-1833, (Manchester University Press), 1975, pp. 347-353. See also, Barber, Brian, ‘William Wrightson, the Yorkshire Whigs and the York ‘Peterloo’ Protest Meeting of 1819’,
Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, Vol. 83, (2011), pp. 164-174. See also the debate on the state of the country,
Hansard,
House of Commons, Debates, 30 November 1819, Vol. 41, cc517-569.[24] Hansard,
House of Commons, Debates, 18 February 1820, Vol. 41, cc1612-1614, Hansard,
House of Commons, Debates, 28 April 1820, Vol. 1, c39, Hansard,
House of Commons, Debates, 9 May 1820, Vol. 1, cc237-241, Hansard,
House of Commons, Debates, 19 May 1820, Vol. 1, cc480-520, Hansard,
House of Commons, Debates, 5 June 1820, Vol. 1, cc863-868, Hansard,
House of Commons, Debates, 12 February 1821, Vol. 4, cc583-606, Hansard,
House of Commons, Debates, 2 March 1821, Vol. 4, cc1068-1076, Hansard,
House of Commons, Debates, 5 March 1821, Vol. 4, cc1077-1078, Hansard,
House of Lords, Debates, 11 April 1821, Vol. 5, cc151-153, Hansard,
House of Lords, Debates, 10 May 1821, Vol. 5, cc626-633, Hansard,
House of Lords, Debates, 14 May 1821, Vol. 5, cc693-698, Hansard,
House of Lords, Debates, 21 May 1821, Vol. 5, cc853-858, Hansard,
House of Lords, Debates, 24 May 1821, Vol. 5, cc973-974, Hansard,
House of Commons, Debates, 30 May 1821, Vol. 5, cc1043-1046.