Peterloo - Liberty or Death

199 years ago, working-class people in Manchester and other industrial towns in the north of England were becoming increasingly vocal in their demands for political reform. They were angry about the fact that most of the population could not vote, that corruption was rife, and that urban areas were grossly underrepresented in Parliament.

50-60,000 people arrived at St Peter's Fields on 16 August 1819 to hear radical speaker Henry Hunt campaign for parliamentary reform. The Manchester Yeomanry was sent in to prevent any disturbances. When Hunt began to speak the army tried to arrest him, and attacked anybody who got in its way. The troop of sabre-wielding cavalrymen charged into a huge workers' rights protest in Manchester. At least 11 people were killed and 400 injured.  Estimates of the final death toll vary widely and the true number will never be known. 

Among those on the receiving end of the cavalry charge was Mary Heys, who was pregnant with her sixth child. Heys was one of the massacre's "forgotten victims". She was trampled by a horse. The day after Heys was injured, she began having fits. Four months later she gave birth to a premature baby, Henry. Mary died just before Christmas - because she didn't die straight away, she wasn't counted among the dead.

The events were dubbed Peterloo, an ironic reference to the Battle of Waterloo that had taken place four years previously.

William Hulton was the magistrate who gave the order for troops to violently disperse the peaceful, pro-democracy protest. Hulton was born into a family of wealthy landowners. Seven years before Peterloo, as a justice of the peace, Hulton had already sentenced four Luddites to death for setting fire to a weaving mill in Westhoughton, near Bolton. One of those hanged was a 12-year-old boy.

The carnage that followed is the subject of Peterloo, Mike Leigh's new film starring Maxine Peake. The film, which goes on general release on 2 November.