Beyond Peterloo
Beyond Peterloo
How the Peterloo Massacre devastated one Manchester district
As the radical reformer Samuel Bamford led the marchers from Middleton towards Manchester on 16 August 1819, he suddenly called out “left shoulders forward”.
He wheeled the great mass of people wearing sprigs of laurel in their hats off the high road through Collyhurst and down the low hollow that follows the River Irk.
There, hidden from the soldiers guarding the toll bar above, they slipped into town through Angel Meadow past a few rows of houses known as Newtown, where they came upon a welcoming party of poor Irish weavers.
Bamford later wrote how the weavers came out of their homes in their best clothes and offered blessings to the marchers as they passed.
“Some of them danced, and others stood with clasped hands and tearful eyes” as a band played a tune called St Patrick’s Day in the Morning, he wrote.
“They were electrified, and we passed on, leaving those warm-hearted suburbans capering and whooping like mad.”
The marchers moved on, squeezing through the narrow gap below St Michael’s Church and continued on their fateful journey across Manchester hailed by cheers.
Bamford, though, missed something in his haste to get to their destination at St Peter’s Fields.
The Irish weavers were not left behind capering about like happy fools but joined the back of the march — joyful and full of hope at the day’s events but also determined to have their voices heard.
Samuel Morton, an eye witness, later described how “many thousands of people” followed the procession that day, marching six abreast “like soldiers” and it took them nearly half an hour to pass through the gap below the church.
Finally, they were through and heading up Miller Street (then known as Miller’s Lane) and along Swan Street before taking a right turn into Oldham Street.
And then silence fell on the now empty streets of Newtown — the doors of the homes standing open.
The Irish weavers’ loved ones waited anxiously for them to return home. Hot dinners would have gone cold and uneaten. Would pet dogs have watched the road for their masters?
Everyone knows what happened next at St Peter’s Fields exactly 205 years ago today.
More than a dozen people died and hundreds were injured during what became known as the Peterloo Massacre when the marchers’ peaceful protest calling for political reform was cut down by the cavalry.
But what happened to those men and women from Newtown and Angel Meadow who joined the march that day.
Their names can be found in the Peterloo casualty lists, which tell a horrific story of the impact the massacre had on one small Manchester community.
They included John Bell, who lived at 12 Flag Row with his family.
Aged just 20 and working as a weaver, John was thrown down by the cavalry horses and trampled.
He was left spitting blood after his chest was crushed and spent five weeks as an out patient of Manchester Infirmary.
Robert Carbut, of 7 Dixon Street, suffered a sabre slash on his arm after being cornered by two groups of yeomen.
Unable to work for a month due to the severity of the wound, he received £1 in relief.
Dennis Coil, aged 40, of 9 Dimity Street, was crushed by the trampling horses. His leg was “still bad” after being treated for 11 weeks.
Mary Evans, who lived close to the church in Style Street was stabbed with a bayonet in the back part of her thigh by a soldier from the 88th Regiment.
She had been with her niece, whose escaped injury despite another bayonet piercing her clothes.
Their neighbour Jane Hulme suffered a badly bruised shoulder, back and hips, while another neighbour, Charles Harper, 20, had a sable cut on his left hand.
James McConnell, 50, from 14 Portland Street in Newtown, could not dress himself for a month after he was thrown into a cellar and had his pelvis crushed.
Mary McKenna and James Mason both had head wounds, Patrick Reynolds was badly burned after he was driven into a lime pit, and William Schofield, an “elderly, respectable man” was lucky to be alive after being being scarred by a sabre wound on his hair line.
Owen McCabe was among the most badly injured that day.
The 62-year-old weaver from Old Mount Street was left with what was described as a “dreadful wound” on his hip after he was trampled by the horses, leaving him walking permanently on crutches.
His ribs were crushed in on one side and out on the other.
The community of weavers along that low road beside the River Irk never properly recovered in the aftermath of Peterloo.
Life in Angel Meadow and Newtown deteriorated in the 1820s as an economic depression hit Britain following the end of the Napoleonic Wars.
Survivors of the Peterloo Massacre were among weavers in Angel Meadow and Newtown who were so poor they were forced to resort to begging.
Five “miserable looking” weavers were hauled before magistrates but later discharged after they promised never to beg again.
A doctor named James Phillips Kay later wrote about the “squalid and loathsome wretchedness” of “that mass of cottages filling the insalubrious valley through which the Irk flows”.
The inhabitants were “ill-fed and ill-clothed” he said, adding that they had an “animal appetite”.
Friedrich Engels, who visited the old Irish weavers’ homes in Newtown the 1840s, found colonies of pigs in the yards behind the now “damp and unclean” houses.
“The mud in the streets is so deep that there is never a chance, except in the driest weather of walking without sinking into it ankle deep at every step,” Engels wrote.
The joy and hope felt by the poor Irish weavers who came out of their homes in their best clothes on that sunny August morning in 1819 had long gone.
Peterloo Remembered
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The old houses in Newtown have long since been demolished and few people passing on the low road by the River Irk would know that the spot near the bottom of Gould Street in Angel Meadow used to have its own name and distinct identity.
Newtown was also known as Irish Town and Irk Town.
During one of my recent tours of Angel Meadow, I was lucky to meet a Peterloo descendant who told me that the story of that fateful day had been passed down through their family.
It’s remarkable to think that a single event that happened more than 200 years ago had such an impact that it has been talked about by generation after generation.
But it is also completely unsurprising given how Peterloo been burned into the collective consciousness of the city.
Did you have a Peterloo ancestor? If you did, I’d love to hear from you.
Please feel free to share your story in the comments below or email me at dean@mancunianhistorian.uk.
Take care and have a peaceful weekend.
Lived in Manchester from 84/89 as student and hold city and its people in fond regards. First band I ever saw in Manc in autumn 84 was on the Old Free Trade Hall. I had my undergraduate ceremony in same place 3 years later. Posh hotel now. Did have very nice breakfast recently in cafe opposite earlier this summer. Always think of those 1000s of poor people on that day as they realised the Cavalry was coming. Must have been utter chaos and terrifying. I alwayszliked the radical independent vibe about Manchester too. Its own self identity and sense of who it is. A precious thing. I'll be back up north in December for a pint.
So powerfully written, Dean, thank you. What a compelling reminder of the importance of passing down our lived memories. 😢 I remember reading Engles in college and the stories he told stayed with me. Someday I'd love to get your Angel Meadows tour.