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 gu…
