Peterloo: A Lost Site and Contentious Memory

On a summer’s day in 1819, a crowd of some 60,000 descended on St. Peter’s Field in Manchester, England, to hear pro-democracy speakers. The reformers laid claim to rights, from political organization and suffrage to freedom of the press and the right of public meeting. In an effort to disperse the gathering, Crown cavalry charged the crowd with sabres drawn. The melee killed 15 people, injured 500 others, and shortly thereafter was dubbed the “Peterloo Massacre” after the Battle of Waterloo just four years prior. In his magisterial The Making of the English Working Class, E.P. Thompson wrote that “1819 was a rehearsal for 1832,” drawing a clear link from Peterloo to the Great Reform Act.

If seeking out the Peterloo site today, one needs some imagination. Within a generation of the event, the location looked entirely different, as the burgeoning industrial city engulfed the open field. Secondly, a small circular plaque on the side of a hotel offers the only reminder to passersby of the event. This paper considers two aspects of the Peterloo site. First, an examination of nineteenth-century maps illustrate how quickly urban development made the 1819 site hardly recognizable. The second part of this research considers Peterloo and commemoration. While various groups have sponsored numerous publications and anniversary celebrations, a lack of consensus has quashed attempts to place a major memorial at the site. The archives at the Working Class Movement Library and Manchester Public Library provided extensive materials for this project.