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Peterloo: The English Uprising
On 16 August, 1819, at St Peter's Field, Manchester, armed cavalry attacked a peaceful rally of some 50,000 pro-democracy reformers. Under the eyes of the national press, 18 people were killed and some 700 injured, many of them by sabres, many of them women, some of them children.
The 'Peterloo massacre', the subject of a recent feature film and a major commemoration in 2019, is famous as the central episode in Edward Thompson's Making of the English Working Class. It also marked the rise of a new English radical populism as the British state, recently victorious at Waterloo, was challenged by a pro-democracy movement centred on the industrial north.
Why did the cavalry attack? Who ordered them in? What was the radical strategy? Why were there women on the platform, and why were they so ferociously attacked? Using an immense range of sources, and many new maps and illustrations, Robert Poole tells for the first time the full extraordinary story of Peterloo: the English Uprising.
The 'Peterloo massacre', the subject of a recent feature film and a major commemoration in 2019, is famous as the central episode in Edward Thompson's Making of the English Working Class. It also marked the rise of a new English radical populism as the British state, recently victorious at Waterloo, was challenged by a pro-democracy movement centred on the industrial north.
Why did the cavalry attack? Who ordered them in? What was the radical strategy? Why were there women on the platform, and why were they so ferociously attacked? Using an immense range of sources, and many new maps and illustrations, Robert Poole tells for the first time the full extraordinary story of Peterloo: the English Uprising.
- GenresHistory
480 pages, Hardcover
First published September 11, 2019
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66 people want to read
About the author
Robert Poole
8 books2 followersRobert Poole (born 1957) is a UK-based historian, currently Professor of History at the University of Central Lancashire, Preston.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_...
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There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
August 20, 2019
During the massacre of peaceful protesters by cavalry and yeomanry at St. Peter's fields in Manchester on August 16 1819, several cavalrymen answered cries for mercy with the chilling response:
"If we let you go, you will come again some other time."
It's a telling comment that neatly sums up the reasons behind what became known as the Peterloo massacre. Peterloo was, in the words of EP Thompson, "class war", and it was the culmination of an extended period of class conflict that raged across England, but was particularly focused in the north-west. Some people have been sceptical about the title of Robert Poole's new book because "Uprising" implies for them a insurrectionist revolutionary moment. But what Poole shows very clearly is that this was a period of mass working class discontent and the ruling class responded in the most brutal fashion.
Full review on the blog: https://resolutereader.blogspot.com/2...
"If we let you go, you will come again some other time."
It's a telling comment that neatly sums up the reasons behind what became known as the Peterloo massacre. Peterloo was, in the words of EP Thompson, "class war", and it was the culmination of an extended period of class conflict that raged across England, but was particularly focused in the north-west. Some people have been sceptical about the title of Robert Poole's new book because "Uprising" implies for them a insurrectionist revolutionary moment. But what Poole shows very clearly is that this was a period of mass working class discontent and the ruling class responded in the most brutal fashion.
Full review on the blog: https://resolutereader.blogspot.com/2...
October 25, 2019
A milestone on the road to democracy...
Two hundred years ago, on 16th August, 1819, a huge rally of some 50,000 people gathered in St Peter’s Field in Manchester, to demand greater representation in Parliament. Although the demonstrators were peaceful and unarmed, they were charged by the cavalry and local Yeomanry, riding through the crowd with sabres drawn. Many hundreds were injured and eighteen were killed, either from crush injuries or from sabre wounds. Known as Peterloo, this incident is embedded in the national consciousness as a tragic milestone on the long, long road to democracy.
Robert Poole is Professor of History at the University of Central Lancashire. He suggests that 1819 should be seen in the context of the end of the long 18th century following the Glorious Revolution, as much as the beginning of the reforming 19th century. The Napoleonic Wars had ended at last, but for the handloom weavers and mill-workers in and around Manchester, peace brought no dividend. The huge national debt had led to high taxation, usually indirect which then as now hit the poor disproportionately. Wealth inequality, already major, was growing. Government policies such as the Corn Laws favoured landowners and voters (a tiny number of the wealthy) rather than workers. Wages, already low, were falling still further. Starvation was an actuality even for people working long hours in appalling conditions.
Poole concentrates most of the book on the period between the end of the Napoleonic Wars (1815) and 1819, with the focus on what led up to the massacre more than on its aftermath. He gives a detailed account of the conditions of the workers, the prevailing economic circumstances, the political environment, and the effect of recent upheavals in France on the establishment’s fear of bloody revolution. The book is clearly the result of immense research, pulled together into a very readable narrative that is accessible to the non-historian without in any way over-simplifying the content. There are maps of the area, and a generous helping of illustrations throughout, which aid in understanding how events were perceived at the time. Although it’s clear Poole is on the “side” of the reformers (who in today’s Britain would disagree with that position?), he nevertheless casts an objective eye on why the authorities behaved as they did, condemning where appropriate, but showing some understanding of the pressures they felt themselves under too. He also shows that, although there was no violence on that day from the reformers’ side, there had been violent incidents before, and it was known that the marchers had been being drilled by ex-soldiers, leading the authorities to fear an armed uprising. Overall I felt that Poole gave as even-handed an account of the background as possible, while not in any way minimising or excusing the atrocity that occurred.
Along the way, we learn a lot about the leaders of the Reform movement and their aims, not always uniform. Poole also tells us about the many spies embedded in the movement, reporting every word and action back to the Home Office. We are told about the Government’s use of political power to make it almost impossible for people to protest legally, and about the abuses of the legal system, such as the suspension of habeas corpus, to allow those perceived as ringleaders to be kept in jail for long periods often without trial. Poole tells us about the women who joined the reform movement, not at this early stage demanding votes for themselves, but in support of their men. Despite all the attempts to threaten, bully or otherwise silence them, the people marched, and marched again, and the authorities, local and national, unwilling, perhaps unable, to give in to their demands, felt they had to do something to restore order.
As a casual reader, I found the middle section of the book, where Poole describes the many marches and protests prior to the day of Peterloo, harder to plough through, although this is more a criticism of me than the book. For students, historians or people who like an in-depth approach, then the level of detail Poole provides will be appreciated. However, I found the long first section on the political, social and economic background fascinating and written with great clarity, while the description of the event itself at the end is excellent – a clear and balanced account, and by that stage Poole has ensured the reader understands all the various elements that came together to clash so tragically on St Peter’s Field.
Poole concludes by examining the numbers of dead and injured, explaining the sources historians have used for determining these figures. He discusses the trials and imprisonments that followed. He takes a very interesting look at the reporting of the day and how public opinion was changed by a few journalists offering eyewitness accounts. He then sets this event as a link in the chain of the longer reform movement, later leading to the 1832 Reform Act and on towards Chartism and eventual achievement of universal manhood suffrage, where every vote counted equally. He compares (as I did while reading) the period 1817/19 to today’s Britain (and I’d add America and several European nations, not omitting the EU itself), with populism rising as a response to an elite who don’t listen to the concerns of the people, or who discount the legitimacy of any democratic vote with which they disagree. I also found myself comparing these events to the ongoing Hong Kong protests, with a chilling sense of foreboding.
I was taught about Peterloo by an inspirational history teacher at school and it helped form my long-held opinion that if democracy is to survive, then democracy itself must be accepted by all as more important than any one political issue or partisan affiliation. Democracy is a fragile thing, and this book is an excellent reminder of how hard-fought the battle was to win it. I highly recommend it.
NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, Oxford University Press.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
Two hundred years ago, on 16th August, 1819, a huge rally of some 50,000 people gathered in St Peter’s Field in Manchester, to demand greater representation in Parliament. Although the demonstrators were peaceful and unarmed, they were charged by the cavalry and local Yeomanry, riding through the crowd with sabres drawn. Many hundreds were injured and eighteen were killed, either from crush injuries or from sabre wounds. Known as Peterloo, this incident is embedded in the national consciousness as a tragic milestone on the long, long road to democracy.
Robert Poole is Professor of History at the University of Central Lancashire. He suggests that 1819 should be seen in the context of the end of the long 18th century following the Glorious Revolution, as much as the beginning of the reforming 19th century. The Napoleonic Wars had ended at last, but for the handloom weavers and mill-workers in and around Manchester, peace brought no dividend. The huge national debt had led to high taxation, usually indirect which then as now hit the poor disproportionately. Wealth inequality, already major, was growing. Government policies such as the Corn Laws favoured landowners and voters (a tiny number of the wealthy) rather than workers. Wages, already low, were falling still further. Starvation was an actuality even for people working long hours in appalling conditions.
Poole concentrates most of the book on the period between the end of the Napoleonic Wars (1815) and 1819, with the focus on what led up to the massacre more than on its aftermath. He gives a detailed account of the conditions of the workers, the prevailing economic circumstances, the political environment, and the effect of recent upheavals in France on the establishment’s fear of bloody revolution. The book is clearly the result of immense research, pulled together into a very readable narrative that is accessible to the non-historian without in any way over-simplifying the content. There are maps of the area, and a generous helping of illustrations throughout, which aid in understanding how events were perceived at the time. Although it’s clear Poole is on the “side” of the reformers (who in today’s Britain would disagree with that position?), he nevertheless casts an objective eye on why the authorities behaved as they did, condemning where appropriate, but showing some understanding of the pressures they felt themselves under too. He also shows that, although there was no violence on that day from the reformers’ side, there had been violent incidents before, and it was known that the marchers had been being drilled by ex-soldiers, leading the authorities to fear an armed uprising. Overall I felt that Poole gave as even-handed an account of the background as possible, while not in any way minimising or excusing the atrocity that occurred.
Along the way, we learn a lot about the leaders of the Reform movement and their aims, not always uniform. Poole also tells us about the many spies embedded in the movement, reporting every word and action back to the Home Office. We are told about the Government’s use of political power to make it almost impossible for people to protest legally, and about the abuses of the legal system, such as the suspension of habeas corpus, to allow those perceived as ringleaders to be kept in jail for long periods often without trial. Poole tells us about the women who joined the reform movement, not at this early stage demanding votes for themselves, but in support of their men. Despite all the attempts to threaten, bully or otherwise silence them, the people marched, and marched again, and the authorities, local and national, unwilling, perhaps unable, to give in to their demands, felt they had to do something to restore order.
As a casual reader, I found the middle section of the book, where Poole describes the many marches and protests prior to the day of Peterloo, harder to plough through, although this is more a criticism of me than the book. For students, historians or people who like an in-depth approach, then the level of detail Poole provides will be appreciated. However, I found the long first section on the political, social and economic background fascinating and written with great clarity, while the description of the event itself at the end is excellent – a clear and balanced account, and by that stage Poole has ensured the reader understands all the various elements that came together to clash so tragically on St Peter’s Field.
Poole concludes by examining the numbers of dead and injured, explaining the sources historians have used for determining these figures. He discusses the trials and imprisonments that followed. He takes a very interesting look at the reporting of the day and how public opinion was changed by a few journalists offering eyewitness accounts. He then sets this event as a link in the chain of the longer reform movement, later leading to the 1832 Reform Act and on towards Chartism and eventual achievement of universal manhood suffrage, where every vote counted equally. He compares (as I did while reading) the period 1817/19 to today’s Britain (and I’d add America and several European nations, not omitting the EU itself), with populism rising as a response to an elite who don’t listen to the concerns of the people, or who discount the legitimacy of any democratic vote with which they disagree. I also found myself comparing these events to the ongoing Hong Kong protests, with a chilling sense of foreboding.
I was taught about Peterloo by an inspirational history teacher at school and it helped form my long-held opinion that if democracy is to survive, then democracy itself must be accepted by all as more important than any one political issue or partisan affiliation. Democracy is a fragile thing, and this book is an excellent reminder of how hard-fought the battle was to win it. I highly recommend it.
NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, Oxford University Press.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
August 5, 2019
With the 200th anniversary of Peterloo being commemorated on 16th August 2019 and with the whole of Manchester and the north-west of England alert to the "Battle of St Peter's Field" as a result of many activities, including a world-renowned film (Mike Leigh's excellent "Peterloo"), the story of Peterloo needed to be told energetically, factually, elegantly and professionally. Robert Poole has carried off this task perfectly.
His story is told from an independent position, but no one can help but see the resultant 'battle' (it was really a peaceful demonstration by 40,000 working people that was disrupted by Yeomanry and Hussars) as one of class warfare. That England in 1819 was a nation ruled by the few was amplified by the municipality of Manchester that was riven by corruption of all sorts so that very few people mattered.
Nonetheless, the battle was not one of capitalists vs workers in what may be seen, nowadays, as a traditional socialist viewpoint. Indeed, it was not a battle. Impoverishment amongst the working class was everywhere and the traditional weavers (most of who did not work in the cotton mills that were springing up as Robert Poole shows) had set about ways to increase their earnings. Universal suffrage was seen as a way to gain influence over a recalcitrant Parliament, but the authorities saw any gathering as likely to lead to insurrection. Add to this the poverty of understanding by the various local magistrates about how to read the Riot Act (so as to disperse such rallies, giving an hour's notice) and the lack of training or sensibilities of the Yeomanry (sets of local militia, loyalists that thought themselves above the law) and the tragedy that unfolded was almost guaranteed.
"Peterloo: the English Uprising" is told in good detail but is full of anecdotes and the words of the people of the time so that a reader is transported back. One feels the tragedy of the people forced to march in their thousands to try to obtain a minimum of rights that might lead to full stomachs. Even the fact that they decided to march (and were trained in marching so as not to appear as a rabble) was held against them as magistrates thought they were training as soldiers. Every attempt to appear sensible was counter-productive.
Many have already commented that this is the 'definitive' book on Peterloo and I would not desist from that observation. However, it is much more than that. This book is a highly readable story of a fight for human rights. Anyone watching the nightly scenes from Hong Kong in 2019 witnesses the cries of many against the overbearing state - China. Their fight is the toughest: a fight for human rights against a state determined to keep them in their place. This is so similar to the fight of those who marched to St Peter's Field on 16th August 1819, 200 years ago. The state was fixed in its determination to countenance no rebellion, harsh in its tone, backed by most newspapers and public opinion (of those that the state cared about). Thousands dared to object. They were unfailingly proper in their actions, for this was no rebellion, merely people coming to hear Henry 'Orator' Hunt talk to them about Poor Laws and Universal Suffrage. They were set upon in order to crush any such talk, just like the video that the Chinese authorities have recently publicised to show how they could do the same in Hong Kong.
This is an excellent book, worth reading by anyone remotely interested in the fight for human rights, in how ordinary people, deprived of basics will, eventually, assert themselves. While it took another thirteen years for any changes to occur in parliamentary representation in England (the Reform Act of 1832) and then only to give the industrial middle class a share of the vote, Peterloo ranks as a key moment in our history, one that should never be forgotten and from which our circumstances ripple to this day.
His story is told from an independent position, but no one can help but see the resultant 'battle' (it was really a peaceful demonstration by 40,000 working people that was disrupted by Yeomanry and Hussars) as one of class warfare. That England in 1819 was a nation ruled by the few was amplified by the municipality of Manchester that was riven by corruption of all sorts so that very few people mattered.
Nonetheless, the battle was not one of capitalists vs workers in what may be seen, nowadays, as a traditional socialist viewpoint. Indeed, it was not a battle. Impoverishment amongst the working class was everywhere and the traditional weavers (most of who did not work in the cotton mills that were springing up as Robert Poole shows) had set about ways to increase their earnings. Universal suffrage was seen as a way to gain influence over a recalcitrant Parliament, but the authorities saw any gathering as likely to lead to insurrection. Add to this the poverty of understanding by the various local magistrates about how to read the Riot Act (so as to disperse such rallies, giving an hour's notice) and the lack of training or sensibilities of the Yeomanry (sets of local militia, loyalists that thought themselves above the law) and the tragedy that unfolded was almost guaranteed.
"Peterloo: the English Uprising" is told in good detail but is full of anecdotes and the words of the people of the time so that a reader is transported back. One feels the tragedy of the people forced to march in their thousands to try to obtain a minimum of rights that might lead to full stomachs. Even the fact that they decided to march (and were trained in marching so as not to appear as a rabble) was held against them as magistrates thought they were training as soldiers. Every attempt to appear sensible was counter-productive.
Many have already commented that this is the 'definitive' book on Peterloo and I would not desist from that observation. However, it is much more than that. This book is a highly readable story of a fight for human rights. Anyone watching the nightly scenes from Hong Kong in 2019 witnesses the cries of many against the overbearing state - China. Their fight is the toughest: a fight for human rights against a state determined to keep them in their place. This is so similar to the fight of those who marched to St Peter's Field on 16th August 1819, 200 years ago. The state was fixed in its determination to countenance no rebellion, harsh in its tone, backed by most newspapers and public opinion (of those that the state cared about). Thousands dared to object. They were unfailingly proper in their actions, for this was no rebellion, merely people coming to hear Henry 'Orator' Hunt talk to them about Poor Laws and Universal Suffrage. They were set upon in order to crush any such talk, just like the video that the Chinese authorities have recently publicised to show how they could do the same in Hong Kong.
This is an excellent book, worth reading by anyone remotely interested in the fight for human rights, in how ordinary people, deprived of basics will, eventually, assert themselves. While it took another thirteen years for any changes to occur in parliamentary representation in England (the Reform Act of 1832) and then only to give the industrial middle class a share of the vote, Peterloo ranks as a key moment in our history, one that should never be forgotten and from which our circumstances ripple to this day.
February 29, 2020
There are many “Loo” books out there now, but for a long time this was a buried event to all but specialists in English history. The British media, always ready for new story and film about Russian revolutions or French terrors, has offered little exposure to the massacre of St. Peter’s Field in August, 1819. And with good reason: Peterloo shows there’s no great gap between the West and the rest as fondly imagined. There have been books on the Russian Bloody Sunday of 1905; Soweto in South Africa, 1960; Tien An Minh in 1989. But to hint that “the democracies” have blood on their constitutional history has long remained an untouchable corner of Orwell’s memory hole.
Robert Poole’s treatment will remain one of the best. The massacre itself is seen as the culmination of a reform process trampled in cold blood, leaving “the rights of Englishmen” a dead letter like the American Civil Rights Act of 1866. There was no terrorism in Manchester suppressed by the forces of law and order, unless one considers protest of arbitrary police power a threat to national security. Although Poole ends his narrative on an optimistic note - that the forces of British political justice triumphed non-violently piece by piece, decade by decade - there is still much room for caution. When a state already believes it’s as free as it needs to be, and its people already have all the rights they’re entitled, any questioning becomes treason. Hence J. Edgar Hoover’s belief M. L. King was a “notorious liar.” Hence “community policing” spawning “Black Lives Matter.”
Best read not as ancient history, but a possible harbinger of the future as oligarchy bankrolls the judicial clock backward in search of “original intentions.”
Robert Poole’s treatment will remain one of the best. The massacre itself is seen as the culmination of a reform process trampled in cold blood, leaving “the rights of Englishmen” a dead letter like the American Civil Rights Act of 1866. There was no terrorism in Manchester suppressed by the forces of law and order, unless one considers protest of arbitrary police power a threat to national security. Although Poole ends his narrative on an optimistic note - that the forces of British political justice triumphed non-violently piece by piece, decade by decade - there is still much room for caution. When a state already believes it’s as free as it needs to be, and its people already have all the rights they’re entitled, any questioning becomes treason. Hence J. Edgar Hoover’s belief M. L. King was a “notorious liar.” Hence “community policing” spawning “Black Lives Matter.”
Best read not as ancient history, but a possible harbinger of the future as oligarchy bankrolls the judicial clock backward in search of “original intentions.”
April 8, 2024
It is still possible, Robert Poole begins his excellent book, to get angry about Peterloo. Although small beer by continental comparisons (10s of thousands were killed in the French 1572 St Bartholomew's Day Massacre and well over a thousand in the French Revolution's prison killing spree), Peterloo remains infamous in British history because it was comparatively unusual. Riots were not uncommon, even significant bloodshed (Poole points out that some 300 were killed in the 1831 Bristol riots), but Peterloo was an attack by armed militia on peaceful protestors, something thankfully not common in British history.
Poole takes us through a detailed study of the lead up to the fateful day of 16th August 1819, taking us over the well-trodden path of British electoral quirks and the intense poverty and deprivation caused by a combination of industrialisation and the ending of the Napoleonic wars. One statistic that I hadn't heard before was that in 1711 approximately 25% of adult males had the vote in Britain - a percentage that was not even exceeded by the much vaunted 1832 Great Reform Act. Britain had become steadily less "democratic" in the century after the 1689 Glorious Revolution.
Poole sees early nineteenth century Britain as a society caught between a mantra of free trade (advantageous to Britain) and authoritarian rule, a combination particularly inimitable to the hand loom weavers and mill workers of the industrial cities of the north like Manchester. This was also a society that was struggling to understand what rule by law meant, and how that rule might be appropriately enforced. Poole is very good on the attempts by Henry Hunt to keep the Manchester meeting within the bounds of legality, even as the magistrates and authorities sought to find reasons to declare it illegal. Ultimately a carte blanche, deliberately ambiguous, instruction from the home secretary to the Manchester magistrates enabled a poorly trained and "heated up" yeomanry to charge the crowd with sabres drawn. Poole does not think that the yeomanry (for the most part) intended to kill. If they had then the casualty list would have been so much higher, but in clumsily trying to use the flat edge of the sabre they inflicted horrifying wounds.
Poole's description of the day itself, aided by very detailed eye witness reports is compelling. Perhaps there could have been a little bit more on the pressures and psychology afflicting the hapless authorities, although there could be no excuse or justification for what happened. A very good and readable book, made all the more so by the sense that the same forces of ignorance, prejudice and vested interests are not yet vanquished from 21st century Britain. The quote by an unnamed bystander that those out of work and on poor relief really ought to just go and find jobs still characterises much of modern conservative attitudes. Mass protests are better policed now but some of the language from the governing party at times suggests a more forceful attitude would not be unwelcome.
Poole takes us through a detailed study of the lead up to the fateful day of 16th August 1819, taking us over the well-trodden path of British electoral quirks and the intense poverty and deprivation caused by a combination of industrialisation and the ending of the Napoleonic wars. One statistic that I hadn't heard before was that in 1711 approximately 25% of adult males had the vote in Britain - a percentage that was not even exceeded by the much vaunted 1832 Great Reform Act. Britain had become steadily less "democratic" in the century after the 1689 Glorious Revolution.
Poole sees early nineteenth century Britain as a society caught between a mantra of free trade (advantageous to Britain) and authoritarian rule, a combination particularly inimitable to the hand loom weavers and mill workers of the industrial cities of the north like Manchester. This was also a society that was struggling to understand what rule by law meant, and how that rule might be appropriately enforced. Poole is very good on the attempts by Henry Hunt to keep the Manchester meeting within the bounds of legality, even as the magistrates and authorities sought to find reasons to declare it illegal. Ultimately a carte blanche, deliberately ambiguous, instruction from the home secretary to the Manchester magistrates enabled a poorly trained and "heated up" yeomanry to charge the crowd with sabres drawn. Poole does not think that the yeomanry (for the most part) intended to kill. If they had then the casualty list would have been so much higher, but in clumsily trying to use the flat edge of the sabre they inflicted horrifying wounds.
Poole's description of the day itself, aided by very detailed eye witness reports is compelling. Perhaps there could have been a little bit more on the pressures and psychology afflicting the hapless authorities, although there could be no excuse or justification for what happened. A very good and readable book, made all the more so by the sense that the same forces of ignorance, prejudice and vested interests are not yet vanquished from 21st century Britain. The quote by an unnamed bystander that those out of work and on poor relief really ought to just go and find jobs still characterises much of modern conservative attitudes. Mass protests are better policed now but some of the language from the governing party at times suggests a more forceful attitude would not be unwelcome.
October 29, 2024
One of the best social history books I've read for a long time. Poole set out to explain why the events in St Peter's Field were so confrontational and violent. In doing so, he takes you deep into the political and social divisions in the north-west of England: you realise what a strange place it must have been. He also brings out well the role of the state and the impact of the Napoleonic Wars. There are lots of clichés out there about English radicalism and Manchester, but this book is genuinely original and moving.
March 1, 2023
The initial 200+ pages setting the context of the reform movement were a bit of a slog, lots of names and quotes.
So the last 100 pages covering events of the day and aftermath seem really quite brief.
Fascinating details and insight.
So the last 100 pages covering events of the day and aftermath seem really quite brief.
Fascinating details and insight.
August 20, 2020
A mammoth read pulling together first-hand accounts and superb historical analysis. An immense narrative of the events at St Peter's Field on 16th August 1819.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews