The Peterloo Massacre
On 16 August 1819, cavalry officers and local yeomanry forces in bright uniform and wielding sharpened sabres, charged into a motley crowd of approximately one hundred thousand men and women who had gathered on St. Peter’s Field in Manchester seeking parliamentary reform, causing death and injury. Quickly dubbed ‘Peterloo’ since Waterloo remained strongly in the nation’s memory it is still remembered today as one of the first ‘battles’ in the fight for universal franchise and better living conditions for the poor. However, it did not achieve its purpose. If anything, life for the disenfranchised poor was even harsher as the forces of law and Parliament clamped down even more.
In this excellent volume, first published in 1989 and re-published to commemorate its centenary next year, Robert Reid has excelled. He writes without emotion or blame, finds both fault and praise in equal measure on both sides of the divide, leaving the modern reader to draw his or her own conclusions. He also is good at painting clear biographical details of the main people involved. The event also draws parallels with current government obfuscation such as the Hillsborough disaster and the events at Orgreave during the miners’ strike of the early 1980s. This was Reid’s last book before he died in 1990.
