Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class. The production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, and welcome
Speaker 1: to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly
Speaker 1: fry Back. Its seventeen, which was not all that long ago, really.
Speaker 1: We did an episode on the Cato Street conspiracy that
Speaker 1: happened in eighteen twenty and it was a failed plot
Speaker 1: to assassinate the entire British Cabinet. In that episode, we
Speaker 1: very briefly mentioned the Peterloo massacre, which had happened in
Speaker 1: eighteen nineteen, so the year before that was part of
Speaker 1: the context for this whole conspiracy, and several folks back
Speaker 1: at that time let us know they were really excited
Speaker 1: to hear that. Peter Lou mentioned I've gotten a few
Speaker 1: listener requests for the massacre over the years as well,
Speaker 1: and this month is it's two anniversary, so it seemed
Speaker 1: like a good time to finally move it up to
Speaker 1: the top of the list. So the Peterloo Massacre took
Speaker 1: place during a peaceful protest for parliamentary reform in Manchester, Lancashire, England,
Speaker 1: and there was a lot feeding into why people in
Speaker 1: Britain and specifically in the region around Manchester thought that
Speaker 1: this reform was needed. The Napoleonic Wars in the War
Speaker 1: of eighteen twelve had both ended in eighteen fifteen, and
Speaker 1: people had hoped that would mean a period of common prosperity.
Speaker 1: But as has happened in so many topics that we've
Speaker 1: covered following other wars, it felt like the opposite was happening.
Speaker 1: The Napoleonic Wars had disrupted grain imports into Britain from
Speaker 1: the European continent, and this had worked out pretty well
Speaker 1: for Britain's large grain farmers. Because of the supply shortage,
Speaker 1: they could sell their corn and other grains for much
Speaker 1: higher prices than normal. But then as these wars were ending,
Speaker 1: prices started falling. People were going to have access to
Speaker 1: that imported grain again. Prices dropped almost fifty percent between
Speaker 1: eighteen thirteen and eighteen fifteen. So in eighteen fifteen Parliament
Speaker 1: passed a corn law which prohibited the import of various
Speaker 1: grains and held their prices for domestically grown crops rose
Speaker 1: up to a specific level, and that exact price depended
Speaker 1: on the type of grain that was being sold. This
Speaker 1: did contribute to price increases, but not as much as
Speaker 1: landowners had been hoping for. Still, the corn Law was
Speaker 1: obviously meant to protect the financial interests of wealthy planters
Speaker 1: and landowners. Ordinary working people, on the other hand, had
Speaker 1: been struggling to pay for grain and had welcomed the
Speaker 1: drop in price. In response to the passage of the
Speaker 1: corn Law, protests and food riots broke out all over Britain.
Speaker 1: Another issue was taxes. The British government had tried to
Speaker 1: pay for the wars with an assortment of taxes and duties.
Speaker 1: An income tax in particular had been passed in and
Speaker 1: it was supposed to be a temporary wartime measure. Annual
Speaker 1: incomes over two hundred pounds were taxed at ten percent,
Speaker 1: and incomes between sixty and two hundred pounds were taxed
Speaker 1: on a sliding scale from one percent to ten percent.
Speaker 1: A lot of working class people had an income of
Speaker 1: less than sixty pound the years, so they weren't being
Speaker 1: taxed at all. The British people thought that once the
Speaker 1: wars were over, at least some of these taxes would
Speaker 1: be abolished, especially the income tax, but roughly two decades
Speaker 1: of warfare had left Britain deeply in debt. So in
Speaker 1: the spring of eighteen sixteen, Prime Minister Robert Banks Jenkinson,
Speaker 1: second Earl of Liverpool, and Chancellor Nicholas van Sattart announced
Speaker 1: a plan to keep the income tax in place. So,
Speaker 1: like we just said, there was this whole sliding scale
Speaker 1: going on, and that meant the way the income tax
Speaker 1: was structured, wealthier people were paying the vast majority of
Speaker 1: the tax, and when they found out the tax was
Speaker 1: not going away, they naturally were outraged. People protested and
Speaker 1: they signed petitions, and on March eighteenth, eighteen sixteen, the
Speaker 1: House of Commons voted to abolish the income tax. Allegedly,
Speaker 1: then all the tax records were gathered up and burned
Speaker 1: in the old Palace yard in Westminster. But that wartime
Speaker 1: debt was still there and it was huge. The government
Speaker 1: still had to bring in money somehow, and ultimately the
Speaker 1: government raised taxes on a variety of consumer goods, including tobacco, tea,
Speaker 1: sugar and beer. While the income tax had mainly affected
Speaker 1: affluent people, Britain's poorer people were most affected by these
Speaker 1: taxes on consumer goods, So people who were already struggling
Speaker 1: to pay for necessities were now also paying higher taxes
Speaker 1: on those necessities as well. Yes, so they mostly went
Speaker 1: from not being taxed at all or or taxed only
Speaker 1: a little bit on their incomes too being taxed a
Speaker 1: whole lot more on things they needed to buy. And
Speaker 1: that was really just the beginning. In eighteen sixteen was
Speaker 1: the year without a Summer, which we've talked about on
Speaker 1: a previous episode of the show. Crops failed all over
Speaker 1: Europe because of unusually wet cold weather, and that made
Speaker 1: things even harder for people who were already being affected
Speaker 1: by the corn laws and the tax increases. Britain's textile
Speaker 1: industries were shifting and becoming more mechanized, with traditional hand
Speaker 1: looms being replaced by machines. People were losing their jobs
Speaker 1: and wages were falling for people who still had jobs.
Speaker 1: We talked about this more in our previous episode on
Speaker 1: the Luddite Rising, which took place in the earlier eighteen teams,
Speaker 1: so just a little bit before all this was happening,
Speaker 1: All of this was disproportionately affecting the people who were
Speaker 1: least able to afford it. Many working class families were
Speaker 1: affected by all of this at once, with shortages of
Speaker 1: food they needed, higher prices on what they could get,
Speaker 1: additional taxes and reduced wages, all at the same time
Speaker 1: and overwhelmingly. These same people also did not have the
Speaker 1: right to vote. In most of Britain, only men who
Speaker 1: paid certain taxes or who owned property had the right
Speaker 1: to vote, and this meant that less than five percent
Speaker 1: of people in England and Wales had the right to vote.
Speaker 1: In the rest of Britain, the percentage was even smaller.
Speaker 1: Even the people who could vote couldn't necessarily do so freely.
Speaker 1: Ballots weren't necessarily kept secret. Some burrows were known as
Speaker 1: pocket burrows because one person or family dictated how people
Speaker 1: should vote. One example was Boroughbridge, who was electorate was
Speaker 1: in the pocket of the Duke of Newcastle. On top
Speaker 1: of that, parts of Britain weren't really represented in parliament.
Speaker 1: More than half of MP's were elected from southern England,
Speaker 1: while other parts of Britain weren't represented by a member
Speaker 1: of Parliament at all. As the population of Britain had shifted,
Speaker 1: it was common for small boroughs which were controlled by
Speaker 1: the gentry, to have representation in Parliament, while growing cities
Speaker 1: did not. This was true for Manchester, which had no
Speaker 1: MP even though its population had grown to more than
Speaker 1: one hundred thousand people by eighteen fifteen. Meanwhile, other areas
Speaker 1: known as rotten boroughs sent two MPs to Parliament even
Speaker 1: though they only had a handful of voters living there.
Speaker 1: Old Saram, for example, had seven voters and two MPs.
Speaker 1: So working people and poor people in Britain, some of
Speaker 1: whom were both working and poor, understandably felt like they
Speaker 1: were not being represented in the government and that the
Speaker 1: government didn't understand or care about their interests are well being,
Speaker 1: and in places like Manchester, this was heightened by just
Speaker 1: not having any representation in Parliament at all. A movement
Speaker 1: for parliamentary reform had started to grow in Britain in
Speaker 1: the late eighteenth century in response to both the American
Speaker 1: and French Revolutions and Thomas Paine's The Rights of Man,
Speaker 1: which had also influenced the French Revolution. Reform groups founded
Speaker 1: in the late seventeen hundreds in early eighteen hundreds focused
Speaker 1: on changing how MPs were elected and on the idea
Speaker 1: of universal manhood suffrage, meaning that all men or all
Speaker 1: working men would get the right to vote. There were
Speaker 1: also female reform societies that were a big part of
Speaker 1: this movement, and there were some organizations that included women's
Speaker 1: suffrage among their goals. Female reform societies and women's suffragists
Speaker 1: were really heavily criticized and their members were satirized in print,
Speaker 1: with critics implying that there was something questionable about their virtue.
Speaker 1: We are going to get into how this movement developed,
Speaker 1: but first we're gonna pause for a sponsor break. The
Speaker 1: movement for parliamentary reform in Britain was really focused on
Speaker 1: the idea of showing the government that massive numbers of
Speaker 1: people supported these proposed reforms. This included petitioning and holding
Speaker 1: mass meetings, and the first of these mass meetings was
Speaker 1: held in November of eighteen sixteen in Spa Fields in London.
Speaker 1: It drew a crowd of about ten thousand people along
Speaker 1: with a large number of spectators. Another more radical meeting
Speaker 1: followed at the same place on December two, eighteen sixteen.
Speaker 1: There's more detail about that one in our Cato Street
Speaker 1: conspiracy episode, but in brief, some of the leaders of
Speaker 1: that meeting used it to try to start a revolution.
Speaker 1: One person was killed and it came to be known
Speaker 1: as the Spa Fields Riots. The British government began to
Speaker 1: find this movement threatening. Some of it was just about
Speaker 1: the potential loss of political power if more people had
Speaker 1: the right to vote, or seats in Parliament were reapportioned
Speaker 1: to try to more consistently represent all of Britain. But
Speaker 1: this wasn't just about power. There had been violent incidents
Speaker 1: beyond just the Spa Fields riots. Some of the movement's
Speaker 1: leaders were radical and used violent rhetoric in their speeches.
Speaker 1: The French Revolution and the Reign of Terror were also
Speaker 1: still in the recent past, and it happened just on
Speaker 1: the other side of the Channel, so there were fears
Speaker 1: that something similar could happen in Britain. So the government
Speaker 1: started taking steps to try to discourage this reform movement
Speaker 1: and the math meetings that were associated with it. Parliament
Speaker 1: renewed wartime laws that banned seditious speech, and in March
Speaker 1: of eighteen seventeen they suspended the Habeas Corpus Act. I'm
Speaker 1: putting in this definition of habeas corpus here because I
Speaker 1: feel like it's a term people are familiar with but
Speaker 1: might not actually understand what it means. It's a Latin
Speaker 1: term that has a slightly different legal nuance depending on
Speaker 1: the jurisdiction, but it roughly translates to you may have
Speaker 1: the body, meaning that if you satisfy the right legal procedures,
Speaker 1: Authorities have to produce a person that's being detained or incarcerated,
Speaker 1: usually to bring them to a court appearance, and that
Speaker 1: court appearance is often meant to determine whether the person
Speaker 1: is being held justly or unjustly. So the concept of
Speaker 1: Habeas corpus is meant to protect people from being unlawfully imprisoned.
Speaker 1: The suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act meant that people
Speaker 1: lost that protection and could be arrested and held indefinitely
Speaker 1: without being charged with anything. This didn't stop the protests though.
Speaker 1: In March of eighteen seventeen, a group called the Manchester
Speaker 1: Radicals gathered in St Peter's Field planning to march to London.
Speaker 1: They wanted to protest the suspension of Habeas Corpus and
Speaker 1: draw attention to the issues facing textile workers in Lancashire.
Speaker 1: These marchers carried blankets and reform petitions with them, so
Speaker 1: this demonstration was nicknamed the March of the Blanketeers. When
Speaker 1: authorities tried to disperse these marchers. Hundreds of people were arrested.
Speaker 1: Nearly thirty were imprisoned for random peeriods of time, most
Speaker 1: of them never being charged with anything or brought to trial.
Speaker 1: A volunteer force called the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry was
Speaker 1: also formed in response to the March of the Blanketeers,
Speaker 1: another unrest that happened the same year. Parliament repealed the
Speaker 1: Habeas Corpus Suspension Act in January of eighteen eighteen, but
Speaker 1: the government was still focused on trying to break up
Speaker 1: the reform movement. By March of eighteen eighteen, Home Secretary
Speaker 1: Lord Sidmuth had said quote, the country will not be
Speaker 1: tranquilized until blood shall have been shed, either by the
Speaker 1: law or the sword. As a summer approached in eighteen eighteen,
Speaker 1: reformers started planning a mass meeting in Manchester. One of
Speaker 1: the speakers was to be Henry Hunt, who had been
Speaker 1: a speaker at those previous meetings that spa Fields that
Speaker 1: we mentioned a few moments ago. He had become one
Speaker 1: of the most visible people within this movement. He was
Speaker 1: a flamboyant speaker who usually wore a very recognizable white hat.
Speaker 1: He was able to draw and motivate large crowds. A
Speaker 1: lot of articles about him today are extremely critical, but
Speaker 1: they also draw a lot of sources for people who
Speaker 1: hated him, so it's not totally clear how much of
Speaker 1: that is accurate. He was widely satirized in cartoons and articles,
Speaker 1: and the anti reform side gave him the nickname Oorritor,
Speaker 1: which was meant to be disparaging, but today people pretty
Speaker 1: much always just call him or Itt or Hunt. The
Speaker 1: idea was that on August eighteen nineteen, people would march
Speaker 1: from towns all around Manchester, gathering together at St. Peter's Fields.
Speaker 1: Some were coming from as far as thirty miles or
Speaker 1: forty eight kilometers away, and some of these groups were
Speaker 1: going to be very large, numbering hundreds or thousands of people.
Speaker 1: Organizers wanted to make sure they arrived in an orderly
Speaker 1: organized way, so many practiced their marching in the moors
Speaker 1: around their towns and villages in the weeks leading up
Speaker 1: to August sixteen. A lot of people also made banners
Speaker 1: to carry on the day, which were decorated with the
Speaker 1: name of the society that was carrying the banner, or
Speaker 1: a slogan like you Night and be Free or liberty
Speaker 1: and fraternity, or taxation without representation is unjust and tyrannical.
Speaker 1: So a lot of people were carrying banners while they
Speaker 1: were practicing as well, since they were going to have
Speaker 1: to carry them all that way on the sixteenth. This
Speaker 1: was also at the same time of year that many
Speaker 1: of these communities carried out a tradition of rush bearing.
Speaker 1: This came from the practice of annually replacing the layer
Speaker 1: of rushes that covered the church's stone floor, and had
Speaker 1: gradually become more of a parade in which participants carried
Speaker 1: rushes to the church, wearing their Sunday best, carrying banners,
Speaker 1: and pulling elaborately decorated rush carts. So people had logical
Speaker 1: reasons for practicing their marching before this event, and it
Speaker 1: was all going on at a time when it was
Speaker 1: pretty normal in these communities for people to parade from
Speaker 1: one place to another. But authorities worried that there was
Speaker 1: some kind of military purpose behind the drilling, and that
Speaker 1: organizers were really conspiring to pull off something more violent
Speaker 1: than a march to a meeting. By August twelve, local
Speaker 1: magistrates were writing to each other with their concerns that
Speaker 1: all of this might really be a pretext to some
Speaker 1: kind of armed revolution. As people living in and around
Speaker 1: Manchester prepared to march to the meeting and spend the
Speaker 1: day listening to speeches and rallying for reform, the magistrates
Speaker 1: prepared to make them disperse. Chief Magistrate William Holton instructed
Speaker 1: the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry and the neighboring Cheshire Yeomanry
Speaker 1: to remain at the ready, although many of them reportedly
Speaker 1: did so by spending the morning at Manchester's taverns. The
Speaker 1: magistrates recruited three hundred people for the Manchester Special Constabulary
Speaker 1: and armed them with truncheons. British Army regulars from the
Speaker 1: Regiment of Foot and the fifteen King's Hussars were called
Speaker 1: in as well. The magistrates had rocks and stones removed
Speaker 1: from the ground so they could not be used as weapons,
Speaker 1: and planned to arrest Henry Hunt as soon as he
Speaker 1: began speaking. We'll talk about how this all played out
Speaker 1: on the day after one more quick sponsor break. The
Speaker 1: crowd that arrived at St Peter's Fields in Manchester on
Speaker 1: August nineteen was festive and excited. Sixteenth was a Monday,
Speaker 1: so people who worked in the region's textile factories would
Speaker 1: have been at work for the day, but while power
Speaker 1: loom factories were growing in Lancashire, the majority of textile
Speaker 1: workers in that area we're still working at home on
Speaker 1: hand looms, and they typically worked on Saturdays and took
Speaker 1: Monday off. Many communities female reformer societies were marching together,
Speaker 1: all dressed in white on the sixteenth, although there were
Speaker 1: also lots of women there who weren't specifically associated with
Speaker 1: the society. Children were in attendance with their families, and
Speaker 1: sources vary on the estimates of how many total people
Speaker 1: were there. Most say at least sixty thousand, Some go
Speaker 1: as high as a hundred and fifty thousand or more.
Speaker 1: It's really kind of all over the place. It was
Speaker 1: illegal gathering, and although there may have been some people
Speaker 1: who brought a stick or some of their weapon, they
Speaker 1: had been told to bring quote no other weapon but
Speaker 1: that of a self approving conscience. Bishop Edward Stanley later
Speaker 1: said of the gathering, quote, I saw no symptoms of
Speaker 1: riot or disturbances before the meeting. The impression on my
Speaker 1: mind was that the people were sullenly peaceful. I don't
Speaker 1: know why. He says sullenly peaceful, when many of the
Speaker 1: other accounts say it was more festive, kind of like
Speaker 1: a fun, excited party. The Manchester Courier described it this way,
Speaker 1: quote at half past eleven, My attention was first particularly
Speaker 1: attracted by a crowd of people advancing to the ground
Speaker 1: with flags and music. They came in a sort of
Speaker 1: marching order, and were covered with dust, having, as I learned,
Speaker 1: come from some town at a distance. A number of women,
Speaker 1: boys and even children were in the procession, which had
Speaker 1: from this circumstance more the appearance of a large village
Speaker 1: party going to a merrymaking than that of a body
Speaker 1: of people advancing to overthrow the government of their country.
Speaker 1: John Benjamin Smith later became a liberal politician and part
Speaker 1: of the Anti Corn Law League, but at the time
Speaker 1: he was twenty five and he had not planned to
Speaker 1: go to the meeting. His aunt asked him to accompany
Speaker 1: her to a friend's house nearby so that she could watch,
Speaker 1: and he wrote of it quote, there were crowds of
Speaker 1: people in all directions, full of good humor, laughing and
Speaker 1: shouting and making fun. It seemed to be a gala
Speaker 1: day with the country people, who were mostly dressed in
Speaker 1: their best and brought with them their wives. And when
Speaker 1: I saw boys and girls taking their father's hand in
Speaker 1: the procession, I observed to my aunt, these are the
Speaker 1: guarantees of their peaceable intentions. We need have no fears.
Speaker 1: Magistrates met at a home that was adjacent to the
Speaker 1: meeting at about eleven in the morning, and sources differ
Speaker 1: about what happened there when Hunt started speaking and authorities
Speaker 1: moved into arrest him. Officials maintained that Chief Magistrate William
Speaker 1: Holton read the Riot Act before ordering the Yeomanry to
Speaker 1: make the crowd disperse. So here in the US, most
Speaker 1: people know the phrase read the Riot Act as a
Speaker 1: figure of speech, basically meaning giving someone a very stern
Speaker 1: lecture for some sort of misbehavior. But the Riot Act
Speaker 1: is a real act, first passed by Parliament in seventeen
Speaker 1: fourteen after a series of riots had swept through Britain,
Speaker 1: and its full title was an Act for preventing tumults
Speaker 1: and riotous assemblies and for the more speedy and effectual
Speaker 1: punishing of the rioters. The Act made it illegal for
Speaker 1: twelve or more people to quote unlawfully assemble and disturb
Speaker 1: the public peace. Local authorities had the right to approach
Speaker 1: such a group and order them to disperse, and failure
Speaker 1: to do so was a felony. The Act remained on
Speaker 1: the books until the mid to late twentieth century, so
Speaker 1: under the terms of the Riot Act, someone who was
Speaker 1: authorized to do so had to approach the unlawful assembly
Speaker 1: as closely as they safely could, call for silence or
Speaker 1: otherwise quote cause to be commanded silence, and then an
Speaker 1: allowed voice they had to read this statement and its
Speaker 1: entirety quote, our Sovereign Lord the King chargeth and commandeth
Speaker 1: all persons being assembled immediately to disperse themselves and peaceably,
Speaker 1: to depart to their habitations or to their lawful business,
Speaker 1: upon the pains contained in the Act made in the
Speaker 1: first year of King George, for preventing tumult and riotous assemblies.
Speaker 1: God save the King. Once that statement was read, then
Speaker 1: the crowd had an hour to disperse. Accounts differ in
Speaker 1: whether authorities in Manchester that day read the Riot Act,
Speaker 1: with the reports that it was read mostly coming from
Speaker 1: magistrates and members of the military, but if it was read,
Speaker 1: it probably was not heard by the vast majority of
Speaker 1: the people there. They definitely were not given a one
Speaker 1: hour window to disperse. The Yeomanry came down on the
Speaker 1: crowd within minutes of Hunt's beginning to speak. The British
Speaker 1: Army later blamed the Yeomanry for what happened next. The
Speaker 1: crowd was very tightly packed into St. Peter's fields, and
Speaker 1: the yeoman Red quickly broke form as they charged in,
Speaker 1: leaving the members of the Womanry in very small groups
Speaker 1: surrounded by marchers who were packed in too tightly to disperse.
Speaker 1: The yeoman Read didn't have much training, and a lot
Speaker 1: of them were reportedly intoxicated, and when they found themselves
Speaker 1: trapped and kind of cut off from each other by
Speaker 1: this crowd, they started knocking people away with the flats
Speaker 1: of their sabers. In some accounts, things escalated when demonstrators
Speaker 1: started throwing rocks, although some eyewitnesses said they did not
Speaker 1: see any evidence of rock throwing or any other retaliation
Speaker 1: from the Crown. The Yeomanry sabers were also freshly sharpened,
Speaker 1: something that many sources conclude is evidence that they had
Speaker 1: intended to use them, or to at least do as
Speaker 1: much harm as they could if they accidentally or intentionally
Speaker 1: struck someone with the edge. Rather than the flat Yeah.
Speaker 1: This has been described as one of the most documented
Speaker 1: events of the nineteenth century. There's something like three hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty different eyewitness accounts, and a lot of them
Speaker 1: contradict each other in details like this. The Army regulars
Speaker 1: arrived at the field at about two pm, fired down
Speaker 1: streets to encourage people to disperse, and the fifteen hussars
Speaker 1: charged into the crowd. But Lieutenant Colonel Guiless Strange realized
Speaker 1: that the crowd had formed kind of a bottleneck and
Speaker 1: it was partly blocked in by the infantry. They couldn't disperse,
Speaker 1: they had nowhere to go, so he pulled his force back.
Speaker 1: Here's how John Benjamin Smith described the scene at that
Speaker 1: point quote it was a hot, dusty day. Clouds of
Speaker 1: dust arose which obscured the view. When it had subsided,
Speaker 1: a startling scene was presented. Numbers of men, women and
Speaker 1: children were lying on the ground who had been knocked
Speaker 1: down and run over by the soldiers. I noticed one
Speaker 1: woman lying face downwards, apparently lifeless. A man went up
Speaker 1: to her and lifted one of her legs. It fell
Speaker 1: as if she were lifeless. Another man lifted both her
Speaker 1: legs and let them fall. I saw her sometime after,
Speaker 1: carried off by the legs and arms as if she
Speaker 1: were dead, and the end eleven people were killed there
Speaker 1: on the day, five of them from saber wounds and
Speaker 1: the rest from being trampled or crushed by people or horses.
Speaker 1: The day's first fatality is usually cited as William Fields,
Speaker 1: who was a baby knocked out of the arms of
Speaker 1: his twenty three year old mother and then trampled. At
Speaker 1: least seven more people died of their injuries. Later, two
Speaker 1: constables were killed, likely by soldiers and probably by accident.
Speaker 1: This took about twenty minutes between when the yeoman recharged
Speaker 1: in and when the field was cleared. It seems as
Speaker 1: though the yeomanry and soldiers focused on people with banners
Speaker 1: and on women. Of the six d fifty four recorded injuries,
Speaker 1: at least one hundred sixty eight were women. Four of
Speaker 1: those women died of their injuries. Roughly half of those
Speaker 1: reported injuries came from sabers or other weapons, as opposed
Speaker 1: to being crushed or trampled. Based on the recorded numbers,
Speaker 1: about one eighth of the marchers were women, but women
Speaker 1: made up about one third of the injuries. There were
Speaker 1: also probably a lot more injuries that went unreported. People
Speaker 1: were really afraid to seek medical care out of fear
Speaker 1: that they would be arrested or faced some kind of
Speaker 1: other consequences for having been at the meeting. Twenty five
Speaker 1: year old James Lees, who was a veteran of the
Speaker 1: Battle of Waterloo, died of injuries after being turned away
Speaker 1: from the Manchester infirmary. He was reportedly turned away because
Speaker 1: he refused to agree not to participate in such meetings
Speaker 1: in the future. He was quoted as saying, quote, at
Speaker 1: Waterloo there was man to man, but here it was
Speaker 1: downright murder. Henry Hunt was arrested and tried for seditious
Speaker 1: assembly and was sentenced to thirty months in prison. Three
Speaker 1: other speakers and organizers were sentenced to twelve months each.
Speaker 1: Although people tried to raise funds to help the injured
Speaker 1: and the families of the killed, most of this money
Speaker 1: wound up going to Hunt's legal defense. Local journalist James
Speaker 1: Rowe coined the term Peterloo massacre, combining St. Peter's Fields
Speaker 1: where it happened with the Battle of Waterloo, which the
Speaker 1: fifteenth Thustards had fought at four years before. Rose newspaper,
Speaker 1: The Manchester Observer, was shut down in the wake of
Speaker 1: his reporting on the incident, and he was charged and
Speaker 1: convicted with seditious libel. Afterwards, John Edward Taylor started the
Speaker 1: Manchester Guardian and that's just the Guardian today. The massacre
Speaker 1: temporarily united reformers across the political spectrum, with the more
Speaker 1: radical and more moderate wings of the movement coming together
Speaker 1: in outrage over what had happened, but this didn't help
Speaker 1: propel the movement forward. The magistrates and other officials sided
Speaker 1: with the Yeomanry and the regulars, including holding a meeting
Speaker 1: in secret to thank the Yeomanry for their work. There
Speaker 1: was no investigation into the behavior of the Yeomanry, the
Speaker 1: Special Constables, or the military units involved. In response to
Speaker 1: the massacre, Parliament also passed legislation known as the Six
Speaker 1: Acts in November of eighteen nineteen. These were the Training
Speaker 1: Prevention Act, the Seizure of Arms Act, the Seditious Meetings
Speaker 1: Prevention Act, the Misdemeanors Act, the Blasphemous and Seditious Libel Act,
Speaker 1: and the Newspaper and Stamp Duties Act. Together, these acts
Speaker 1: restricted the freedoms of assembly, speech, and the press. They
Speaker 1: specifically outlawed the kind of drilling people had been doing
Speaker 1: in the moors leading up to the meeting. Meanwhile, nearly
Speaker 1: five thousand people signed a petition denouncing the meeting that
Speaker 1: had been held, to thank the Yeomanry and condemning the violence,
Speaker 1: and that read, in part quote, we are fully satisfied
Speaker 1: by personal observation on undoubted information, that the meeting was
Speaker 1: perfectly peaceable, that no seditious or intemperate harangues were made there,
Speaker 1: that the riot Act, if read at all, was read
Speaker 1: privately or without the knowledge of a great body of
Speaker 1: the meeting. And we feel it are bound in duty
Speaker 1: to protest against and to express our uttered disapprobation of
Speaker 1: the unexpected and unnecessary violence by which the assembly was dispersed.
Speaker 1: Many of the Special Constables and members of the Yeomanry
Speaker 1: were shopkeepers, and people boycotted those shops afterward. The massacre
Speaker 1: and the government and other official response to it were
Speaker 1: widely criticized and satur rised in print. An anonymous writer
Speaker 1: created a pamphlet based on the children's rhyme who Killed
Speaker 1: Cock Robin, with the robin being the people who were
Speaker 1: hurt and killed. Somewhat similar political pamphlet was called The
Speaker 1: Political House that Jack Built and was written by William
Speaker 1: Hone and illustrated with political cartoons like the Children's rhyme.
Speaker 1: Every line builds on the one before. So this is
Speaker 1: the house that Jack built. This is the wealth that
Speaker 1: lay in the house that Jack built. These are the
Speaker 1: vermin that plunder the wealth that lay in the house
Speaker 1: that Jack built. This is the thing that, in spite
Speaker 1: of new acts and attempts to restrain it by soldiers
Speaker 1: and tax will poison the vermin that plunder the wealth
Speaker 1: that lay in the house that Jack built. The thing
Speaker 1: that's going to poison these vermin is a printing press,
Speaker 1: and the vermin are an assortment of bishops, court officials,
Speaker 1: the army, tax collectors, and the like. Percy bish Shelley
Speaker 1: also wrote a lengthy poem called The Mask of Anarchy,
Speaker 1: although it was not published until after his death, and
Speaker 1: he sent that poem to Lee Hunt, who withheld its
Speaker 1: publication for fear of political or legal consequence. Is and
Speaker 1: there were also lots of household goods like cups and
Speaker 1: tea towels that were made to commemorate the massacre. But
Speaker 1: in spite of all this criticism and publicity. It was
Speaker 1: a really long time before any of the reforms that
Speaker 1: this movement had been looking for came into being. The
Speaker 1: Representation of the People Act of eighteen thirty two was
Speaker 1: the first act to include some of these reforms, and
Speaker 1: it was past thirteen years later. It gave more men
Speaker 1: the right to vote and redistributed some seats in Parliament,
Speaker 1: which reduced the number of rotten boroughs and gave some
Speaker 1: places some representation that they had not previously had. Although
Speaker 1: it was nicknamed the Great Reform Act, these changes were
Speaker 1: far more moderate than what reformers had been working toward.
Speaker 1: Additional reform acts followed in eighteen sixty seven and eighteen
Speaker 1: eighty four, which continued to refine who could vote and
Speaker 1: how communities were represented in Parliament. But it wasn't until
Speaker 1: nineteen eighteen, almost a century after the Peterloo Massacre, that
Speaker 1: the Representation of the People Act granted universal suffrage to men.
Speaker 1: All men over the age of twenty one could vote,
Speaker 1: as could women over the age of thirty who owned property. Yeah.
Speaker 1: By that point there had been entire other movements that
Speaker 1: had come and gone in Britain, including like the Chartist movement,
Speaker 1: was in that whole window, the whole lot. Ah, do
Speaker 1: you have listener mail that's maybe not quite so sad.
Speaker 1: I mean I do in a way, and it's it's
Speaker 1: kind of connects to this because because like a lot
Speaker 1: of the investigation into what happened at the time was
Speaker 1: really focused on these martyrs and what they were up
Speaker 1: to and whether they were up to something nefarious, and
Speaker 1: not on the people who carried out the actual killing.
Speaker 1: This email is from you on I hope I am
Speaker 1: saying your name correctly and Yuan Rights, Holly and Tracy.
Speaker 1: What a timely piece. Just last week, the Mercury News
Speaker 1: printed a report on US Representative Mark to Sanier's amendment
Speaker 1: to exonerate the Port Chicago fifty that passed the House.
Speaker 1: While I barely skim newspaper headlines these days, I devoured
Speaker 1: the because I thought I had heard about the incident
Speaker 1: from your show. That must be the Halifax explosion. Your
Speaker 1: latest show added so much depth to my understanding about
Speaker 1: the Port Chicago fifty. While listening, I can't help but
Speaker 1: wondering where's the intellect of those Navy officers who looked
Speaker 1: down on the quote lowest intellectual strata given the court
Speaker 1: finding quote that the colored enlisted personnel are neither temperamentally
Speaker 1: nor intellectually capable of handling high explosives. These officers who
Speaker 1: ordered such personnel back to handling high explosives must be
Speaker 1: there lacked the intellect to understand that conclusion, lacked the
Speaker 1: intellect to integrate that conclusion into their decisions. Should they
Speaker 1: pass the previous test or should they have possessed the intellected?
Speaker 1: You both must have committed treason by attempting to further
Speaker 1: sabotage the Navy port during the active war. This is
Speaker 1: a good point, so um, thank you you on for
Speaker 1: writing two things. Number one, A couple of people have
Speaker 1: gotten in touch with us about this. On July twelve,
Speaker 1: the National Defense Authors Asian Act was passed by the House.
Speaker 1: There was a concurrent resolution the day before, and there
Speaker 1: is an amendment that's part of the authorization that would
Speaker 1: um require the Secretary of the Navy to either exonerate
Speaker 1: the Port Chicago fifty or to look into exonerating the
Speaker 1: Port Chicago fifty. I could not find the text of
Speaker 1: the actual amendment on the Congress website. That there are
Speaker 1: a lot of amendments to this particular bill, and I
Speaker 1: could not find it among them. So that currently has
Speaker 1: passed the House. Um, there is not a similar bill
Speaker 1: that has passed the Senate. It's not signed into law,
Speaker 1: so like nothing is a sure thing yet. But this representative,
Speaker 1: who I think represents the part of California that Port
Speaker 1: Chicago is in, has been trying to get the Port
Speaker 1: Chicago fifty exonerated. It's not the first time that there's
Speaker 1: been an attempt to get them exonerated, but is ongoing.
Speaker 1: We recorded that episode on July nights, so we recorded
Speaker 1: the episode before any of those things had happened. And
Speaker 1: regards in regards to a question at the end, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's just not a question that anybody was exploring at all,
Speaker 1: and any of the hearings that happened at the time,
Speaker 1: there were just a lot of examinations of the men
Speaker 1: who were loading the munitions in Port Chicago and really
Speaker 1: no examination of the decisions that led them to be
Speaker 1: doing that. So, um, that was one of the very
Speaker 1: frustrating things, and that was a very uh astute way
Speaker 1: of laying out the questions involved. So thank you you
Speaker 1: want for this email and for the link to the
Speaker 1: article about this defense bill amendment that may lead to
Speaker 1: an exhoneration if it all continues on UH If you
Speaker 1: would like to write to us about this or any
Speaker 1: other podcast or a history podcast at how stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com. And then we're all over social media and
Speaker 1: Missing History. That's where you'll find our Facebook, Twitter, Instagram,
Speaker 1: and Pinterest. You can come to our website, which is
Speaker 1: missing history dot com and find show notes for all
Speaker 1: the episodes that Holly and I have worked on together
Speaker 1: in a searchable archive of all of our episodes, and
Speaker 1: you can subscribe to our show on Apple podcasts, the
Speaker 1: I heart Radio app, and anywhere else you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of
Speaker 1: my Heart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts for
Speaker 1: my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.