WEBVTT - The Peterloo Massacre 0:00:01.280 --> 0:00:04.000 Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class. The production 0:00:04.120 --> 0:00:13.000 of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, and welcome 0:00:13.039 --> 0:00:15.920 to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly 0:00:16.000 --> 0:00:19.799 fry Back. Its seventeen, which was not all that long ago, really. 0:00:19.880 --> 0:00:23.159 We did an episode on the Cato Street conspiracy that 0:00:23.200 --> 0:00:25.880 happened in eighteen twenty and it was a failed plot 0:00:25.920 --> 0:00:30.000 to assassinate the entire British Cabinet. In that episode, we 0:00:30.160 --> 0:00:33.479 very briefly mentioned the Peterloo massacre, which had happened in 0:00:33.520 --> 0:00:35.760 eighteen nineteen, so the year before that was part of 0:00:35.760 --> 0:00:39.680 the context for this whole conspiracy, and several folks back 0:00:39.720 --> 0:00:42.640 at that time let us know they were really excited 0:00:42.680 --> 0:00:45.760 to hear that. Peter Lou mentioned I've gotten a few 0:00:45.840 --> 0:00:48.520 listener requests for the massacre over the years as well, 0:00:48.560 --> 0:00:51.080 and this month is it's two anniversary, so it seemed 0:00:51.120 --> 0:00:53.960 like a good time to finally move it up to 0:00:54.000 --> 0:00:56.880 the top of the list. So the Peterloo Massacre took 0:00:56.880 --> 0:01:02.280 place during a peaceful protest for parliamentary reform in Manchester, Lancashire, England, 0:01:02.640 --> 0:01:04.760 and there was a lot feeding into why people in 0:01:04.840 --> 0:01:08.440 Britain and specifically in the region around Manchester thought that 0:01:08.520 --> 0:01:12.000 this reform was needed. The Napoleonic Wars in the War 0:01:12.040 --> 0:01:14.800 of eighteen twelve had both ended in eighteen fifteen, and 0:01:14.840 --> 0:01:18.360 people had hoped that would mean a period of common prosperity. 0:01:19.080 --> 0:01:21.840 But as has happened in so many topics that we've 0:01:21.880 --> 0:01:25.319 covered following other wars, it felt like the opposite was happening. 0:01:25.880 --> 0:01:29.600 The Napoleonic Wars had disrupted grain imports into Britain from 0:01:29.600 --> 0:01:32.559 the European continent, and this had worked out pretty well 0:01:32.680 --> 0:01:36.560 for Britain's large grain farmers. Because of the supply shortage, 0:01:36.600 --> 0:01:39.240 they could sell their corn and other grains for much 0:01:39.319 --> 0:01:43.080 higher prices than normal. But then as these wars were ending, 0:01:43.160 --> 0:01:46.440 prices started falling. People were going to have access to 0:01:46.480 --> 0:01:51.200 that imported grain again. Prices dropped almost fifty percent between 0:01:51.200 --> 0:01:55.280 eighteen thirteen and eighteen fifteen. So in eighteen fifteen Parliament 0:01:55.320 --> 0:01:59.240 passed a corn law which prohibited the import of various 0:01:59.280 --> 0:02:03.640 grains and held their prices for domestically grown crops rose 0:02:03.720 --> 0:02:06.600 up to a specific level, and that exact price depended 0:02:06.680 --> 0:02:09.639 on the type of grain that was being sold. This 0:02:09.680 --> 0:02:12.880 did contribute to price increases, but not as much as 0:02:13.000 --> 0:02:16.760 landowners had been hoping for. Still, the corn Law was 0:02:16.840 --> 0:02:20.280 obviously meant to protect the financial interests of wealthy planters 0:02:20.280 --> 0:02:23.720 and landowners. Ordinary working people, on the other hand, had 0:02:23.760 --> 0:02:26.400 been struggling to pay for grain and had welcomed the 0:02:26.480 --> 0:02:29.560 drop in price. In response to the passage of the 0:02:29.600 --> 0:02:33.360 corn Law, protests and food riots broke out all over Britain. 0:02:33.720 --> 0:02:36.639 Another issue was taxes. The British government had tried to 0:02:36.680 --> 0:02:39.720 pay for the wars with an assortment of taxes and duties. 0:02:40.000 --> 0:02:43.560 An income tax in particular had been passed in and 0:02:43.560 --> 0:02:47.280 it was supposed to be a temporary wartime measure. Annual 0:02:47.320 --> 0:02:49.919 incomes over two hundred pounds were taxed at ten percent, 0:02:50.040 --> 0:02:52.720 and incomes between sixty and two hundred pounds were taxed 0:02:52.760 --> 0:02:55.680 on a sliding scale from one percent to ten percent. 0:02:56.280 --> 0:02:58.840 A lot of working class people had an income of 0:02:58.919 --> 0:03:01.040 less than sixty pound the years, so they weren't being 0:03:01.080 --> 0:03:03.760 taxed at all. The British people thought that once the 0:03:03.800 --> 0:03:06.359 wars were over, at least some of these taxes would 0:03:06.400 --> 0:03:10.520 be abolished, especially the income tax, but roughly two decades 0:03:10.560 --> 0:03:13.800 of warfare had left Britain deeply in debt. So in 0:03:13.840 --> 0:03:17.440 the spring of eighteen sixteen, Prime Minister Robert Banks Jenkinson, 0:03:17.600 --> 0:03:21.799 second Earl of Liverpool, and Chancellor Nicholas van Sattart announced 0:03:21.800 --> 0:03:24.720 a plan to keep the income tax in place. So, 0:03:25.200 --> 0:03:27.760 like we just said, there was this whole sliding scale 0:03:27.880 --> 0:03:30.639 going on, and that meant the way the income tax 0:03:30.720 --> 0:03:34.560 was structured, wealthier people were paying the vast majority of 0:03:34.560 --> 0:03:36.720 the tax, and when they found out the tax was 0:03:36.760 --> 0:03:40.880 not going away, they naturally were outraged. People protested and 0:03:40.880 --> 0:03:44.440 they signed petitions, and on March eighteenth, eighteen sixteen, the 0:03:44.440 --> 0:03:48.480 House of Commons voted to abolish the income tax. Allegedly, 0:03:48.720 --> 0:03:51.240 then all the tax records were gathered up and burned 0:03:51.280 --> 0:03:54.400 in the old Palace yard in Westminster. But that wartime 0:03:54.480 --> 0:03:58.040 debt was still there and it was huge. The government 0:03:58.120 --> 0:04:01.360 still had to bring in money somehow, and ultimately the 0:04:01.360 --> 0:04:06.440 government raised taxes on a variety of consumer goods, including tobacco, tea, 0:04:06.600 --> 0:04:10.360 sugar and beer. While the income tax had mainly affected 0:04:10.400 --> 0:04:14.240 affluent people, Britain's poorer people were most affected by these 0:04:14.240 --> 0:04:18.080 taxes on consumer goods, So people who were already struggling 0:04:18.120 --> 0:04:21.800 to pay for necessities were now also paying higher taxes 0:04:21.800 --> 0:04:25.000 on those necessities as well. Yes, so they mostly went 0:04:25.080 --> 0:04:27.920 from not being taxed at all or or taxed only 0:04:27.960 --> 0:04:31.520 a little bit on their incomes too being taxed a 0:04:31.520 --> 0:04:33.960 whole lot more on things they needed to buy. And 0:04:34.000 --> 0:04:36.520 that was really just the beginning. In eighteen sixteen was 0:04:36.560 --> 0:04:38.440 the year without a Summer, which we've talked about on 0:04:38.440 --> 0:04:41.560 a previous episode of the show. Crops failed all over 0:04:41.640 --> 0:04:44.880 Europe because of unusually wet cold weather, and that made 0:04:44.920 --> 0:04:48.120 things even harder for people who were already being affected 0:04:48.160 --> 0:04:51.839 by the corn laws and the tax increases. Britain's textile 0:04:51.920 --> 0:04:55.839 industries were shifting and becoming more mechanized, with traditional hand 0:04:55.960 --> 0:04:59.719 looms being replaced by machines. People were losing their jobs 0:04:59.760 --> 0:05:02.760 and wages were falling for people who still had jobs. 0:05:03.120 --> 0:05:05.640 We talked about this more in our previous episode on 0:05:05.680 --> 0:05:09.000 the Luddite Rising, which took place in the earlier eighteen teams, 0:05:09.040 --> 0:05:11.120 so just a little bit before all this was happening, 0:05:11.480 --> 0:05:14.680 All of this was disproportionately affecting the people who were 0:05:14.800 --> 0:05:18.440 least able to afford it. Many working class families were 0:05:18.480 --> 0:05:21.320 affected by all of this at once, with shortages of 0:05:21.360 --> 0:05:24.440 food they needed, higher prices on what they could get, 0:05:24.640 --> 0:05:28.680 additional taxes and reduced wages, all at the same time 0:05:29.400 --> 0:05:32.719 and overwhelmingly. These same people also did not have the 0:05:32.800 --> 0:05:36.000 right to vote. In most of Britain, only men who 0:05:36.000 --> 0:05:39.080 paid certain taxes or who owned property had the right 0:05:39.120 --> 0:05:41.880 to vote, and this meant that less than five percent 0:05:41.920 --> 0:05:44.599 of people in England and Wales had the right to vote. 0:05:44.880 --> 0:05:47.560 In the rest of Britain, the percentage was even smaller. 0:05:48.080 --> 0:05:51.960 Even the people who could vote couldn't necessarily do so freely. 0:05:52.600 --> 0:05:56.840 Ballots weren't necessarily kept secret. Some burrows were known as 0:05:56.880 --> 0:06:00.559 pocket burrows because one person or family dictated how people 0:06:00.560 --> 0:06:04.120 should vote. One example was Boroughbridge, who was electorate was 0:06:04.160 --> 0:06:06.720 in the pocket of the Duke of Newcastle. On top 0:06:06.760 --> 0:06:09.880 of that, parts of Britain weren't really represented in parliament. 0:06:10.400 --> 0:06:13.400 More than half of MP's were elected from southern England, 0:06:13.440 --> 0:06:16.200 while other parts of Britain weren't represented by a member 0:06:16.240 --> 0:06:20.279 of Parliament at all. As the population of Britain had shifted, 0:06:20.560 --> 0:06:23.240 it was common for small boroughs which were controlled by 0:06:23.240 --> 0:06:27.240 the gentry, to have representation in Parliament, while growing cities 0:06:27.400 --> 0:06:30.640 did not. This was true for Manchester, which had no 0:06:30.880 --> 0:06:33.840 MP even though its population had grown to more than 0:06:33.880 --> 0:06:38.200 one hundred thousand people by eighteen fifteen. Meanwhile, other areas 0:06:38.279 --> 0:06:42.320 known as rotten boroughs sent two MPs to Parliament even 0:06:42.360 --> 0:06:44.800 though they only had a handful of voters living there. 0:06:45.480 --> 0:06:50.000 Old Saram, for example, had seven voters and two MPs. 0:06:50.040 --> 0:06:53.359 So working people and poor people in Britain, some of 0:06:53.360 --> 0:06:56.800 whom were both working and poor, understandably felt like they 0:06:56.800 --> 0:06:59.080 were not being represented in the government and that the 0:06:59.120 --> 0:07:02.679 government didn't understand or care about their interests are well being, 0:07:03.160 --> 0:07:05.599 and in places like Manchester, this was heightened by just 0:07:05.760 --> 0:07:09.720 not having any representation in Parliament at all. A movement 0:07:09.800 --> 0:07:12.720 for parliamentary reform had started to grow in Britain in 0:07:12.720 --> 0:07:16.080 the late eighteenth century in response to both the American 0:07:16.200 --> 0:07:19.880 and French Revolutions and Thomas Paine's The Rights of Man, 0:07:20.040 --> 0:07:24.160 which had also influenced the French Revolution. Reform groups founded 0:07:24.160 --> 0:07:27.160 in the late seventeen hundreds in early eighteen hundreds focused 0:07:27.160 --> 0:07:30.440 on changing how MPs were elected and on the idea 0:07:30.520 --> 0:07:33.800 of universal manhood suffrage, meaning that all men or all 0:07:33.840 --> 0:07:36.720 working men would get the right to vote. There were 0:07:36.760 --> 0:07:39.840 also female reform societies that were a big part of 0:07:39.880 --> 0:07:43.400 this movement, and there were some organizations that included women's 0:07:43.400 --> 0:07:48.040 suffrage among their goals. Female reform societies and women's suffragists 0:07:48.080 --> 0:07:51.680 were really heavily criticized and their members were satirized in print, 0:07:52.040 --> 0:07:55.960 with critics implying that there was something questionable about their virtue. 0:07:56.320 --> 0:07:58.440 We are going to get into how this movement developed, 0:07:58.640 --> 0:08:08.480 but first we're gonna pause for a sponsor break. The 0:08:08.600 --> 0:08:12.120 movement for parliamentary reform in Britain was really focused on 0:08:12.160 --> 0:08:15.400 the idea of showing the government that massive numbers of 0:08:15.440 --> 0:08:20.200 people supported these proposed reforms. This included petitioning and holding 0:08:20.320 --> 0:08:22.960 mass meetings, and the first of these mass meetings was 0:08:23.000 --> 0:08:26.840 held in November of eighteen sixteen in Spa Fields in London. 0:08:26.880 --> 0:08:29.520 It drew a crowd of about ten thousand people along 0:08:29.600 --> 0:08:33.520 with a large number of spectators. Another more radical meeting 0:08:33.640 --> 0:08:36.680 followed at the same place on December two, eighteen sixteen. 0:08:36.720 --> 0:08:39.240 There's more detail about that one in our Cato Street 0:08:39.280 --> 0:08:42.720 conspiracy episode, but in brief, some of the leaders of 0:08:42.760 --> 0:08:45.400 that meeting used it to try to start a revolution. 0:08:45.960 --> 0:08:48.280 One person was killed and it came to be known 0:08:48.320 --> 0:08:52.040 as the Spa Fields Riots. The British government began to 0:08:52.080 --> 0:08:55.280 find this movement threatening. Some of it was just about 0:08:55.320 --> 0:08:58.040 the potential loss of political power if more people had 0:08:58.080 --> 0:09:01.319 the right to vote, or seats in Parliament were reapportioned 0:09:01.360 --> 0:09:04.840 to try to more consistently represent all of Britain. But 0:09:04.920 --> 0:09:08.440 this wasn't just about power. There had been violent incidents 0:09:08.520 --> 0:09:11.760 beyond just the Spa Fields riots. Some of the movement's 0:09:11.840 --> 0:09:15.040 leaders were radical and used violent rhetoric in their speeches. 0:09:15.640 --> 0:09:18.160 The French Revolution and the Reign of Terror were also 0:09:18.280 --> 0:09:20.880 still in the recent past, and it happened just on 0:09:20.920 --> 0:09:23.480 the other side of the Channel, so there were fears 0:09:23.520 --> 0:09:26.679 that something similar could happen in Britain. So the government 0:09:26.720 --> 0:09:30.319 started taking steps to try to discourage this reform movement 0:09:30.320 --> 0:09:33.720 and the math meetings that were associated with it. Parliament 0:09:33.760 --> 0:09:37.400 renewed wartime laws that banned seditious speech, and in March 0:09:37.440 --> 0:09:41.920 of eighteen seventeen they suspended the Habeas Corpus Act. I'm 0:09:41.960 --> 0:09:44.800 putting in this definition of habeas corpus here because I 0:09:44.800 --> 0:09:46.800 feel like it's a term people are familiar with but 0:09:46.920 --> 0:09:49.760 might not actually understand what it means. It's a Latin 0:09:49.920 --> 0:09:52.800 term that has a slightly different legal nuance depending on 0:09:52.840 --> 0:09:56.040 the jurisdiction, but it roughly translates to you may have 0:09:56.160 --> 0:09:59.840 the body, meaning that if you satisfy the right legal procedures, 0:10:00.160 --> 0:10:04.440 Authorities have to produce a person that's being detained or incarcerated, 0:10:04.800 --> 0:10:07.280 usually to bring them to a court appearance, and that 0:10:07.320 --> 0:10:10.120 court appearance is often meant to determine whether the person 0:10:10.200 --> 0:10:14.360 is being held justly or unjustly. So the concept of 0:10:14.440 --> 0:10:18.719 Habeas corpus is meant to protect people from being unlawfully imprisoned. 0:10:19.080 --> 0:10:22.240 The suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act meant that people 0:10:22.360 --> 0:10:26.080 lost that protection and could be arrested and held indefinitely 0:10:26.120 --> 0:10:30.280 without being charged with anything. This didn't stop the protests though. 0:10:30.880 --> 0:10:33.720 In March of eighteen seventeen, a group called the Manchester 0:10:33.880 --> 0:10:37.520 Radicals gathered in St Peter's Field planning to march to London. 0:10:38.160 --> 0:10:41.120 They wanted to protest the suspension of Habeas Corpus and 0:10:41.240 --> 0:10:44.720 draw attention to the issues facing textile workers in Lancashire. 0:10:45.440 --> 0:10:48.679 These marchers carried blankets and reform petitions with them, so 0:10:48.760 --> 0:10:52.880 this demonstration was nicknamed the March of the Blanketeers. When 0:10:52.920 --> 0:10:56.760 authorities tried to disperse these marchers. Hundreds of people were arrested. 0:10:57.160 --> 0:11:01.000 Nearly thirty were imprisoned for random peeriods of time, most 0:11:01.040 --> 0:11:04.040 of them never being charged with anything or brought to trial. 0:11:04.679 --> 0:11:08.640 A volunteer force called the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry was 0:11:08.720 --> 0:11:11.319 also formed in response to the March of the Blanketeers, 0:11:11.360 --> 0:11:15.320 another unrest that happened the same year. Parliament repealed the 0:11:15.360 --> 0:11:19.680 Habeas Corpus Suspension Act in January of eighteen eighteen, but 0:11:19.720 --> 0:11:22.000 the government was still focused on trying to break up 0:11:22.000 --> 0:11:26.080 the reform movement. By March of eighteen eighteen, Home Secretary 0:11:26.120 --> 0:11:29.280 Lord Sidmuth had said quote, the country will not be 0:11:29.320 --> 0:11:32.640 tranquilized until blood shall have been shed, either by the 0:11:32.720 --> 0:11:36.320 law or the sword. As a summer approached in eighteen eighteen, 0:11:36.360 --> 0:11:40.400 reformers started planning a mass meeting in Manchester. One of 0:11:40.440 --> 0:11:42.960 the speakers was to be Henry Hunt, who had been 0:11:43.000 --> 0:11:45.880 a speaker at those previous meetings that spa Fields that 0:11:45.920 --> 0:11:48.520 we mentioned a few moments ago. He had become one 0:11:48.520 --> 0:11:51.079 of the most visible people within this movement. He was 0:11:51.120 --> 0:11:55.560 a flamboyant speaker who usually wore a very recognizable white hat. 0:11:55.960 --> 0:11:59.000 He was able to draw and motivate large crowds. A 0:11:59.040 --> 0:12:02.040 lot of articles about him today are extremely critical, but 0:12:02.160 --> 0:12:04.600 they also draw a lot of sources for people who 0:12:04.679 --> 0:12:07.400 hated him, so it's not totally clear how much of 0:12:07.400 --> 0:12:12.240 that is accurate. He was widely satirized in cartoons and articles, 0:12:12.280 --> 0:12:15.400 and the anti reform side gave him the nickname Oorritor, 0:12:15.480 --> 0:12:18.800 which was meant to be disparaging, but today people pretty 0:12:18.880 --> 0:12:20.960 much always just call him or Itt or Hunt. The 0:12:21.040 --> 0:12:25.280 idea was that on August eighteen nineteen, people would march 0:12:25.360 --> 0:12:29.640 from towns all around Manchester, gathering together at St. Peter's Fields. 0:12:30.360 --> 0:12:32.920 Some were coming from as far as thirty miles or 0:12:32.960 --> 0:12:36.280 forty eight kilometers away, and some of these groups were 0:12:36.280 --> 0:12:39.520 going to be very large, numbering hundreds or thousands of people. 0:12:40.360 --> 0:12:43.199 Organizers wanted to make sure they arrived in an orderly 0:12:43.480 --> 0:12:47.000 organized way, so many practiced their marching in the moors 0:12:47.080 --> 0:12:50.040 around their towns and villages in the weeks leading up 0:12:50.080 --> 0:12:53.199 to August sixteen. A lot of people also made banners 0:12:53.240 --> 0:12:55.640 to carry on the day, which were decorated with the 0:12:55.720 --> 0:12:58.439 name of the society that was carrying the banner, or 0:12:58.760 --> 0:13:01.840 a slogan like you Night and be Free or liberty 0:13:01.840 --> 0:13:06.040 and fraternity, or taxation without representation is unjust and tyrannical. 0:13:06.600 --> 0:13:08.640 So a lot of people were carrying banners while they 0:13:08.640 --> 0:13:10.480 were practicing as well, since they were going to have 0:13:10.559 --> 0:13:13.480 to carry them all that way on the sixteenth. This 0:13:13.559 --> 0:13:15.520 was also at the same time of year that many 0:13:15.559 --> 0:13:18.560 of these communities carried out a tradition of rush bearing. 0:13:19.240 --> 0:13:22.200 This came from the practice of annually replacing the layer 0:13:22.280 --> 0:13:25.360 of rushes that covered the church's stone floor, and had 0:13:25.360 --> 0:13:28.640 gradually become more of a parade in which participants carried 0:13:28.720 --> 0:13:32.840 rushes to the church, wearing their Sunday best, carrying banners, 0:13:32.880 --> 0:13:37.439 and pulling elaborately decorated rush carts. So people had logical 0:13:37.559 --> 0:13:41.000 reasons for practicing their marching before this event, and it 0:13:41.080 --> 0:13:42.760 was all going on at a time when it was 0:13:42.800 --> 0:13:45.640 pretty normal in these communities for people to parade from 0:13:45.679 --> 0:13:49.320 one place to another. But authorities worried that there was 0:13:49.400 --> 0:13:52.520 some kind of military purpose behind the drilling, and that 0:13:52.679 --> 0:13:56.040 organizers were really conspiring to pull off something more violent 0:13:56.160 --> 0:13:59.240 than a march to a meeting. By August twelve, local 0:13:59.280 --> 0:14:02.280 magistrates were writing to each other with their concerns that 0:14:02.440 --> 0:14:05.560 all of this might really be a pretext to some 0:14:05.640 --> 0:14:09.240 kind of armed revolution. As people living in and around 0:14:09.280 --> 0:14:12.120 Manchester prepared to march to the meeting and spend the 0:14:12.160 --> 0:14:16.360 day listening to speeches and rallying for reform, the magistrates 0:14:16.400 --> 0:14:20.880 prepared to make them disperse. Chief Magistrate William Holton instructed 0:14:20.920 --> 0:14:24.920 the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry and the neighboring Cheshire Yeomanry 0:14:24.960 --> 0:14:27.800 to remain at the ready, although many of them reportedly 0:14:27.880 --> 0:14:31.760 did so by spending the morning at Manchester's taverns. The 0:14:31.800 --> 0:14:36.320 magistrates recruited three hundred people for the Manchester Special Constabulary 0:14:36.360 --> 0:14:40.240 and armed them with truncheons. British Army regulars from the 0:14:40.840 --> 0:14:44.400 Regiment of Foot and the fifteen King's Hussars were called 0:14:44.440 --> 0:14:48.440 in as well. The magistrates had rocks and stones removed 0:14:48.440 --> 0:14:50.800 from the ground so they could not be used as weapons, 0:14:51.040 --> 0:14:53.880 and planned to arrest Henry Hunt as soon as he 0:14:53.920 --> 0:14:56.680 began speaking. We'll talk about how this all played out 0:14:56.720 --> 0:15:07.560 on the day after one more quick sponsor break. The 0:15:07.640 --> 0:15:10.560 crowd that arrived at St Peter's Fields in Manchester on 0:15:10.600 --> 0:15:15.840 August nineteen was festive and excited. Sixteenth was a Monday, 0:15:15.920 --> 0:15:18.640 so people who worked in the region's textile factories would 0:15:18.640 --> 0:15:21.200 have been at work for the day, but while power 0:15:21.280 --> 0:15:25.120 loom factories were growing in Lancashire, the majority of textile 0:15:25.200 --> 0:15:27.480 workers in that area we're still working at home on 0:15:27.600 --> 0:15:30.280 hand looms, and they typically worked on Saturdays and took 0:15:30.320 --> 0:15:35.440 Monday off. Many communities female reformer societies were marching together, 0:15:35.600 --> 0:15:38.080 all dressed in white on the sixteenth, although there were 0:15:38.120 --> 0:15:41.520 also lots of women there who weren't specifically associated with 0:15:41.560 --> 0:15:45.200 the society. Children were in attendance with their families, and 0:15:45.480 --> 0:15:48.680 sources vary on the estimates of how many total people 0:15:48.760 --> 0:15:52.880 were there. Most say at least sixty thousand, Some go 0:15:53.000 --> 0:15:55.080 as high as a hundred and fifty thousand or more. 0:15:55.680 --> 0:15:58.120 It's really kind of all over the place. It was 0:15:58.160 --> 0:16:01.160 illegal gathering, and although there may have been some people 0:16:01.200 --> 0:16:03.680 who brought a stick or some of their weapon, they 0:16:03.680 --> 0:16:06.600 had been told to bring quote no other weapon but 0:16:06.680 --> 0:16:10.560 that of a self approving conscience. Bishop Edward Stanley later 0:16:10.640 --> 0:16:13.280 said of the gathering, quote, I saw no symptoms of 0:16:13.400 --> 0:16:16.960 riot or disturbances before the meeting. The impression on my 0:16:17.040 --> 0:16:20.160 mind was that the people were sullenly peaceful. I don't 0:16:20.200 --> 0:16:22.520 know why. He says sullenly peaceful, when many of the 0:16:22.600 --> 0:16:25.320 other accounts say it was more festive, kind of like 0:16:25.360 --> 0:16:30.120 a fun, excited party. The Manchester Courier described it this way, 0:16:30.200 --> 0:16:33.680 quote at half past eleven, My attention was first particularly 0:16:33.720 --> 0:16:36.280 attracted by a crowd of people advancing to the ground 0:16:36.320 --> 0:16:39.600 with flags and music. They came in a sort of 0:16:39.640 --> 0:16:42.480 marching order, and were covered with dust, having, as I learned, 0:16:42.760 --> 0:16:46.000 come from some town at a distance. A number of women, 0:16:46.200 --> 0:16:48.880 boys and even children were in the procession, which had 0:16:49.000 --> 0:16:51.920 from this circumstance more the appearance of a large village 0:16:52.000 --> 0:16:54.440 party going to a merrymaking than that of a body 0:16:54.440 --> 0:16:57.920 of people advancing to overthrow the government of their country. 0:16:58.240 --> 0:17:01.760 John Benjamin Smith later became a liberal politician and part 0:17:01.800 --> 0:17:04.560 of the Anti Corn Law League, but at the time 0:17:04.600 --> 0:17:06.800 he was twenty five and he had not planned to 0:17:06.800 --> 0:17:09.840 go to the meeting. His aunt asked him to accompany 0:17:09.880 --> 0:17:12.520 her to a friend's house nearby so that she could watch, 0:17:13.119 --> 0:17:15.320 and he wrote of it quote, there were crowds of 0:17:15.320 --> 0:17:18.439 people in all directions, full of good humor, laughing and 0:17:18.480 --> 0:17:21.359 shouting and making fun. It seemed to be a gala 0:17:21.440 --> 0:17:24.119 day with the country people, who were mostly dressed in 0:17:24.160 --> 0:17:26.880 their best and brought with them their wives. And when 0:17:26.880 --> 0:17:29.359 I saw boys and girls taking their father's hand in 0:17:29.359 --> 0:17:32.200 the procession, I observed to my aunt, these are the 0:17:32.240 --> 0:17:36.080 guarantees of their peaceable intentions. We need have no fears. 0:17:36.520 --> 0:17:38.840 Magistrates met at a home that was adjacent to the 0:17:38.880 --> 0:17:42.040 meeting at about eleven in the morning, and sources differ 0:17:42.240 --> 0:17:46.879 about what happened there when Hunt started speaking and authorities 0:17:46.920 --> 0:17:51.439 moved into arrest him. Officials maintained that Chief Magistrate William 0:17:51.520 --> 0:17:54.760 Holton read the Riot Act before ordering the Yeomanry to 0:17:54.840 --> 0:17:58.480 make the crowd disperse. So here in the US, most 0:17:58.480 --> 0:18:01.159 people know the phrase read the Riot Act as a 0:18:01.200 --> 0:18:04.639 figure of speech, basically meaning giving someone a very stern 0:18:04.760 --> 0:18:08.600 lecture for some sort of misbehavior. But the Riot Act 0:18:08.720 --> 0:18:11.600 is a real act, first passed by Parliament in seventeen 0:18:11.680 --> 0:18:14.919 fourteen after a series of riots had swept through Britain, 0:18:15.480 --> 0:18:18.720 and its full title was an Act for preventing tumults 0:18:18.760 --> 0:18:21.920 and riotous assemblies and for the more speedy and effectual 0:18:22.040 --> 0:18:25.800 punishing of the rioters. The Act made it illegal for 0:18:25.920 --> 0:18:29.359 twelve or more people to quote unlawfully assemble and disturb 0:18:29.440 --> 0:18:33.080 the public peace. Local authorities had the right to approach 0:18:33.119 --> 0:18:36.120 such a group and order them to disperse, and failure 0:18:36.160 --> 0:18:39.399 to do so was a felony. The Act remained on 0:18:39.440 --> 0:18:42.639 the books until the mid to late twentieth century, so 0:18:42.720 --> 0:18:44.960 under the terms of the Riot Act, someone who was 0:18:45.080 --> 0:18:48.600 authorized to do so had to approach the unlawful assembly 0:18:48.640 --> 0:18:52.359 as closely as they safely could, call for silence or 0:18:52.400 --> 0:18:56.520 otherwise quote cause to be commanded silence, and then an 0:18:56.520 --> 0:18:59.520 allowed voice they had to read this statement and its 0:18:59.680 --> 0:19:03.959 entirety quote, our Sovereign Lord the King chargeth and commandeth 0:19:04.000 --> 0:19:08.280 all persons being assembled immediately to disperse themselves and peaceably, 0:19:08.359 --> 0:19:12.000 to depart to their habitations or to their lawful business, 0:19:12.119 --> 0:19:14.679 upon the pains contained in the Act made in the 0:19:14.760 --> 0:19:18.960 first year of King George, for preventing tumult and riotous assemblies. 0:19:19.320 --> 0:19:22.440 God save the King. Once that statement was read, then 0:19:22.440 --> 0:19:25.760 the crowd had an hour to disperse. Accounts differ in 0:19:25.840 --> 0:19:29.160 whether authorities in Manchester that day read the Riot Act, 0:19:29.560 --> 0:19:32.080 with the reports that it was read mostly coming from 0:19:32.119 --> 0:19:35.840 magistrates and members of the military, but if it was read, 0:19:35.920 --> 0:19:38.480 it probably was not heard by the vast majority of 0:19:38.480 --> 0:19:41.520 the people there. They definitely were not given a one 0:19:41.560 --> 0:19:44.720 hour window to disperse. The Yeomanry came down on the 0:19:44.760 --> 0:19:48.240 crowd within minutes of Hunt's beginning to speak. The British 0:19:48.320 --> 0:19:51.639 Army later blamed the Yeomanry for what happened next. The 0:19:51.760 --> 0:19:55.239 crowd was very tightly packed into St. Peter's fields, and 0:19:55.280 --> 0:19:58.440 the yeoman Red quickly broke form as they charged in, 0:19:58.840 --> 0:20:01.359 leaving the members of the Womanry in very small groups 0:20:01.480 --> 0:20:04.960 surrounded by marchers who were packed in too tightly to disperse. 0:20:05.560 --> 0:20:07.959 The yeoman Read didn't have much training, and a lot 0:20:08.000 --> 0:20:11.159 of them were reportedly intoxicated, and when they found themselves 0:20:11.240 --> 0:20:13.640 trapped and kind of cut off from each other by 0:20:13.640 --> 0:20:16.440 this crowd, they started knocking people away with the flats 0:20:16.440 --> 0:20:20.720 of their sabers. In some accounts, things escalated when demonstrators 0:20:20.720 --> 0:20:24.160 started throwing rocks, although some eyewitnesses said they did not 0:20:24.200 --> 0:20:27.760 see any evidence of rock throwing or any other retaliation 0:20:27.840 --> 0:20:32.000 from the Crown. The Yeomanry sabers were also freshly sharpened, 0:20:32.119 --> 0:20:35.199 something that many sources conclude is evidence that they had 0:20:35.240 --> 0:20:37.560 intended to use them, or to at least do as 0:20:37.600 --> 0:20:40.960 much harm as they could if they accidentally or intentionally 0:20:41.040 --> 0:20:44.440 struck someone with the edge. Rather than the flat Yeah. 0:20:44.480 --> 0:20:47.720 This has been described as one of the most documented 0:20:47.760 --> 0:20:51.000 events of the nineteenth century. There's something like three hundred 0:20:51.040 --> 0:20:54.560 and fifty different eyewitness accounts, and a lot of them 0:20:54.640 --> 0:20:58.600 contradict each other in details like this. The Army regulars 0:20:58.680 --> 0:21:02.400 arrived at the field at about two pm, fired down 0:21:02.480 --> 0:21:05.680 streets to encourage people to disperse, and the fifteen hussars 0:21:05.760 --> 0:21:10.120 charged into the crowd. But Lieutenant Colonel Guiless Strange realized 0:21:10.200 --> 0:21:12.520 that the crowd had formed kind of a bottleneck and 0:21:12.560 --> 0:21:16.520 it was partly blocked in by the infantry. They couldn't disperse, 0:21:16.600 --> 0:21:19.480 they had nowhere to go, so he pulled his force back. 0:21:19.640 --> 0:21:22.639 Here's how John Benjamin Smith described the scene at that 0:21:22.720 --> 0:21:26.159 point quote it was a hot, dusty day. Clouds of 0:21:26.240 --> 0:21:29.800 dust arose which obscured the view. When it had subsided, 0:21:29.880 --> 0:21:33.800 a startling scene was presented. Numbers of men, women and 0:21:33.880 --> 0:21:36.280 children were lying on the ground who had been knocked 0:21:36.320 --> 0:21:39.760 down and run over by the soldiers. I noticed one 0:21:39.800 --> 0:21:43.840 woman lying face downwards, apparently lifeless. A man went up 0:21:43.840 --> 0:21:46.360 to her and lifted one of her legs. It fell 0:21:46.400 --> 0:21:49.679 as if she were lifeless. Another man lifted both her 0:21:49.760 --> 0:21:53.160 legs and let them fall. I saw her sometime after, 0:21:53.320 --> 0:21:55.679 carried off by the legs and arms as if she 0:21:55.760 --> 0:21:59.280 were dead, and the end eleven people were killed there 0:21:59.320 --> 0:22:02.080 on the day, five of them from saber wounds and 0:22:02.119 --> 0:22:05.600 the rest from being trampled or crushed by people or horses. 0:22:06.240 --> 0:22:09.880 The day's first fatality is usually cited as William Fields, 0:22:09.880 --> 0:22:12.119 who was a baby knocked out of the arms of 0:22:12.200 --> 0:22:15.199 his twenty three year old mother and then trampled. At 0:22:15.280 --> 0:22:18.719 least seven more people died of their injuries. Later, two 0:22:18.880 --> 0:22:22.320 constables were killed, likely by soldiers and probably by accident. 0:22:22.920 --> 0:22:26.960 This took about twenty minutes between when the yeoman recharged 0:22:26.960 --> 0:22:29.399 in and when the field was cleared. It seems as 0:22:29.400 --> 0:22:32.879 though the yeomanry and soldiers focused on people with banners 0:22:33.040 --> 0:22:36.680 and on women. Of the six d fifty four recorded injuries, 0:22:36.720 --> 0:22:39.639 at least one hundred sixty eight were women. Four of 0:22:39.680 --> 0:22:42.960 those women died of their injuries. Roughly half of those 0:22:42.960 --> 0:22:46.280 reported injuries came from sabers or other weapons, as opposed 0:22:46.280 --> 0:22:49.920 to being crushed or trampled. Based on the recorded numbers, 0:22:49.960 --> 0:22:52.679