War

Peterloo: The Price of Democracy

On a hot Monday in August 1819, 60,000 people gathered at St Peter’s Fields in Manchester. They were weavers, spinners, and labourers, dressed in their Sunday best, marching with banners that read Universal Suffrage and Liberty and Fraternity.

They had come to hear Henry Hunt speak about parliamentary reform. At the time, Manchester - a city of huge industrial importance - had no MP of its own, while “rotten boroughs” with few voters returned two.