Editing Peterloo Massacre (section)

==Background==
===Suffrage===
{{Main|Unreformed House of Commons}}
In 1819, [[Lancashire (UK Parliament constituency)|Lancashire]] was represented by two county [[members of parliament]] (MPs) and a further twelve borough members sitting for the towns of [[Clitheroe (UK Parliament constituency)|Clitheroe]], [[Newton (UK Parliament constituency)|Newton]], [[Wigan (UK Parliament constituency)|Wigan]], [[Lancaster (UK Parliament constituency)|Lancaster]], [[Liverpool (UK Parliament constituency)|Liverpool]], and [[Preston (UK Parliament constituency)|Preston]], with a total of 17,000 voters in a county population of nearly a million. Thanks to deals by Whig and Tory parties to carve up the seats between them, most had not seen a contested election within living memory.{{sfnp|Poole|2019|pp=80–84}}

Nationally, the so-called [[rotten borough]]s had a hugely disproportionate influence on the membership of the [[Parliament of the United Kingdom]] compared to the size of their populations: [[Old Sarum (UK Parliament constituency)|Old Sarum]] in Wiltshire, with one voter, elected two MPs,{{sfnp|Reid|1989|p=28|ps=none}} as did [[Dunwich (UK Parliament constituency)|Dunwich]] in Suffolk, which by the early 19th century had almost completely disappeared into the sea.<ref name="BBC 1998-05-19">{{cite news |title=The Great Reform Act |date=19 May 1998 |work=[[BBC News Online]] |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/talking_politics/95699.stm |access-date=26 March 2008 |archive-date=4 March 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060304130651/http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/talking_politics/95699.stm |url-status=live }}</ref> The major urban centres of [[Manchester]], [[Salford, Greater Manchester|Salford]], [[Bolton]], [[Blackburn]], [[Rochdale]], [[Ashton-under-Lyne]], [[Oldham]] and [[Stockport]] had no MPs of their own, and only a few hundred county voters. By comparison, more than half of all MPs were returned by a total of just 154&nbsp;owners of rotten or closed boroughs.{{sfnp|Reid|1989|p=28|ps=none}} In 1816, [[Thomas Oldfield]]'s ''The Representative History of Great Britain and Ireland; being a History of the House of Commons, and of the Counties, Cities, and Boroughs of the United Kingdom from the earliest Period'' claimed that of the 515 MPs for England and Wales 351 were returned by the patronage of 177 individuals and a further 16 by the direct patronage of the government: all 45 Scottish MPs owed their seats to patronage.<ref>data re-presented in Document 168 ''Table of Parliamentary Patronage 1794–1816'' in {{cite book |editor1-last=Aspinall |editor1-first=A. |editor1-link=Arthur Aspinall (historian) |editor2-last=Smith |editor2-first=Anthony |title=English Historical Documents, 1783–1832 |date=1995 |publisher=Psychology Press |isbn=978-0-415-14373-8 |pages=223–236 |edition=reprint |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7hsvv9PZ5zcC |access-date=4 May 2020 |archive-date=16 August 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220816032253/https://books.google.com/books?id=7hsvv9PZ5zcC |url-status=live }}</ref> These inequalities in political representation led to calls for reform.<ref name="BBC 1998-05-19"/><ref name="Guardian 2007-08-13"/>

===Economic conditions===
{{Main|Post-Napoleonic depression}}
After the end of the [[Napoleonic Wars]] in 1815, a brief boom in [[Textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution|textile manufacture]] was followed by periods of chronic economic depression, particularly among cotton textile weavers and spinners. The cotton textile trade was concentrated in [[Lancashire]] and the wool textile trade was concentrated over the border in West and North Yorkshire.{{sfnp|Frangopulo|1977|p=30|ps=none}} Weavers who could have expected to earn 15&nbsp;shillings for a six-day week in 1803, saw their wages cut to 5&nbsp;shillings or even 4s&nbsp;6[[British one penny coin (pre-decimal)|d]] by 1818.{{sfnp|Hernon|2006|p=22|ps=none}} The industrialists, who were cutting wages without offering relief, blamed market forces generated by the aftershocks of the Napoleonic Wars.{{sfnp|Hernon|2006|p=22|ps=none}} Exacerbating matters were the [[Corn Laws]], the first of which was passed in 1815, imposing a [[tariff]] on foreign grain in an effort to [[Protectionism|protect]] English grain producers. The cost of food rose as people were forced to buy the more expensive and lower quality British grain, and periods of famine and chronic unemployment ensued, increasing the desire for political reform both in Lancashire and in the country at large.<ref name="County of Lancs: Manchester">{{cite book |last1=Farrer |first1=William |last2=Brownbill |first2=John |title=The Victoria history of the county of Lancaster. – Lancashire. Vol. 4 |chapter=The city and parish of Manchester: Introduction |orig-year=1911 |chapter-url=http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=41404 |access-date=27 March 2008 |year=2003–2006 |publisher=University of London & History of Parliament Trust |archive-date=1 December 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101201013147/http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=41404 |url-status=live }}</ref>{{sfnp|Glen|1984|pp=194–252|ps=none}}

===Radical mass meetings in Manchester===
In the winter of 1816–17 massed reform petitions were rejected by the House of Commons, the largest of them from Manchester with over 30,000 signatures.<ref>{{cite news |title=Petition of the Manchester Reformers |work=Chester Courant |date=25 March 1817}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Poole |first=Robert |date=2019 |title=Petitioners and Rebels: Petitioning for Parliamentary Reform in Regency England |journal=Social Science History |volume=43 |issue=3 |pages=553–580 |doi=10.1017/ssh.2019.22 |doi-access=free |ref=none}}</ref> On 10 March 1817 a crowd of 5,000 gathered in St Peter's Fields to send some of their number to march to London to petition the [[George IV of the United Kingdom|Prince Regent]] to force parliament into reform; the so-called 'blanket march', after the blankets which the protesters carried with them to sleep in on the way. After the magistrates read the [[Riot Act]], the crowd was dispersed without injury by the [[King's Dragoon Guards]]. The ringleaders were detained for several months without charge under the emergency powers then in force, which suspended ''[[habeas corpus]]'', the right to be either charged or released. In September 1818 three former leading Blanketeers were again arrested for allegedly urging striking weavers in Stockport to demand their political rights, 'sword in hand', and were convicted of sedition and conspiracy at Chester Assizes in April 1819.<ref>{{cite news |title=Chester Spring Assizes – Trial of Johnston, Drummond and Bagguley, for Sedition and Conspiracy |work=Chester Courant |date=20 April 1819}}</ref>

By the beginning of 1819, pressure generated by poor economic conditions was at its peak and had enhanced the appeal of [[Radicalism (historical)|political radicalism]] among the cotton loom weavers of south Lancashire.{{sfnp|Frangopulo|1977|p=30|ps=}} In January 1819, a crowd of about 10,000 gathered at St Peter's Fields to hear the radical orator [[Henry Hunt (politician)|Henry Hunt]] and called on the Prince Regent to choose ministers who would repeal the Corn Laws. The meeting, conducted in the presence of the cavalry, passed off without incident, apart from the collapse of the hustings.<ref>{{cite news |title=Provincial Intelligence |work=The Examiner |date=25 January 1819}}</ref>{{sfnp|Poole|2019|loc=ch. 6 & pp. 175–177}}<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Polyp, Sclunke & Poole |url=https://peterloo.org/ |title=Peterloo: witnesses to a massacre |publisher=New Internationalist |year=2019 |isbn=978-1-78026-475-2 |location=Oxford |pages=17–21 |oclc=1046071859 |access-date=21 March 2020 |archive-date=13 January 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200113182123/https://peterloo.org/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

A series of mass meetings in the Manchester region, Birmingham, and London over the next few months alarmed the government. "Your country [i.e. county] will not be tranquillised until blood shall have been shed, either by the law or the sword", the Home Secretary, [[Henry Addington, 1st Viscount Sidmouth|Lord Sidmouth]] wrote to the Lancashire magistrates in March. Over the next few months the government worked to find a legal justification for the magistrates to send in troops to disperse a meeting when riot was expected but not actually begun. In July 1819, the magistrates wrote to Lord Sidmouth warning they thought a "general rising" was imminent, the "deep distress of the manufacturing classes" was being worked on by the "unbounded liberty of the press" and "the harangues of a few desperate demagogues" at weekly meetings. "Possessing no power to prevent the meetings" the magistrates admitted they were at a loss as to how to stem the doctrines being disseminated.<ref name="JETNotes">{{cite book |last1=Taylor |first1=John Edward |url=https://archive.org/details/notesobservation00tayl |title=Notes and observations, critical and explanatory, on the papers relative to the internal state of the country |date=1820 |publisher=E Wilson |access-date=15 June 2015|author1-link=John Edward Taylor}}</ref>{{rp|1–3}} The Home Office assured them privately that in "an extreme case a magistrate may feel it incumbent upon him to act even without evidence, and to rely on Parliament for an indemnity."{{sfnp|Poole|2019|loc=ch. 10}}

===August meeting===
Against this background, a "great assembly" was organised by the Manchester Patriotic Union formed by radicals from the ''[[Manchester Observer]]''. Johnson, the union's secretary, wrote to Henry Hunt asking him to chair a meeting in Manchester on 2 August 1819. Johnson wrote:

{{blockquote|Nothing but ruin and starvation stare one in the face [in the streets of Manchester and the surrounding towns], the state of this district is truly dreadful, and I believe nothing but the greatest exertions can prevent an insurrection. Oh, that you in London were prepared for it.{{sfnp|Reid|1989|p=115|ps=none}}}}

Unknown to Johnson and Hunt, the letter was intercepted by government spies and copied before being sent to its destination, confirming the government's belief that an armed rising was planned.

[[File:Samuel Bamford.png|thumb|right|[[Samuel Bamford]] led a group from his native [[Middleton, Greater Manchester|Middleton]] to St Peter's Field. Following his [[imprisonment]] for "inciting a riot", Bamford emerged as a prominent voice for radical reform.]]

The mass public meeting planned for 2 August was delayed until 9 August. The ''Manchester Observer'' reported it was called "to take into consideration the most speedy and effectual mode of obtaining Radical reform in the Common House of Parliament" and "to consider the propriety of the 'Unrepresented Inhabitants of Manchester' electing a person to represent them in Parliament". The government's legal advice was that to elect a representative without a royal writ for an election was a criminal offence, and the magistrates decided to declare the meeting illegal.{{sfnp|Poole|2019|loc=Ch. 11}}

On 3 August however the Home Office conveyed to the magistrates the view of the Attorney-General that it was not the ''intention'' to elect an MP that was illegal, but the execution of that intention. It advised against any attempt to forcibly prevent the 9 August meeting unless there was an actual riot:

{{blockquote|even if they should utter sedition or proceed to the election of a representative Lord Sidmouth is of opinion that it will be the wisest course to abstain from any endeavour to disperse the mob, unless they should proceed to acts of felony or riot. We have the strongest reason to believe that Hunt means to preside and to deprecate disorder.<ref name=Sidmouth4Aug>{{cite web |last=Hobhouse |first=H. |title=A letter sent to Manchester on behalf of Lord Sidmouth, the Home Secretary, 4 August 1819 (Catalogue ref: HO 41/4 f.434) |url=http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/politics/transcript/g4s1t.htm |website=National Archives: Education: Power, Politics and Protest: The growth of political rights in Britain in the 19th century |publisher=National Archives |access-date=16 June 2015 |archive-date=4 March 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304054408/http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/politics/transcript/g4s1t.htm |url-status=live }}</ref>}}

The radicals' own legal advice however urged caution, and so the meeting was accordingly cancelled and rearranged for 16 August, with its declared aim solely "to consider the propriety of adopting the most LEGAL and EFFECTUAL means of obtaining a reform in the Common House of Parliament".<ref name=JETNotes />

[[Samuel Bamford]], a local radical who led the [[Middleton, Greater Manchester|Middleton]] contingent, wrote that "It was deemed expedient that this meeting should be as morally effective as possible, and, that it should exhibit a spectacle such as had never before been witnessed in England."{{sfnp|Bamford|1844|loc=Ch. 30}} Instructions were given to the various committees forming the contingents that "Cleanliness, Sobriety, Order and Peace" and a "prohibition of all weapons of offence or defence" were to be observed throughout the demonstration.{{sfnp|Frangopulo|1977|p=31|ps=none}} Each contingent was drilled and rehearsed in the fields of the towns around Manchester adding to the concerns of the authorities.{{sfnp|McPhillips|1977|pp=22–23|ps=none}} A royal proclamation forbidding the practice of drilling had been posted in Manchester on 3 August{{sfnp|Reid|1989|p=125|ps=none}} but on 9 August an informant reported to Rochdale magistrates that at [[Tandle Hill]] the previous day, 700 men were "drilling in companies" and "going through the usual evolutions of a regiment" and an onlooker had said the men "were fit to contend with any regular troops, only they wanted [i.e. lacked] arms". The magistrates were convinced that the situation was indeed an emergency which would justify pre-emptive action, as the Home Office had previously explained, and set about lining up dozens of local loyalist gentlemen to swear the necessary oaths that they believed the town to be in danger.{{sfnp|Poole|2019|loc=Ch. 11}}