# Peterloo
**Peterloo** (the Peterloo massacre) was the killing of peaceful pro-democracy demonstrators by cavalry at St Peter's Field, Manchester, on 16 August 1819. An estimated 60,000 people had gathered to hear the radical orator Henry Hunt campaign for parliamentary reform; when the local yeomanry and regular troops charged the crowd, fifteen civilians died and up to 700 were injured, according to the Guardian's account, while a Time review of [Mike Leigh](https://www.edgepedia.org/mike-leigh)'s film gives the death toll as 18.[1](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/oct/21/mike-leigh-peterloo-massacre-interview-you-ask-the-questions) • [2](https://time.com/5564177/peterloo-movie-review/) The name, a pun on St Peter's Fields and the battlefield of Waterloo four years earlier, was coined by the journalist James Wroe and became a byword for the suppression of working-class reform.[3](https://time.com/5416727/peterloo-true-story/)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Date and place | 16 August 1819, St Peter's Field, central Manchester[4](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/peterloo-mike-leigh-cudgel-massacre) |
| Crowd and speaker | An estimated 60,000 people assembled to hear the radical orator Henry Hunt[1](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/oct/21/mike-leigh-peterloo-massacre-interview-you-ask-the-questions) |
| Casualties | 15 civilians died and up to 700 were injured (Guardian); a Time review gives 18 killed[1](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/oct/21/mike-leigh-peterloo-massacre-interview-you-ask-the-questions) • [2](https://time.com/5564177/peterloo-movie-review/) |
| Franchise context | Less than 3% of the population had the vote, and Manchester had no member of parliament[1](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/oct/21/mike-leigh-peterloo-massacre-interview-you-ask-the-questions) |
| Name | Coined by James Wroe, editor of the *Manchester Observer*, combining St Peter's Fields with Waterloo; first published in pamphlets about ten days after the event[3](https://time.com/5416727/peterloo-true-story/) |
| Aftermath | Galvanized the movement for voting rights, extended after the Reform Act of 1832, and inspired the founding of the *Manchester Guardian* in 1821[3](https://time.com/5416727/peterloo-true-story/) |
## Background
Britain in 1819 was in economic and political distress. The industrial revolution had driven down wages, a twelve-year war against Napoleon had hobbled the economy and produced mass lay-offs, and restrictions on imported grain, the [Corn Laws](https://www.edgepedia.org/corn-laws), made food extremely expensive.[3](https://time.com/5416727/peterloo-true-story/) Only a small fraction of the population could vote: the Guardian puts the figure at less than 3%, Time at two percent, and Manchester, despite its size, had no member of parliament.[1](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/oct/21/mike-leigh-peterloo-massacre-interview-you-ask-the-questions) • [3](https://time.com/5416727/peterloo-true-story/) Radical reformers organized mass meetings to demand representation, and a group of Manchester reformers persuaded Henry Hunt, famous throughout the country for his rhetoric, to address a gathering at St Peter's Field.[3](https://time.com/5416727/peterloo-true-story/)
The authorities had learned of the demonstration in advance and decided to shut it down. The historian Robert Poole, of St Martin's College, Lancaster, examined the Home Office Disturbances Papers and found that in the months before Peterloo the [Home Office](https://www.edgepedia.org/home-office) had consistently urged the [Lancashire](https://www.edgepedia.org/lancashire) magistrates to combat radical agitation "either by the law or the sword"; its well-known advice for restraint on 16 August was, in his reading, a piece of qualified back-pedalling that came too late. Poole also argues that the authorities misread the peaceful mass platform agitation of 1819 in the light of the attempted insurrections of 1817, and he rejects the revisionist case that Peterloo was a conflict rather than a massacre.[5](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-229X.2006.00366.x)
## The massacre
The crowd that assembled on 16 August 1819 was peaceful; reformers had decided not to bring anything that could be construed as a weapon.[4](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/peterloo-mike-leigh-cudgel-massacre) As Hunt began to speak, soldiers charged. The yeomanry, an armed force of voluntary cavalrymen, was sent into the square, supported by mounted militia and regular troops.[3](https://time.com/5416727/peterloo-true-story/) • [4](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/peterloo-mike-leigh-cudgel-massacre) The violence killed fifteen civilians and wounded hundreds of others, but it was not the deadliest episode of political conflict in modern British history.[3](https://time.com/5416727/peterloo-true-story/) • [11](https://www.londonmuseum.org.uk/collections/london-stories/gordon-riots-revolution-in-the-making/)
Among the victims, the youngest was two-year-old William Fildes, whose mother was carrying him across a road when a yeoman struck her and the child fell into a horse's path; a pregnant woman, Mary Heyes, died in the same way. Hunt himself was not hurt, but the white top hat he wore that day was skewered by a sword and became a symbol of the reform movement.[3](https://time.com/5416727/peterloo-true-story/) A resident quoted by historians reported hearing a yeoman shout, "For shame! For shame, gentlemen! What are you about? The people cannot get away!"[3](https://time.com/5416727/peterloo-true-story/)
## Aftermath and legacy
The name "Peterloo" was coined by James Wroe, editor of the *Manchester Observer*, as a pun combining the location, St Peter's Fields, with Waterloo, the victory over Napoleon that the government proudly claimed a few years earlier. Wroe published the name in a series of pamphlets, *Peterloo Massacre: A Faithful Narrative of the Events*, the first appearing about a week and a half after the demonstration; he was later arrested for promoting sedition.[3](https://time.com/5416727/peterloo-true-story/)
The bloodshed became a defining moment for working-class reformers. It galvanized the movement for voting rights, which were gradually extended after the Reform Act of 1832, and it inspired the cotton merchant John Edward Taylor to found the *Manchester Guardian* in 1821.[3](https://time.com/5416727/peterloo-true-story/) The most famous cultural response of its own era was [Percy Bysshe Shelley](https://www.edgepedia.org/percy-bysshe-shelley)'s *Mask of Anarchy*.[4](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/peterloo-mike-leigh-cudgel-massacre) Hunt, after a spell in prison for his radical views, became a member of parliament, and his agitation helped bring in the 1832 Reform Act, which expanded the electorate to about 18% of adult men.[3](https://time.com/5416727/peterloo-true-story/) • [12](https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/RP13-14/RP13-14.pdf) Nearly two centuries later the event remained little taught in British schools, marked in Manchester only by a blue plaque.[4](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/peterloo-mike-leigh-cudgel-massacre)
## Mike Leigh's film
The 2018 film *Peterloo*, written and directed by Mike Leigh, dramatizes the events leading up to and including the massacre. Leigh, who grew up in nearby Salford, built the film from historical records and period sources with the historical adviser Jacqueline Riding, a [University of York](https://www.edgepedia.org/university-of-york) graduate in art history.[6](https://www.history.org.uk/secondary/categories/8/resource/9555/peterloo-ha-interview-with-mike-leigh-and-jacquel) • [7](https://www.york.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/2018/events/professor-joins-historical-consultant-of-peterloo/) At 154 minutes and a budget of $17.8 million, it was the director's largest and most expensive production, backed by Amazon Studios, Film4, and the BFI, and it premiered at the [Venice Film Festival](https://www.edgepedia.org/venice-film-festival) in 2018.[8](https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/peterloo-venice-review/5132184.article) [Rory Kinnear](https://www.edgepedia.org/rory-kinnear) plays Henry Hunt and Maxine Peake plays Nellie, a mill-worker's wife through whose family the film follows the poverty and radical politics of the period.[8](https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/peterloo-venice-review/5132184.article) • [2](https://time.com/5564177/peterloo-movie-review/) Critics were divided on the film's long stretches of political oratory but broadly praised its staging of the massacre itself; it holds a 67% rating on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer from 162 reviews.[9](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/peterloo) Leigh used the British release to urge that the massacre form part of the history curriculum in British schools.[10](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-mike-leigh-peterloo-director-20190328-story.html)
## References
1. [Mike Leigh interviewed by our readers and famous fans, The Guardian (21 October 2018)](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/oct/21/mike-leigh-peterloo-massacre-interview-you-ask-the-questions)
2. [Director Mike Leigh Revisits a Little-Known 1819 Massacre in 'Peterloo', Time (4 April 2019)](https://time.com/5564177/peterloo-movie-review/)
3. [The Movie Peterloo Is Based on a Real Massacre. Here's What to Know About the True Story, Time (2 November 2018)](https://time.com/5416727/peterloo-true-story/)
4. [Peterloo first look: Mike Leigh's cudgel for a massacre, Sight and Sound, BFI (2 September 2018)](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/peterloo-mike-leigh-cudgel-massacre)
5. [Robert Poole (2006), 'By the Law or the Sword': Peterloo Revisited, History 91: 254-276](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-229X.2006.00366.x)
6. [Peterloo: HA interview with Mike Leigh and Jacqueline Riding, Historical Association (28 March 2019)](https://www.history.org.uk/secondary/categories/8/resource/9555/peterloo-ha-interview-with-mike-leigh-and-jacquel)
7. [York Professor joins historical consultant to launch Mike Leigh's Peterloo movie, University of York (22 October 2018)](https://www.york.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/2018/events/professor-joins-historical-consultant-of-peterloo/)
8. ['Peterloo': Venice Review, Screen Daily (1 September 2018)](https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/peterloo-venice-review/5132184.article)
9. [Peterloo, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/peterloo)
10. [Director Mike Leigh breaks his own mold for the ambitious and expensive 'Peterloo', Los Angeles Times (28 March 2019)](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-mike-leigh-peterloo-director-20190328-story.html)
11. [The Gordon Riots: A revolution in the making](https://www.londonmuseum.org.uk/collections/london-stories/gordon-riots-revolution-in-the-making/)
12. [researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk](https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/RP13-14/RP13-14.pdf)
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