The hussars now dashed forward to their rescue, and with such force that fugitives in their efforts to escape were literally piled up to a considerable height above the level of the field. The yeomanry thus extricated again rode into the crowd, cutting and slashing wherever there was an opportunity. No reliable evidence was ever brought forward that the Riot Act was publicly read before the dispersal of the crowd by the yeomanry and military.* Eleven persons were killed and several hundreds wounded. Many of these were women.*
The object of the meeting, dispersed in this bloody fashion, was to petition for Parliamentary reform.* When the reports of the outrage appeared in the London papers the feeling of indignation throughout the country was intense. The Manchester magistrates met on the 19th, and published resolutions purporting to have been adopted at a public meeting;* but a protest against their proceedings received 4,800 signatures in a few days. Nothwithstanding this, Lord Sidmouth,* on the 27th, conveyed to the magistrates the thanks of the Prince Regent* for their action in the “preservation of the public peace!” On the same day Hunt and others were brought up at the New Bailey Court House, and committed for trial at Lancaster Assizes on a charge of conspiracy.*
* The Riot Act (1715) dated back to the days of the Jacobite invasions, when Roman Catholic mobs supporting ‘James VIII and III’, James Stuart, son of the ousted James VII and II, and his son ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’, would terrorise Dissenting meeting houses. A crowd of twelve or more could be ordered to disperse, and if they did not do so within the hour they could be convicted of a felony, which carried the threat of execution or transportation. The Act remained on the statute books until 1967, and ‘read the Riot Act’ is still used to mean ‘warn an unruly group to behave’. Intended to put fear into mobs, in some ways the Act tied the hands of the authorities instead, which may explain why it was not read here.
* The numbers given of dead and wounded have varied widely over time. A memorial erected in 2019 lists eighteen dead, very properly including the unborn child of Elizabeth Gaunt, who was subjected to abuse while she was being held for eleven days without trial. The wounded appear to number around 400 but there can be no certainty about the precise figure. Some did not report their injuries after hearing of friends who lost their jobs simply for attending the meetings, and others were refused treatment at hospitals for the same reason.
* A major breakthrough came in 1832, but it would be almost another hundred years before Henry Hunt’s dream of universal suffrage came true. See The Reform Acts.
* This public meeting was supposed to give the impression (which was utterly misleading) that the Manchester hustings had not been a popular protest, but an attempted insurrection orchestrated by Hunt. Throughout his turbulent political career, however, Hunt steadfastly refused to have anything to do with revolutionary tactics, revelling in public notoriety and scorning cloak-and-dagger activism such as the Cato Street Conspiracy (1820), in which Arthur Thistlewood (1774-1820) had plotted to assassinate government ministers at Lord Harrowby’s house in Grosvenor Square. Happily, Thistlewood (rather like Guy Fawkes before him) was betrayed at the last moment, and the plot miscarried.
* Henry Addington (1757-1844) was created 1st Viscount Sidmouth in 1805 after serving as Prime Minister from 1801 to 1804. He was appointed Home Secretary in 1812 and remained in the role for ten years, during which he won a reputation for harsh treatment of dissent culminating in the Six Acts (1819) which cracked down on free speech and gatherings of more than 50 people. The Prime Minister at this time was Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool, in office from 1812 to 1827.
* The Prince Regent was George, Prince of Wales, standing in for his father George III who was suffering from long-term health problems. The following year the Prince became King George IV, but his message of support for the military action at Peterloo had all but made republicans of a good many of his subjects.
* Hunt was arrested for high treason, but the charge was reduced to seditious conspiracy, of which he was found guilty and he was sentenced to thirty months in Ilchester Gaol. His reputation was enhanced rather than harmed by his sufferings, and in 1830 he was elected to Parliament as MP for Preston.