l egacy of Peterloo
The Disrupt? Peterloo and Protest exhibition at People’s History Museum (PHM) is putting the Peterloo Massacre at the heart of a conversation about protest and collective action. Why was that important? At People’s History Museum (PHM) we wanted to remember the Peterloo Massacre as a critical event in modern Britain. But we also wanted to connect Peterloo with the present and future of protest and collective action – rather than just a history lesson we wanted to think about how Peterloo influenced and inspired a much longer history of protest and resistance. Did Peterloo set the stage for further protests for voting rights in the years that followed? In the years following the massacre the government cracked down on protest. When Percy Bysshe Shelley heard of the massacre, he penned the poem The Masque Of Anarchy, powerfully indicting those who were responsible. Yet Shelley could not find a publisher brave enough to print his words, with the genuine threat of imprisonment hanging over radicals in this period. It was only in 1832, after Shelley’s death, that the poem was first published. Out of the ashes of Peterloo and following the Great Reform Act of 1832 a new working class movement emerged with the Chartists and they would continue the struggle for voting rights that had been violently repressed at Peterloo. Did the crackdown have a lasting effect on the memory of Peterloo? Ordinary people continued to keep the memory of Peterloo alive. There were a huge number of protestors, around 60,000, who had witnessed the massacre and they refused to forget. In our collections and galleries at PHM, and now on show in our exhibition Disrupt? Peterloo and Protest, we hold many of these commemorative artefacts: handkerchiefs, jugs, flags and medals all made to continue the memory of Peterloo. But the repression that followed the massacre certainly means that many of these objects from the reform movement have now been lost or destroyed. What do you feel Peterloo can teach us about modern protest? The protestors who met at St Peter’s Field powerfully represented the real communities of Manchester and its surrounding towns and villages. There were many women on the demonstration, and they often led their sections into the march. Women were critical to the reform movement yet, just as now, they were mocked and targeted as they stepped out of their role as wives and mothers. Peterloo teaches us that the campaign for women’s rights did not simply begin with the suffragettes. But the Peterloo Massacre also tells us that rights we have today, like the vote, were never simply given to us by enlightened governments. Instead, these rights were campaigned for by ordinary people, sometimes in dangerous circumstances amidst the brutality of the British government.
Disrupt? Peterloo and Protest is running at PHM until 23 February 2020 with artefacts brought together for the first time. The museum is open seven days a week, entry is free with a suggested donation of £5
“Peterloo Teaches us That The campaign for women’s rights did not simply begin with The suffragettes”