Massacre that chan
Right in the middle stands the Midland Hotel where Theresa May and the Cabinet stay when the Tory conference is in town. The narrow streets down which the demonstrators tried to flee only to find themselves in suffocating bottlenecks have been replaced by a plaza in front of the Convention Centre.
The spot where Henry “Orator” Hunt addressed the crowd is now the Radisson Hotel. Only a small red plaque on the side of the building stands as a reminder to the blood which flowed on that Monday of August 16, 1819.
At least 60,000 people, one of largest crowds ever recorded at that date, gathered to challenged the iniquity that a region of 120,000 souls did not have a single MP.
Weavers, labourers, artisans, farm hands, women and children – many in their Sunday best – had brought picnics and musical instruments.
They had come to listen to Hunt. His eyes would go red with passion when he spoke about the unfairness of large rapidly growing industrial cities having no representation in Parliament while a handful of voters in ancient, tiny, “rotten boroughs” were able to return easily bribed MPs. When Hunt took to the stage, made from a couple of carts lashed together, just before 1pm, the magistrates ordered the charge. Dozens of bluecoated soldiers, who had spent the morning drinking after assembling in Pickford’s Yard (the same company as the removal firm), rode into the crowd with sabres drawn. The first victim was William Fyles, two, who was trampled to death. Women and children were cut down “indiscriminately”, according to one report. One man had his nose sliced off, another was beaten so badly “there was not a place on his back that was not covered with wounds or bruises”.
Socialist historian William Herbert says: “People were lying in heaps because they could not escape. There were only narrow streets so there was no way out.
“Some fell into cellars and were crushed. The worst was nearest the stage where the crowd was thickest.”
Up to 18 people were killed and an estimated 700 injured. Ten journalists from across the country were there to witness the barbarity.
Every bruise, sabre cut and innocent life lost was recorded for posterity.
Thomas Barlow of Middleton was “sabred in the head and much crushed”.
John Davenport of Stockport had a piece of bone “the size of half-a-crown” hacked from his forehead and Margaret Downes, “dreadfully cut in the breast”, was “secreted clandestinely and supposed dead”.
What made the massacre so monstrous was the crowd was peaceful and the attack was authorised in advance.
Magistrate William Hulton was not going to allow a gathering of the “lower orders” and their radical cheerleaders.
The authorities, as so often before and since, tried to cover up the outrages. Inquests were abandoned and “fake news” planted in sympathetic papers lied about demonstrators attacking troops with stones.
Not a single person was convicted. Nobody was ever held to account. Not content with shifting the blame, the Government then went on the offensive. Hunt was imprisoned. So, too, Times journalist John Tyas who cribed the bloodbath.
A stamp tax was introduced to newspapers and bans on pu assembly were introduced.
But did the victims die in vain? Hi rian Dr Robert Poole believes not says: “It was a massive setback but in end we got most of what the Peter generation was after.”
Within 13 years the Great Reform Act was passed, granting Mancheste two MPs. However, working peopl struggle for the vote was to las much, much longer.
In 1832 males who owned or rented property of a certain value were enfranchised.
But it was not until 1918 that all men – and some