When Was The Peterloo Massacre?

The Peterloo Massacre took place in 1819.

On August 16th, a mass meeting was arranged by Manchester Radicals and held held at St. Peter's Fields Manchester, to hear Henry Hunt speak in favour of the ballot, annual parliaments and universal sufferage and against the corn laws. The gathering included two clubs of female reformers. and numbered around 50,000.

A disturbance began when the Lancashire Militia who were present at the meeting, charged the crowd killing 11 people in the crowd and injuring an estimated 400 others.
The incident soon became known as the Perterloo Massacre.

An eyewitness account said this
'The Yeomanry Cavalry made their charge with a most infuriate frenzy; they cut down men, women and children, indiscriminately, and appeared to have commenced a pre-meditated attack with the most insatiable thirst for blood and destruction'.

In 1832 the first Parlimentary Reform Act introduced some limited reforms.

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