Due to fierce
competition from cheap imported foreign corn in the early 19th
century, wealthy and influential gentlemen farmers had lobbied
the ruling parliamentary party, the Tories, to prohibit their
import by the imposition of Corn Laws in 1815. With this monopoly
in place, British corn rose to prohibitive prices, making it impossible
for the poor to buy bread.
The Corn Laws
were seen by ordinary people as a symbol of the dominant ruling
aristocracy's feudal power over them, and of the suppliers' unashamed
self interest, at the cost of their staple food. Protests by Lancashire
mill-workers at the imposition of such severe measures soon grew.
In September
1838, mill owners and local politicians joined protesters in the
formation of an Anti-Corn Law League, at the York Hotel in King
Street, Manchester, with George Wilson as its chairman. Support
grew so fast that a temporary wooden hall was built in St Peters
Street to hold protest meetings - it became known as the Free
Trade Hall. Later a stone building replaced this original wooden
one. Two major figures emerged as leaders of the Anti-Corn Law
movement, Richard
Cobden, a Bolton calico manufacturer, and
John Bright,
a Rochdale mill-owner and a Quaker.
Cobden and
Bright, both persuasive orators with powerful local backing, (including
Archibald
Prentice, radical editor of the Manchester Times newspaper),
succeeded in getting elected to parliament, (Cobden - MP for Stockport
in 1841) where they constantly lobbied and harassed the Prime
Minister, Sir Robert Peel (born in Bury).
Peel, under
severe pressure from the League and its growing band of ever more
powerful supporters, repealed the Corn Laws in 1846, thereby splitting
the Tory party, and effectively ending his own political career
in the process. Manchester would, henceforth be associated with
the principle of Free Trade. The Free Trade Hall, the third and
now a fine permanent stone building, was built later as a monument
to honour the Manchester movement.
By the early
19th century, despite its massive growth, Manchester had no real
political representation - most parliamentary places were held
by local gentry in surrounding suburbs, who had little or no political
interest. Many of these 'constituencies' comprised no more than
a half dozen houses.
The vast majority
of Manchester people had no voice, and were not represented in
parliament. Many educated businessmen of the region thought it
high time that the political system should be reformed so as to
be more representative of the contemporary demography - most constituencies
and boundaries had been drawn over 400 years earlier, and bore
little resemblance to actual population distribution at the time.
The Reform
Movement had begun as early as 1790, when the Manchester Constitutional
Society had been formed, under the leadership of Thomas Walker.
This "radical" movement was deeply suspected and opposed by local
churchmen and magistrates, largely conservative in their attitudes,
and in privileged positions, who were generally satisfied with
the way things were.
A public reform
meeting was called, to be held on Monday 16th August 1819 in St
Peters Fields (now St Peters Street), as there was no building
thought big enough to hold the anticipated crowd. Henry
Hunt, a national reform leader, and noted orator who had spoken
elsewhere that year, was to address the crowd. Estimates put the
crowd at variously 30,000 and 150,000 people - in any case, we
can be certain that there were more people present than Manchester
had ever seen in one place before. Disturbed such large crowds,
magistrates called in local militia to stand ready.
Some 1500
troops assembled, comprising the 15th Hussars (professional soldiers)
and soldiers of the Manchester and Cheshire Yeomen Cavalry (a
largely volunteer force), commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Guy
L'Estrange. Magistrates, fearing insurrection and riots, ordered
Hunt and other leaders to be arrested before they could speak,
though the meeting had been thus-far peaceful and orderly. Inadvertently
a mounted solder brushed and knocked down a mother, killing the
child she was carrying, and panic ensued.
agistrates,
and the troop commander, misread what appeared to be a riotous
outbreak, and ordered Yeomanry, who were standing ready just off
Portland Street, to go in to break up the affray.
The armed
cavalry, sabres drawn, charged the crowd, cutting people down
indiscriminately. Men, women and children were hacked down or
trampled by horses or people in flight. After ten minutes of havoc
and slaughter, the field was deserted except for the broken hustings
platform, bodies of the dead, wounded and dying. A soldier of
the Yeomanry company, who had fought at Waterloo in 1815, likened
the carnage to that battlefield, and the term "Peterloo" took
hold, and survives as an historic event even today.
After news
of the massacre spread across Britain, local authorities clamped
down on all public meetings, in breech of all laws to the contrary,
and took severe measures to ensure public order. It had been arguably
the most important day in Manchester's political history. Rumours
spread that the attack had been planned and may possibly have
been ordered, well in advance of the event, by the government
in London.
Fears of the
recent French Revolution permeated British political awareness
to such an extent, that the authorities were paranoiac in case
ordinary people followed the French example - local authorities
had been ordered to stamp out any risk at source and summarily.
Another viewpoint blames bystanders throwing stones provocatively
at the troops.
Debates on
the causes of the Massacre continue. Meanwhile, Hunt and the other
Peterloo leaders had been incarcerated in Lancaster Castle prison.
Thousands of supporters lined the streets when, after being released
on bail, Hunt made the return trip to Manchester. Hunt had always
insisted on peaceful and legal means to achieve political change,
despite being urged to armed protest by many of his supporters.
The Peterloo
Massacre successfully stifled Manchester's bid for reform for
a decade. Stinging from the attack for many years to come, political
meetings henceforth moved into the surrounding towns of Oldham,
Stockport and Blackburn, where the predominance of mill-workers
saw many eager to join the movement, and though somewhat muted
for a time, the movement gradually grew - most popular amongst
the unfranchised working people of Northern England.
It was not
to be until the 1830s and '40s that parliamentary reform could
be fully ressurrected in Manchester. The Chartist Movement, begun
in London, but taken up eagerly and pioneered in Manchester, was
also a growing force.
Chartists
wanted universal suffrage for all men, secret ballots and annual
elections. Political reform was in the air and the people of Manchester
and the numerous spinning and weaving towns surrounding it, were
at the vanguard of the movement.
A Chartist
meeting was held at Kersal Moor in September 1838, despite the
Peterloo Massacre, and a second at the same site in May 1839.
Another was held at the Griffin Inn in Great Ancoats Street in
July 1840, and 6 other meetings in Lancashire in 1841.
The Chartist
Movement dominated British politics in the 1840s, and Manchester
had been the flashpoint for the chain reaction which it caused,
and for the eventual political reforms which were brought about
through the constant efforts of its supporters.
