On 16th August 1819 a
crowd of 80,000 1 people gathered in St Peter’s Fields
in Manchester at a meeting organised by Henry ‘Orator’ Hunt, a
leading Parliamentary reformer, to listen to speeches demanding
universal suffrage, lower taxation and better living conditions for
the working classes. The speeches were never delivered as the local
authorities decided that Hunt and his comrades should be arrested.
Members of the manufacturing class in the uniform of the Manchester
and Salford Yeomanry, aided by the Cheshire Yeomanry and the
15th Hussars - …
Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are not a subscriber, please click here to read about membership. All our articles have been written recently by experts in their field, more than 95% of them university professors.