PETERLOO: VOICES SABRES AND SILENCE

On 16 August 1819 on St Peter’s Field, Manchester, a peaceful demonstration of at least 60,000 workers and reformers was brutally dispersed by sabre-wielding cavalry, resulting in a minimum of fifteen dead and over 600 injured. Within days the slaughter was named ‘Peter-loo’, an ironic reference to the battleground of Waterloo. The lessons to be learned from the bloodshed and the tyrannical aftermath are as pertinent today as they were 200 years ago.