Peterloo: The Story of the Manchester Massacre

by Jacqueline Riding

Manchester, August 1819: 60,000 people had gathered in the cause of parliamentary reform. To those defending the status quo, the vote was not a universal right, but a privilege of wealth and land ownership. To radical reformers the fundamental overhaul of a corrupt system was long overdue. The people had come to hear one such reformer, Henry Hunt, from all over Lancashire, walking to the sound of hymns and folk songs. By the end of the day fifteen of them, including two women and a child, were dead or mortally wounded, and 650 injured, hacked down by drunken yeomanry after local magistrates panicked at the scale of the meeting. The British state, four years after defeating the 'tyrant' Bonaparte at Waterloo, had turned its forces against its own people, as they peaceably exercised their liberties.

Jacqueline Riding's compelling book ties in to Mike Leigh's forthcoming film Peterloo, for which the author was historical advisor, in advance of the bicentenary of Peterloo in 2019.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Historical, British Literature, Politics

400 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2018

About the author

Dr Jacqueline Riding is an English art historian, historian, adviser and author. She specialises in British history and art of the long eighteenth century. She is an experienced adviser and consultant for museums, historic buildings and film. She was the historical and art historical consultant for Mike Leigh’s award-winning feature film Mr. Turner (2014) and his new film Peterloo (2018).

Reviews

[Julian Worker · Rating 5 out of 5]

I saw the brilliant film by Mike Leigh and I have now read the wonderful book by Jacqueline Riding.

This was such a diabolical day in English Social History - 16th August 1819 - that it should be covered in the school history curriculum along with the Putney Debates and the Suffragetes.

I might be wrong, but I think the best known vestige of this massacre is The Britons Protection, a historic pub in Manchester that served as a treatment centre for some of the injured after the event in 1819. It features murals depicting the massacre.

After reading the book I was elated that the story had been described so well, amazed that none of the magistrates / special constables at the scene were ever prosecuted successfully, and disappointed it had taken me so long to find out what had happened on that terrible day in Manchester.

This is a gripping story that gradually brings the various strands of the story together, culminating in the massacre of civilians by the military. It is sad that it took another 100 years for the demands of the massacred reformers to be mostly met - annual parliaments are still a distant dream - and that it was not until 1928 that all people - apart from convicts and the insane - over 21 were allowed to vote.

Everyone in the UK should read this book.

If you do, you will never take democracy for granted and you will remember all those reformers who died in order for you to enjoy voting in a democracy.

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.75 stars
The Mask (Masque) of Anarchy was Shelley’s reaction to the Peterloo massacre: a few extracts:

Last came Anarchy: he rode
On a white horse, splashed with blood;
He was pale even to the lips,
Like Death in the Apocalypse.

And he wore a kingly crown;
And in his grasp a sceptre shone;
On his brow this mark I saw -
'I AM GOD, AND KING, AND LAW!'

With a pace stately and fast,
Over English land he passed,
Trampling to a mire of blood
The adoring multitude,

And a mighty troop around,
With their trampling shook the ground,
Waving each a bloody sword,
For the service of their Lord.

And with glorious triumph, they
Rode through England proud and gay,
Drunk as with intoxication
Of the wine of desolation.
……
As flowers beneath May's footstep waken,
As stars from Night's loose hair are shaken,
As waves arise when loud winds call,
Thoughts sprung where'er that step did fall.

And the prostrate multitude
Looked - and ankle-deep in blood,
Hope, that maiden most serene,
Was walking with a quiet mien:

And Anarchy, the ghastly birth,
Lay dead earth upon the earth;
The Horse of Death tameless as wind
Fled, and with his hoofs did grind
To dust the murderers thronged behind.

A rushing light of clouds and splendour,
A sense awakening and yet tender
Was heard and felt - and at its close
These words of joy and fear arose

As if their own indignant Earth
Which gave the sons of England birth
Had felt their blood upon her brow,
And shuddering with a mother's throe

Had turnèd every drop of blood
By which her face had been bedewed
To an accent unwithstood, -
As if her heart had cried aloud:

'Men of England, heirs of Glory,
Heroes of unwritten story,
Nurslings of one mighty Mother,
Hopes of her, and one another;

'Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number,
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you -
Ye are many - they are few.’

This was Shelley’s call to arms.
The Peterloo massacre took place on 16th August 1819 at St Peter’s Field in Manchester where a large meeting called to support Reform was charged on by military and yeomanry on horseback. Estimates of the crowd vary between 60 and 200 thousand. There were fifteen deaths (including women and children) and over 400 injuries. These numbers are likely to be an under estimate as many dies from their wounds at a later date. There is an excellent chapter on Peterloo in E P Thompson’s Making of the English Working Class. It is a piece of working class history which has been somewhat neglected (swept under the carpet). Riding wrote this for the 200th anniversary in 2019 and the introduction is by Mike Leigh, who directed the film released about the same time.
This is a detailed and well researched account of the lead up to Peterloo with a close look at the reformers like Bamford and Hunt and those in government and power who were organising the oppression. One of the interesting aspects of the account is Riding’s look at a neglected area, the female Reform societies. It is not widely known that there were female reform societies and Riding suggests that this is partially the birth of later movements for women’s suffrage. Women like Mary Fildes who are much less well known than reformers like Henry Hunt and Samuel Bamford, are given their place. Fildes was injured on the day. Riding outlines the difficulties of opposing the government with accounts of the repressive legislation and the persecution of this who opposed the government and agitated for reform. The name Peterloo was coined because of Waterloo just four years earlier. The contrast being that here the army was attacking their own. There were Waterloo veterans on both sides.
Some would have you believe that this was a one off, it wasn’t, there were other examples but even less is remembered about them. This is well worth reading.

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Peterloo - an unflinching portrait of Manchester's bloody massacre

2019 will mark the 200th anniversary since the Peterloo massacre, for which Manchester has been planning for quite some time. There are books planned, a monument to be unveiled, a film, and the website is already up and running. For those of us in the ‘know’ this is an important date for us to remember.

As a historian, who was able to study the Peterloo Massacre as part of my A level on British History. As a historian of Manchester, Peterloo is another example of radical Manchester, betrayed by those in power and covered up and forgotten especially by some of those with a conservative bent.

Two years earlier in 1817, The Blanketeers March set off from St Peter’s Field in the February to bring to the Prince Regent’s attention the dire situation of the textile workers across Lancashire. They were unable to raise this matter with a local Member of Parliament as Manchester did not have a representative. Whereas Rotten Boroughs such as Old Sarem had two elected Members of Parliament, for an area in Wiltshire that was just fields and a hill.

Most of the Rotten Boroughs were around Wiltshire, Cornwall and Hampshire and under the control of a family or one particular family. Old Sarum was under the control of the Pitt family, the elder Pitt having been the member for that constituency. Whereas many of the fast-growing towns such as Manchester had no representation.

On Monday 16th August 1819, 60,000 people gathered at St Peter’s Field to gather and campaign for Parliamentary reform, and a campaign against the privilege of wealth and land ownership. Many had come to hear the radical Henry Hunt, by the end of the day of 15 people would be dead and over 600 were injured.

The local magistrates (landowners) were observing from a far panicked and sent in the local Yeomanry to break up the meeting because of the shear size of it. On horseback, they cut through the crowds like a knife through hot butter, as well as chasing many across the city and into the slums cutting them down.

Jacqueline Riding has researched and written this book so well, slowly building up the background to the day so that the reader can understand what Manchester and the textile towns were like. The wretchedness, squalid living conditions of the weavers. What Riding does do is show that there was a sense of inevitability about Peterloo.

It must be remembered that those who held power, were worried about in the recent past, there had been the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars to name but a few. Conditions for a revolution abounded, along with an economic depression and the bloated Prince Regent represented everything that was wrong with the powers that be.

While some may do down Peterloo, as it does not compare with what was happening abroad, but to them I would challenge, the working people of Lancashire did not care about what was happening in France. Peterloo is about British People being held down by their “social betters” so they could protect their wealth, and status as the working man AND woman was expendable.

Jacqueline Riding brings out an unflinching portrait of Manchester's bloody massacre to others it was a pinprick, to Manchester another example of entitled conservative historians doing down the working class once again. This is an excellent book that anyone interested in the history of Britain needs to read that not everything was happy and shiny about the Regency period, especially if you were poor.

An excellent history, by an excellent historian, readable and full of interesting facts, one cannot help but learn from it.

[Rupert · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was aware of the Peterloo Massacre, having studied British political history at school, but all these years later, I'd have been hard pushed to say what happened, or why it was important. Thanks to Jacqueline Riding's thoroughly-researched book (much of it drawing on archival sources), I now know what unfolded when about 60,000 deliberately peaceful protesters met to demand parliamentary reform on St Peter's Field in Manchester on 16 August 1819 - and two squadrons of poorly-trained and ill-disciplined volunteer cavalry rode into them, wielding their sabres, in an attempt to arrest the speakers, leaving fifteen dead on the day and hundreds more injured.

Like those writing at the time, Riding exploits the parallel between the British and allied victory over Napoleon at Waterloo four years before, and the massacre which took the battle's name, Peter-loo. She does this largely through the unfortunate person of John Lees, who survived the French onslaught in 1815 only to die, slowly and painfully, three weeks after the Manchester protest, of wounds inflicted there by the Manchester and Salford and the Cheshire Yeomanry Cavalry, special constables - and his fellows on the field at Waterloo, the 15th Hussars. As the dying Lees said: 'at Waterloo there was man to man, but at Manchester it was downright murder'.

But Riding provides more than a clear account of events on 16 August - as clear as they can be, given the conflicting views of the participants, and the rapid realisation on the part of at least some of the authorities that something had gone badly wrong. (Not that anyone was ever brought to justice for the deaths and injuries - although the speakers were prosecuted and gaoled.) She also provides a thorough account of the social and political events which led up to the protest and its bloody suppression: the poverty caused by rapid industrialisation, the never-ending French wars, and a series of poor harvests; the effect on British public opinion of the French Revolution and subsequent Terror; and the political corruption resulting from a severely restricted franchise and constituencies whose boundaries had been unchanged for centuries. Riding marshals the large cast of reformers and authorities well, and pays particular attention to the women who participated in radical politics, identifying them as the first in Britain to be thoroughly engaged in public politics, decades before their successors, the suffragists and suffragettes, began their campaigns for the same rights sought by the Manchester protesters decades earlier.

And there's the tragedy: the Peterloo protesters demands should seem unexceptionable to us today: universal suffrage ('no taxation without representation'), voting by ballot, constituencies containing the same number of voters, and annual parliaments. Universal suffrage in the United Kingdom was achieved only 109 years after Peterloo; the work of the Boundary Commission in reviewing constituency boundaries is seldom without controversy; and as for annual parliaments ....

In his preface to the book, Mike Leigh, whose film about the massacre (for which Riding was the historical advisor) was released at the same time as the book was published, states that, when he was growing up in Salford, he was never told about the Peterloo massacre. Thanks to Riding's book, the tragic consequences that resulted when a fearful establishment was faced with a large body of well-organised, peaceful, but determined protesters on St Peter's Field will now be much better known and understood.

[Julia Brannan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having recently seen the excellent film of the same name on which the author is credited as the historian, I decided to read her book to get some background information on an event I knew almost nothing about, in spite of being brought up in Manchester. There were no school lessons, no commemorations and no monument to this tragedy.
I am so glad that I chose to read this book to learn more. It's extremely well written, and manages to be very readable whilst also very informative, qualities rarely found together in a historical non-fiction book! It gives an excellent, detailed background to the massacre which makes you feel as if you were there, and leaves you fully understanding the reasons why the people assembled, why the authorities reacted as they did, and how easily the whole horrific occurrence could have been avoided.
It also made me respectful of all the people who risked their lives and reputations to acquire the right to vote and to have a say in their own lives, a right which we now sadly take for granted, and often neglect to use. It is true that we can learn an awful lot from history, and in doing so hopefully avoid repeating past mistakes - at a time when many of our rights are under threat, this book should be a timely warning as to how difficult they were to gain in the first place, and just how much we stand to lose. I urge you to read it, and to watch the film as well - each stands alone, but they complement each other too. Extremely entertaining and informative.

[Mark Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you don't know about Peterloo go and see Mike Leigh's brilliant film,for which this author was historical adviser.

Then read E P Thompson's account in The Making of The English Working Class. His account of the yeomanry after they were seen by a witness 'wiping their sabres' after charging a peaceful crowd as nothing less than 'class war' is still unsurpassed.

The list of participants and their injuries at the end of Jacqueline Riding's book is telling,as is her highlighting of the role of women,the Blackburn Female Reform Society.

See:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/the-no...

"At least 18 people were killed on the field or died later of their injuries, of whom four were women. These were Margaret Downes – sabred; Mary Heys - trampled by cavalry; Sarah Jones – truncheoned on the head by special constables; and Martha Partington, – crushed to death in a cellar. Of the 654 people listed as being injured, 168 were women."

[Ant · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting but at times goes into too much unnecessary detail. Rather unsatisfactory & rushed conclusion

[G.J. Griffiths · Rating 5 out of 5]

This fascinating "book of the film" - Peterloo, directed by Mike Leigh - gave some wonderful and equally disturbing insights into the events that led up to, and resulting consequences of the traumatic hustings in St. Peter's Field, Manchester, on Monday 16th August 1819. The descriptions of the many main characters, such as Henry Hunt, Samuel Bamford, Lord Sidmouth, Joseph Nadin and various magistrates, gave the reader some kind of balance to the context but did not change my overall final emotions of sadness and outrage on behalf of the needlessly slain and injured people who had gathered in Manchester.

Whether the local and national governments' statements and various "Acts" later on were all part of a massive kind of cover-up is still debatable but I have no doubt that the whole event (incident?) was disgracefully mishandled by all of the authorities involved, including the military and various administrators. The mere fact that they employed several, later (in)famous, spies who also acted as agents-provocateurs seriously undermines any case of justification put forward by the Home Secretary Sidmouth and his lackeys. The book is incredibly revealing in lots of those sort of details and Jacqueline Riding is to be highly commended for the amount of research done for this very readable account.

[Damon · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was a fascinating look at a critical moment in British history. The working class of Manchester and the North West fought and died for a vote so many now take for granted.

[Richard Jarrald · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent, in-depth account of the run up and aftermath of the Peterloo massacre. Well worth a read; engaging and thought provoking, and relevant even today.

[Adam Stevenson · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Jacobites, Jacqueline Riding shows how skilled she is at taking a complicated series of events with many players and shaping them into a text that is both engaging and coherent and she does the same with the story of the Peterloo massacre. I knew a little about it from ‘Victorians’ text books from school and I’ve seen the Sharpe episode with the Peterloo equivalent but beyond the headlines, I didn’t know the details. Peterloo: The Story of the Manchester Massacre told me a little more than I needed to know, gave me a feel for the times, the tone of the language, the arguments in the pub and kept clarity and narrative momentum.

We begin with the rise of Hampden Clubs, meetings of working men sharing ideas of political reform - particularly about changing electoral constituencies to get rid of rotten boroughs and a desire for a vote per man (there wasn’t yet discussion of women’s suffrage, but it was considered a vote per man was one per household). These clubs were boosted by solid Sunday-school education and inspired by thinkers like Tom Paine as well as reading and sharing cheap newspapers. With waves of soldiers returning from Waterloo, a distant volcanic eruption that killed harvest and the Corn Laws which brought food prices up but did nothing to bring wages up with it - the government were scared. It wasn’t helped that the official government position seems to have been ‘it’s not our fault’.

After multiple petitions were ignored, the reform groups decided to increase their pressure, one tactic was the ‘blanket protest’. Reading that it was a crime to present a petition in groups more than ten, it was decided to send a mass petition but to take it in multiple copies in small groups - all of them walking from Manchester to London and carrying a blanket to sleep outdoors. With Habeus Corpus suspended, the ‘blanketeers’ were arrested as they left the city, with the urban myth that only one man made it.

The next idea were ‘monster’ meetings, huge rallies with popular speakers designed to show how strong support for reform was. The plan was a series of huge meetings, culminating in a large Manchester one for the north, and a large Kennington one for the south. The magistrates of Manchester started getting nervous, organising a volunteer cavalry called the Yeoman and drafting volunteer constables. It wasn’t helped that the government were sending agent provocateurs to stir up trouble, nor that some speakers were appealing to audiences with more violent rhetoric. What’s more, bodies of men were training on the moors, learning to march in formation. Was this a way of ensuring calm and orderly movement en masse, or was this the training of working class fighting bands?

It wasn’t only men involved in the movement to reform, for the first time women formed organised groups. The first was in Blackburn, followed shortly by the Manchester Female Reform Society, led by Mary Fildes - one of those people in history that ought to be better known. I loved the moment dramatised in the book where the women are asked to vote for something for the first time and the atmosphere of nervous laughter grows to one of pride.

This moment comes from the autobiography of Samuel Bamford, as do many other sparkling and vivid descriptions. A poet as well as a radical, Samuel has a sharp (and sometimes withering) eye for describing other people. Riding hits a motherlode with his descriptions, whether it’s Sidmouth with his 'cavernous orbs' of eyes or Nadin with his 'full-size head'. There’s also a wonderful moment where he describes his beloved wife 'as fresh as Hebe'.

Other interesting people in this book include Dr Healy, whose accent is so thick he can’t be understood by his interrogators and who hands his proscriptions out with pro-forma cards that he fills numbers in because he’s illiterate. He tempers this with an excessive dignity which has him trying to act the gentleman even as he’s being arrested. He also created the most peculiar banner to take to the meeting - stark black and white, threatening looking even as the text read ‘love’. I was also drawn to Joseph Nadin, the Deputy-Constable. He struck me as a prot-Gene Hunt, fond of catching ‘his guy’ and certainly not afraid of violence. Despite originally being a thief-taker and having corrupt habits carry on after his more formal appointment, he redeemed himself a little in my eyes as using himself as a human shield against the voluntary constables when they tried to beat up the man he was arresting.

I may seem to be avoiding the actual massacre, it is the climax of the book after all. Throughout, Jacqueline Riding ratchets up the tension, discussing preparations on both sides and the growing paranoia of the authorities. Like the greatest tragedies, the massacre at St Peter’s field could have been easily avoided. As the size of the crowd grew, the authorities got nervous and sent for the Yeoman, the volunteer cavalry, who were drunk, clumsy and unskilled. The killed a 2 year old on the way to the field and then proceeded to wade into the crowd, trying to clear them with the blades of their swords. As one eyewitness said, “At Waterloo there was man to man but at Manchester it was downright murder.”

[Dr G · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am not sure that the world needed another book on Peterloo, nor that this attempt offers anything new.
In the author's acknowledgements, we find that Riding, historical advisor to Mike Leigh's new film, "Peterloo", was encouraged to turn her researches into a book. It is unfortunate that books are sometimes seen as personal monuments to individuals' opinions or hard work, rather than as contributions to knowledge and scholarship.
As might be expected from a person who advised Mike Leigh, this account has a decided sympathy for the marchers. This is not an unreasonable perspective for an appalling event. However, as an account of an important historical period, the book lacks a consistent distancing.
The account of Jeremiah Brandreth, for example, omitted some important information, freely available, which would muddy the judgment.
It was disappointing to see a number of instances where unnecessary detail was included, presumably because the researcher couldn't bear to omit the product of hard work: On Pages 55-56, we are told of the mechanisms of the Home Office, including that “Maintaining this increasingly busy and understaffed department in some semblance of domestic order was the ‘necessary woman’ or housekeeper, Mrs Anne Moss, who commanded a combined annual salary and allowance of £140.” Anyone who has researched knows the thrill of adding new details after pursuing difficult leads, and the temptation to include it all. The discipline of decent history-writing demands a ruthless approach.
All in all, a reasonable piece of writing but one which really does not seem to contribute much that we need.

[Ape · Rating 4 out of 5]

Everything you could want to know about the Peterloo Massacre, I guess. I knew of it, but not the details and felt that I needed to educate myself a bit more in our British history. Reading Mike Leigh's introduction, he's right in pointing out how strange it is that this isn't well known or generally taught in schools. Because it's a big deal that happened and a big thing in the process of universal suffrage.
Jacqueline Riding really knows her stuff. My god the woman must have spent a lifetime reading up on the subject, all the books, newspapers of the time, memoirs of people who had been there. It is immensely full of details. It starts off a few years before the massacre, setting the scene I guess, and going through events, movements and personalities leading up towards the mass meeting. Not knowing the nitty gritty of all of this before hand, it did sometimes get a little overwhelming with names and dates I'd not heard of before - perhaps a book that needs multiple readings to really soak up all the details. There's a very long chapter on the actual day of Peterloo, so you do feel as though you were there, from several people's perspectives. The only grumble I have, is that I would have liked a lot more maps, and maybe some pictures of these posters and adverts that were put out in advance of the meeting. Some more of all that would have been interesting to. But overall a must read if you want to educate yourself on this period in history.

[Mark Reece · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book, which draws a good balance between describing the leading personalities involved in the Peterloo massacre, and giving an overview of British society in the wake of the Napoleonic wars. Riding plainly has more sympathy to the reformers and radicals than their conservative opponents, although given the mismatch of intellectual honesty between the two sides, that is hardly surprising.

Overviews of the reform movement and various institutions of the time are given, and there is an interesting discussion of how the reform movement drew on traditions, or myths, of English political history, such as the glorious revolution, and even feudal chivalry.

The book is short and pithy, and feels like it should be read as an introduction to the subject. In the forward, Mike Leigh writes that the event, and the characters involved, have not had the prominence in history teaching that they deserve. That seems to me to be a well founded observation- I for one knew only the sketchiest details before reading this book.

In giving an accessible and well written corrective to that ignorance, I'd rate Riding's book as entirely successful.

[Roy Ferguson · Rating 4 out of 5]

An essential companion piece to the Peterloo film by Mike Leigh. I am embarrassed to admit that i had absolutely zero knowledge of what happened in Manchester on 16th August 1819 in St Peter’s Square in what become known as Peterloo or the Manchester Massacre. The British Establishment turned violently and unforgivably on the masses, the working, ordinary people who had the temerity to come out peacefully to rally for the right of suffrage, the right to take part and vote in public and political elections. Jacqueline Riding is painstaking in providing the detailed background that led to the shameful events that took place that day. The characters and villains and political hierarchies are explained in depth and give the reader an appreciation of the factors surrounding the tragedy. Without doubt, the history of Peterloo should be included on the school curriculum as a matter of urgency so that our children fully understand the background to a key event, which in time contributed to the working man and eventually working woman being given the right to vote.

[Andrew Spink · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a readable account of an important historical event which was a critical moment in the struggle for democratic rights in Europe. After an introductory chapter outlining the deprived and politically oppressed situation of the the mill workers in Manchester, the author takes a straightforward chronological approach taking us through the events leading up to the massacre and immediately afterwards. The drama of the story itself carries the reader along. There are plentiful direct and lively quotes from contemporary documents, using the original spelling - which is fine except for the rather irritating use of [sic] in almost every one. But that is a small point in an otherwise well-written book.

[Clive Wheeler · Rating 5 out of 5]

A clear and well written account of an important moment in British history that needs to be more widely known and understood.

Riding clearly feels empathy for the working poor of Manchester and the surrounding areas in their campaign for parliamentary reform which may be seen as bias. However, her laying out of the factual information available alongside the documented opinions of those involved in the actions and decisions surrounding these events is even handed and laid out with an understanding of the social structures and strictures of the time.

An excellent telling of political history that still has relevance to political processes today.

[Steve Gillway · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think there are great parallels between the period and the time we are living in now- great industrial change and constitutional/ democratic dilemmas so I was keen to read this, especially with the 200 anniversary on the horizon. This is a thoughtful and scholarly explanation of the run up to and the events of the Peterloo massacre. For me, the density of detail meant I found it hard work at times.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

if in an alternate timeline the political action of 2020 rallied with “defund white schools” as the chosen slogan (or something akin that would legit threaten those in power), it might surprise no one that shit would get ugly real fast. But if you want a picture of what ugly might look like, you cant do much worse than how the ruling class did the peaceable Manchester rabble in the pit, just over two centuries ago

[Jordan Phizacklea-Cullen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A stirring account of one of the darkest days in British radical history, well-researched and written with verve and good contemporaneous background. If you admired Mike Leigh's film, this is the perfect companion piece (written by that film's hostorical advisor) but can also be appreciated on its own as a record of a shameful but important episode in the development of working-class activism.

[Oliver Richardson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well researched and as detailed an account of the event and the events leading up as you will find, however I wish there was more discussion of how the Reformers compared to other political movements. In particular why the British have avoided revolution. Even today the French are much more likely to take direct action compared to the Brits.

[Arlene · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a brilliant, important read. Jacqueline Riding is a great writer and has researched this really well and gives a detailed context of the events and political climate leading up to, and following Peterloo. Some interesting illustrations beautifully reproduced too.

[Martin Empson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very readable account of the Peterloo Massacre in its wider context. Full review to follow.

[Zaynah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very interesting book. I didn't even know this event had occurred and the way the story is told is very interesting. Definitely will recommend if you are interested in history.

[Sarah]

DNF at page 63

I was bored reading this. I am interested in the subject, but it was presented in such a dull way. There was too much information and too many names, and I just lost track of everyone. I might watch the documentary which this book was written for and maybe I'll come back to the book in the future some day. But for now, I'm putting it down.

You may find this interesting if you are studying the subject, or have an interest in local history, as it is very detailed and well-researched, from what I could tell.

But for me, it was just dull. Sorry.