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Peterloo: Witnesses to a Massacre
The explosive tale of Peterloo, told through the voices of those who were there. This is a vivid, original and historically accurate 'comic book' visual account of the 1819 Manchester massacre, to be published as part of the 200th anniversary commemorations. More than 15 people died and 600 were severely wounded by sabre-wielding troops at a peaceful pro-democracy rally.
The entire narrative is drawn exclusively from the direct testimony of the time (letters, memoirs, journalist's accounts, spies' reports, courtroom evidence...) carefully woven together by rich, vivid, graphic-novel style illustrations created by professional cartoonist, illustrator and graphic novelist Polyp.
The entire narrative is drawn exclusively from the direct testimony of the time (letters, memoirs, journalist's accounts, spies' reports, courtroom evidence...) carefully woven together by rich, vivid, graphic-novel style illustrations created by professional cartoonist, illustrator and graphic novelist Polyp.
112 pages, Paperback
First published June 12, 2019
2 people are currently reading
57 people want to read
About the author
Polyp
9 books16 followersI've been scratching 'Polyp' political cartoons since 1980 and took it up full time in the 90's, having been a care worker before then.
New Internationalist Magazine, bless 'em, gave me my first big break, turning over a whole issue to STARVE TREK, a political spoof of Captain James Knee Jerk beaming neoliberal politics down to reluctant planets throughout the galaxy. I owe them my career.
Since then I've drawn cartoons for anyone who'll have me, including Ethical Consumer Magazine, WDM, Christian Aid, War on Want, The Big Issue, Friends of the Earth, FoE, Liberty, People and Planet, Campaign Against the Arms Trade, and all the other usual suspects.
As for my politics... well... read the cartoons, chuck in some chunks of Bill Hicks, radical democracy, direct action, the co-operative movement, Karl Popper: then stir and then give it your best guess.
I'm very active in the skeptics movement, taking both an anti religion stance, and one against psuedoscience - particularly where it collides with my political beliefs.
Q&A with Polyp
New Internationalist Magazine, bless 'em, gave me my first big break, turning over a whole issue to STARVE TREK, a political spoof of Captain James Knee Jerk beaming neoliberal politics down to reluctant planets throughout the galaxy. I owe them my career.
Since then I've drawn cartoons for anyone who'll have me, including Ethical Consumer Magazine, WDM, Christian Aid, War on Want, The Big Issue, Friends of the Earth, FoE, Liberty, People and Planet, Campaign Against the Arms Trade, and all the other usual suspects.
As for my politics... well... read the cartoons, chuck in some chunks of Bill Hicks, radical democracy, direct action, the co-operative movement, Karl Popper: then stir and then give it your best guess.
I'm very active in the skeptics movement, taking both an anti religion stance, and one against psuedoscience - particularly where it collides with my political beliefs.
Q&A with Polyp
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
May 4, 2019
I have 'funded' a lot of Kickstarters on the basis I'm happy to support creators directly. Some are not - to be honest - worth the money. Peterloo is!
The script, in the form of witness account snippets, with the accompanying artwork are superb. It's rare that I read a graphic novel that drives me to complete it in one sitting. I studied Peterloo at school in the 1970s but all I remembered was it was a massacre. Reading this - with the background to working class movements in the North was so enlightening. Why couldn't I have had this version to read back then? The visuals would have stuck. By the way, they are not gory (and definitely NOT gratuitously gory) but do show events as they happened from various viewpoints
School Librarians take note: In these times of the will of the population being....neglected, this reminds all of us that sacrifices in the past are made for our current freedoms and they must not be allowed to be given away without a struggle. A message well worth having in School Libraries
Fantastic book!
The script, in the form of witness account snippets, with the accompanying artwork are superb. It's rare that I read a graphic novel that drives me to complete it in one sitting. I studied Peterloo at school in the 1970s but all I remembered was it was a massacre. Reading this - with the background to working class movements in the North was so enlightening. Why couldn't I have had this version to read back then? The visuals would have stuck. By the way, they are not gory (and definitely NOT gratuitously gory) but do show events as they happened from various viewpoints
School Librarians take note: In these times of the will of the population being....neglected, this reminds all of us that sacrifices in the past are made for our current freedoms and they must not be allowed to be given away without a struggle. A message well worth having in School Libraries
Fantastic book!
June 14, 2019
This is an amazing book, essential for anyone interested in social history. The illustrations are stunning and thought provoking, the events are really well researched. An incredibly moving account of a terrible event.
February 19, 2021
It’s all real.
Chilling.
Chilling.
February 8, 2022
Immensely upsetting and powerful.
July 27, 2019
It's difficult to write a review because I am still crying from reading this book.
Because I am a Romanticist I've known about the Peterloo massacre for a long time, and I constantly tell my students that it's important, but this book gave me a personal, not just political, look into what happened. It is written as a graphic novel, but the text is taken from primary sources (eyewitness accounts, newspapers etc.) which has a number of advantages. Firstly, it gives the text a sense of immediacy. Secondly, it makes it personal; I felt like I was getting to know some of the key individuals involved. Thirdly, it portrays both sides of the dispute, and allows us to clearly see where there are disagreements as to what happened. It would be a great teaching tool in this respect, as the same event is told from different people's perspectives. Because of it's format, the tragedy was personalised. We are shown the times and places of all 18 deaths, and have a few key snippets into the experiences of those involved, such as the grandmotherly Mrs Goodwin who wandered onto St Peter's field to look for a lost child and had her head sliced by a soldier, or a man who was forced to walk six miles home with dislocated because the surgeon at the hospital didn't like his attitude.
The book is written chronologically, with only the barest historical facts given to help the reader situate the events. On the whole, it allows those who were there to speak for themselves, and is therefore an approachable and emotive text.
Because I am a Romanticist I've known about the Peterloo massacre for a long time, and I constantly tell my students that it's important, but this book gave me a personal, not just political, look into what happened. It is written as a graphic novel, but the text is taken from primary sources (eyewitness accounts, newspapers etc.) which has a number of advantages. Firstly, it gives the text a sense of immediacy. Secondly, it makes it personal; I felt like I was getting to know some of the key individuals involved. Thirdly, it portrays both sides of the dispute, and allows us to clearly see where there are disagreements as to what happened. It would be a great teaching tool in this respect, as the same event is told from different people's perspectives. Because of it's format, the tragedy was personalised. We are shown the times and places of all 18 deaths, and have a few key snippets into the experiences of those involved, such as the grandmotherly Mrs Goodwin who wandered onto St Peter's field to look for a lost child and had her head sliced by a soldier, or a man who was forced to walk six miles home with dislocated because the surgeon at the hospital didn't like his attitude.
The book is written chronologically, with only the barest historical facts given to help the reader situate the events. On the whole, it allows those who were there to speak for themselves, and is therefore an approachable and emotive text.
April 8, 2025
Drinking coffee, watching the snow and finishing this wonderful book. I don't usually read graphic novels/books but this one was sitting temptingly on the top of a box of books I'm looking after (booksitting?) for a friend. 'Peterloo' is a graphic history of one of the most important events in Manchester's history (probably the most important event) and it had wide-reaching effects for the rest of the country too. Many of the rights we take for granted today (many of which are being eroded with little protest) stem from Manchester, which has been a hotbed of radicalism over the years (Marx and Engels wrote the Communist Manifesto in Chetham's Library, the TUC was started in the Mechanics' Institute, the Pankhursts were from here). The book, subtitled 'Witnesses to a Massacre' has artwork by Polyp (Paul Fitzgerald, a political cartoonist). The story is told through the cartoon images, speech bubbles and text boxes with quotes from the newspapers, magistrates, witnesses, participants and so on. It might not be the best book to start with if you know nothing of the event as it does take some prior knowledge to really understand everything, but for anyone with a radical Manchester library this will make a great addition. So much so, that I've just ordered my own copy
May 8, 2019
If anyone is familiar with Polyp's (Paul Fitzgerald) Polypwork then this, like The Cooperative Revolution Co-Operative Revolution (Kindle Edition): A Graphic Novel, is a serious book. None of his trademark dark humour of Big Bad WorldBig Bad World: Cartoon Molotovs in the Face of Corporate Rule or Think, which was also crowdfunded. It is a detailed but very readable history of the Peterloo Massacre told through eyewitness accounts and Polyp's individual cartoon style. Very informative and readable.
April 12, 2020
I really wanted to give this 3.5. I appreciate what the novel tries to do, and it is beautifully rendered. It's also an important work to keep an important and often overlooked moment in history alive. However, I found that using narratives from multiple sources on almost every page was actually a bit too disjointed to clearly follow the narrative. I understand the impulse to represent the disconnected nature of history, but for me, it made it a less enjoyable read. If you do read - there are extensive notes at the back which I somehow failed to see when I began reading. I think if you read these notes as you read the narrative it would definitely make the narrative more fulsom and easier to grasp. If I can find time to read again in the future, I'll definitely read them as I go and not all at once at the end.
September 6, 2022
A beautifully illustrated history of what happened at Peterloo. It cleverly takes first-hand testimony of events and matches it with graphic imagery to help weave together a compelling and important story. While times have changed in many ways, the themes described in this book of political struggle between establishment power structures and working people feel frustratingly familiar to the present day.
October 18, 2021
A brilliant telling of a terrible story of cruelty. The graphic format is inspired genius, and adds immediacy to the events. This is how all history should be made accessible, not in long tedious tomes but imagery and conversation, the way in which we interact with each other on social media every day. Highly recommended.
September 26, 2020
Brilliant book. I bought 2 copies so as to lend one out and spread the word. Graphics,text, notes all spot on. Every school should have a copy, and organise trips to the workers history museum in Manchester.
November 1, 2021
A short, punchy graphic novel about a pivotal moment in English working class history: the massacre of peaceful protesters in Manchester in 1819 who were calling for basic democratic reforms. It's worth reading this in conjunction with viewing the excellent Mike Leigh film Peterloo (2018).
August 19, 2019
Well research and beautifully illustrated. All history should be written in this format.
October 29, 2019
The graphics are great and the story well told in a very accessible form which well serves the centenary year of this significant event.
January 2, 2020
A great introduction to the events with some stunning illustrations
August 24, 2023
90% primary source quotes used with graphic novel illustration is honestly an ingenious way of telling history. absolutely fantastic
November 19, 2025
Very accessible introduction to history that we all should know.
June 11, 2019
Previously reviewed on The Good, The Bad, and The Unread:
The Peterloo Massacre was a pivotal moment in British political history, particularly with regard to the rights of people to assemble peacefully and to have a say in their parliamentary representation, but it is taught rather erratically in schools. This book is part of a widespread effort to address that imbalance. Drawing on extensive research, to be published more expansively in Robert Poole’s upcoming academic work, Peterloo: the English Uprising, this is a richly illustrated work, in which most of the text is taken directly from transcribed eyewitness accounts.
The story opens with some background to the situation in Manchester and the neighbouring town of Salford, neither of which had direct representation in parliament despite their expanding populations and growing industrial wealth and importance, Britain as a whole, where some areas returned almost as many MPs as they had eligible voters, although calls for change were growing, and worldwide where geological and political upheavals were having a direct effect on food supplies and the levels of political unrest at home. Those in power fear revolution and assassination, while those at the opposite end of the social spectrum fear unemployment, poverty and starvation. In the middle are agitators like skilled worker Samuel Bamford, gentleman farmer Henry ‘Orator’ Hunt, and the publishers of the Manchester Observer, radical newspaper.
Hunt has already visited Manchester at the beginning of 1819 and is invited back to speak again in August at the same place, St Peter’s Field. However, the authorities fear that this time the assembled crowds will be much less peaceful than they were the first time, especially since spies have reported that men had been seen drilling in preparation – actually part of an attempt at arranging crowd control. When the size of the crowd gathered to hear Hunt speak is observed to be even larger than expected, the local magistrates resort to military force as a means of breaking up the meeting. This results in at least 15 deaths of men, women and children – some of them not even part of the assembly – and injury to hundreds of others.
Although Hunt, Bamford and the Manchester Observer writers had been arrested, news of the events quickly spreads to London, and the name Perterloo is coined as a parody on the Battle of Waterloo, some of whose veterans are reported to have been amongst those assembled at St Peter’s Field, and to have been just as liable to injury and death as all the others.
I loved the sheer volume of detail in this book, not to mention the amount of work that had been put into researching each piece of text and every illustration. I am very glad to have sponsored its production via Kickstarter and hope it finds a far wider audience following its official release.
The Peterloo Massacre was a pivotal moment in British political history, particularly with regard to the rights of people to assemble peacefully and to have a say in their parliamentary representation, but it is taught rather erratically in schools. This book is part of a widespread effort to address that imbalance. Drawing on extensive research, to be published more expansively in Robert Poole’s upcoming academic work, Peterloo: the English Uprising, this is a richly illustrated work, in which most of the text is taken directly from transcribed eyewitness accounts.
The story opens with some background to the situation in Manchester and the neighbouring town of Salford, neither of which had direct representation in parliament despite their expanding populations and growing industrial wealth and importance, Britain as a whole, where some areas returned almost as many MPs as they had eligible voters, although calls for change were growing, and worldwide where geological and political upheavals were having a direct effect on food supplies and the levels of political unrest at home. Those in power fear revolution and assassination, while those at the opposite end of the social spectrum fear unemployment, poverty and starvation. In the middle are agitators like skilled worker Samuel Bamford, gentleman farmer Henry ‘Orator’ Hunt, and the publishers of the Manchester Observer, radical newspaper.
Hunt has already visited Manchester at the beginning of 1819 and is invited back to speak again in August at the same place, St Peter’s Field. However, the authorities fear that this time the assembled crowds will be much less peaceful than they were the first time, especially since spies have reported that men had been seen drilling in preparation – actually part of an attempt at arranging crowd control. When the size of the crowd gathered to hear Hunt speak is observed to be even larger than expected, the local magistrates resort to military force as a means of breaking up the meeting. This results in at least 15 deaths of men, women and children – some of them not even part of the assembly – and injury to hundreds of others.
Although Hunt, Bamford and the Manchester Observer writers had been arrested, news of the events quickly spreads to London, and the name Perterloo is coined as a parody on the Battle of Waterloo, some of whose veterans are reported to have been amongst those assembled at St Peter’s Field, and to have been just as liable to injury and death as all the others.
I loved the sheer volume of detail in this book, not to mention the amount of work that had been put into researching each piece of text and every illustration. I am very glad to have sponsored its production via Kickstarter and hope it finds a far wider audience following its official release.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews