The Peterlooo Riots 16 August

I don't know if The Corn Laws are still a feature of secondary school, but I have a recollection of being crammed behind a desk in a classroom full of badly behaved youths and trying - not very hard - to listen to a goggle-eyed history teacher droning interminably on, through a haze of chalk dust that was suspended in the hot late-summer afternoon air, about tariffs and riots and corn. I never, for one minute thought I would ever be bothered about it again, but every year, on August 16th, I am reminded of that special boredom that only really bad schooling can provide.

The Corn Laws, for those of you who were wagging off school on that afternoon, were in force between 1815 and 1846. They were import tariffs designed to "protect" British farmers and landowners, against competition from cheap foreign grain imports - mostly from the Americans. In reality, they represented the power of the British aristocracy, and a repeal of the Corn Laws would have jeopardized the political power of the landowners and they were in fact a crossroads in the transition of Britain from a feudalist society, to a more modern, industrial one.

What has that got to do with August 16th? Well, in 1819 a meeting organized by the Manchester Patriotic Union Society, a political group that agitated for the repeal of the corn laws and parliamentary reform, was planned at St. Peter's Field, Manchester. A number of speakers, including Richard Carlile, John Cartwright and Henry Hunt, - the 19th century equivalents of 'Red Robbo' - had been invited to speak. The local magistrate, William Hulton, who seems to have based his opinions on no evidence whatsoever, was of the view that the meeting would end in a rebellion and had arranged for a substantial number of regular soldiers to be on hand. Around 60,000 or 80,000 People, many of whom were wearing their Sunday clothes, turned out for what all reports suggest was expected to be a peaceful meeting. Some carried banners with texts like "No Corn Laws", "Universal Suffrage" and "Vote By Ballot." The main speakers did not arrive until after 1:00 pm, and Hunt was invited to speak first at 1:20 pm.

At around 1:31 pm the magistrates decided to stop the meeting and started reading the Riot Act. Not suprisingly, people did not immediately disperse - even if they had wanted to, 80,000 people can't just disappear - and so the magistrates gave orders to Captain Joseph Nadin, Deputy Constable of Manchester, to arrest the leaders. Nadin requested military aid and magistrates sent for the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry - 120 cavalry militia recruited from among shopkeepers and tradesmen - who were all drunk.

Sixty Yeomanry cavalrymen, under their leader Captain Hugh Birley, brandishing their cavalry sabres, charged the cart that served as the speakers' stand. When some demonstrators tried to stop them by linking their hands, they begun to attack them with their sabres. When the cavalry reached the cart, they arrested Hunt, Joseph Johnson and a number of others, including some newspapermen. Not content with this, they then begun to chop at the flags and banners with their sabres. William Hulton decided that the crowd, by refusing to be chopped up, were committing assault and ordered Lieutenant Colonel Guy L'Estrange of the Hussars into the field at 1:50 pm, Within ten minutes the Hussars had cleared the field and also pacified the yeomanry. Eleven people were killed, including a woman, a child, and a peace officer. About 400 were injured, 100 of them women, many of whom were trampled by horses. One man had his nose severed, and others had numerous sabre cuts. Even some local masters, employers and owners were put off their peacock and smoked salmon sandwiches by the carnage.

So, there you have it, the Peterloo Massacre of August 16, 1819. The repeal of the Corn Laws was, in the end, bought about by the appearance of the potato blight in Ireland in 1845. Sir Robert Peel, Conservative Prime Minister, responded to the crisis by purchasing cheap American wheat and proposing to remove all import duties on grain. It was hoped that these actions would lower the price of bread enough to put it within the reach of the Irish peasantry - who didn't seem at all keen on eating cake.

The law was eventually repealed on 16 May 1846, when the bill to repeal passed by 98 votes. Peel, who had been badly mauled in the debates by Disraeli, was forced to resign, the government fell, and the Conservative Party was split in half. Those who sided with Peel became known as Peelites, numbering among them almost every Conservative of ministerial experience (Gladstone, Lord Aberdeen, among others). They eventually combined with the Whigs and Radicals to form the modern Liberal party in the 1860s. Disraeli, who had opposed Peel and supported the Corn Laws to the end, along with Lord Stanley, fashioned the modern Conservative party from the remnants of Peel's Conservative Party.

Anyone for toast?