The casualties of Peterloo
Prof. Michael L. Bush‘A massacre? Yes’
In all, seven different contemporary or near-contemporary sources have been utilised to produce this impressive database, the publication of which in as a definitive a form as seems likely to be achieved will be of great interest not only to general historians of radicalism and working-class movements but also to family and local historians in search of further details of their ancestors or their own locality. The book is extremely well produced, with clear tables and many illustrations and diagrams to illuminate the text. It challenges and reinterprets previous standard accounts and should become essential reading for any future student of the subject ... The statistics produced to back up each of these findings helps create a vivid picture of what the experience of the crowd was as the troops charged among them, sabres drawn and bayonets at the ready. (Review by E. Royle, Uni. of York)
On a perfect summer’s day in August 1819 – as a faint breeze cooled the heat of the noonday sun and gently lifted the flags to display their mottoes and emblems – a huge crowd, mainly of working people, gathered on St Peter’s Field in Manchester to discuss parliamentary reform under the chairmanship of Henry Hunt Esq, a leading advocate of universal suffrage. Conspicuously present at the meeting were women, the breeze dishevelling their long hair as they enthusiastically doffed their hats to cheer. Before the proceedings could begin, however, the crowd was savagely dispersed, the work of cavalrymen charging with drawn and recently sharpened sabres, backed up by the truncheons of the constabulary and the bayonets of the infantry. The outcome was the injury of 654 persons, including the deaths of at least 17, and the seizure and destruction of nearly all the reformers’ flags and caps. Among the casualties women figured prominently, most of them wounded by sabres, bayonets, truncheons and horses’ hooves, rather than simply injured in the crush of the crowd.
Eight surviving casualty lists offer detailed information about the victims and their attackers, and allow the first truly objective assessment of the day’s events. In this important new study, Professor Michael Bush analyses these lists in order to determine the true scale and nature of the atrocity, concluding that the epithet ‘massacre’ is fully justified. The lists also provide fascinating personal information about the reformers, including the many women who took part and who suffered disproportionately at the hands of the military and police.
Michael Bush provides detailed listings of every known casualty – a most useful tool for genealogists as well as local historians – and draws highly significant new conclusions that will resonate loudly with all those interested in Britain’s slow and painful march towards political democracy.
The Casualties of Peterloo is a significant re-evaluation of one of the most important and controversial political events in British history. It is published in association with the Manchester Centre for Regional History.
'Professor Bush’s book ... provides a major addition both to the corpus of Peterloo evidence and to the continuing debate. He is to be congratulated for so patiently collecting and so clearly and boldly interpreting the statistics. It is only surprising that such important work was not done many years ago. Donald Read, University of Kent