Banner from the “Peterloo Massacre”

In the early 1800s, Britain was suffering serious social problems. Unemployment was widespread, particularly in Northern England, where the textile industry was in decline. Wages were low, and living and working conditions poor. This was made worse by the hated Corn Laws introduced in 1815, which artificially inflated the price of bread. Ordinary people had no official voice – there were no workers’ unions and women and working-class men were not allowed to vote. The main way ordinary people could make their voices heard was by protest.

This is what brought the huge crowd of between 60,000 and 80,000 protestors to St Peter’s Field. Their protest banners demanded universal suffrage (the right for all men to vote), annual parliaments and an end to the Corn Laws. Others, like this banner, carried more subversive messages of Liberty and Fraternity, or Unity and Strength, which echoed the words of the French Revolutionaries.

Fearful that a large-scale protest such as this could spark a revolution, like the recent French Revolution, the authorities panicked and sent for military forces to arrest the radical speakers and disperse the crowd. They arrived, armed and on horseback. When the crowd tried to prevent them reaching the speakers, some were slashed with swords, others were trampled under horses’ hooves.

The ‘Peterloo Massacre’, as it became known, provoked greater repression in the short term, but also stimulated even greater agitation for political reform which eventually led to the Great Reform Act of 1832. Although it was by no means the largest protest or industrial upheaval in Britain during the Age of Revolution, the publicity and shock of the event ensured it had a profound legacy, and it has figured prominently in the collective memory of labour movements.

This protest banner is the only one to survive from the Peterloo Massacre. It was carried by a group of people from Middleton led by the radical reformer and writer Sam Bamford, who later wrote a famous account of the Massacre.

Made from locally-woven blue silk and hand-painted with gold lettering, it was one of two carried by the Middleton contingent to Manchester. The second was green and inscribed with ‘Parliaments Annual’ and ‘Suffrage Universal’. However, it was lost after being cut from marcher Thomas Redford’s hand by a soldier soon after violence broke out.

The surviving banner was smuggled out of Manchester and reunited with the Middleton group who carried it home and hung it in the Suffield Arms pub. For many years it hung in Middleton library until it was conserved in the 1970s. It is now looked after by Touchstones Rochdale.

Use our Classroom resources to investigate this object and the theme of Protest further.

Highlights:

• Using objects, artworks and other sources to find out about the past
• Peterloo graphic novel and activities
• Peterloo graphic novel (redacted version)
• Enquiry: Why did workers protest in the Age of Revolution?
• How to make an interactive Revolutionary banner
• Twitter campaigns

And much more…