Part 1
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PUBLICATIONS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER
HISTORICAL SERIES No. XXXIX.
THREE ACCOUNTS OF PETERLOO.
Published by the University of Manchester at THE UNIVERSITY PRESS (H. M. MCKECHNIE, M.A., Secretary) 12 LIME GROVE, OXFORD ROAD, MANCHESTER
LONGMANS, GREEN & CO.
LONDON: 39 Paternoster Row, E.C.4
NEW YORK: 443-449 Fourth Avenue and Thirtieth Street
BOMBAY: 336 Hornby Road
CALCUTTA: 6 Old Court House Street
MADRAS: 167 Mount Road
Three Accounts OF Peterloo
BY EYEWITNESSES
BISHOP STANLEY LORD HYLTON JOHN BENJAMIN SMITH
with
Bishop Stanley's Evidence at the Trial
Edited by F. A. BRUTON, M.A., Litt.D of the Manchester Grammar School
MANCHESTER: AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
LONGMANS, GREEN & CO. LONDON, NEW YORK, BOMBAY, etc. 1921
PUBLICATIONS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER
No. CXL.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
Introduction vii
Bishop Stanley 1
Stanley's Account of Peterloo 10
Stanley's Evidence at the Trial in 1822 24
Sir William Jolliffe, afterwards Lord Hylton 45
Lieutenant Jolliffe's Account of Peterloo 48
John Benjamin Smith 59
Mr. J. B. Smith's Account of Peterloo 62
APPENDIX A 75 Some Relics of Peterloo:-- 1. A Banner carried at Peterloo. 2. Bamford's Cottage at Middleton. 3. Constables' Staves. 4. Head of Flagstaff. 5. Hussar's Plume. 6. Account-Book of the Relief Committee. 7. Account-Book recording amounts raised for the relief of Special Constables and their families.
APPENDIX B 81 1. Note on the Casualties at Peterloo. 2. Presence of women and children at Peterloo. 3. Some gleanings from the Scrap-Books. 4. Explanation of the Contemporary Plan and Picture of Peterloo.
ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
Portrait of Bishop Stanley _Frontispiece_
Stanley's Plan of Peterloo 8
Nadin, the Deputy Constable _Facing_ 21
"Orator Hunt" " 27
Plan of Peterloo, compiled from the contemporary Plans and modern Street Maps 44
Portrait of Mr. John Benjamin Smith _Facing_ 59
The Hunt Memorial at the Manchester Reform Club " 69
The Peterloo Medal " 71
The Banner carried at Peterloo by the Middleton Contingent " 75
Samuel Bamford's Cottage at Middleton " 76
Three Relics picked up on the Field of Peterloo " 77
A Page of the Relief Committee's Account Book 79
Plan of Peterloo published with the Report of the Trial in 1822 89
Wroe's Picture of Peterloo, showing the Manchester Yeomanry riding for the Hustings _Facing_ 90
INTRODUCTION.
Of the three accounts of the Tragedy of Peterloo given here, two (the first and third) have never been published before. The second appeared in the "Life of Lord Sidmouth" in 1847. All three, written with care and judgment, by men who afterwards rose to eminence, form a valuable contribution to the understanding of an event, the accounts of which have been for the most part distorted and misleading. Moreover, as each of the three writers deals with a different phase of the day's happenings, the accounts complement one another.
The Editor had already arranged for the publication of the first, when he received the following letter from Lord Sheffield, dated Penrhos, Holyhead, August 21st, 1919:--
"It is many years since I had the copy of the Rev. E. Stanley's report, and no doubt it was one of the lithographed copies you mention.
I think it would be well if it were published, along with the evidence to which you refer. I also think the Plan, of which you speak, should be added, and the reports of Jolliffe and J. B. Smith."
Lord Sheffield supported his suggestion by enclosing a cheque towards the cost of printing, and this made easy the publication of the whole. Lord Sheffield also kindly lent the portrait of Bishop Stanley, which appears as the Frontispiece.
Acknowledgments are due, besides: (1) to Mr. Henry Guppy, M.A., for permission to use the blocks of Wroe's picture of Peterloo, and the Plan from the "Story of Peterloo" in the Bulletin of the John Rylands Library for October, 1919; and to copy a page of the Account-book of the Relief Committee; (2) to Lady Durning Lawrence, who (with the late Mr. C. W. Sutton, M.A.) gave permission to print the Extract from the Reminiscences of Mr. J. B. Smith, and to reproduce his portrait; (3) to Mr. W. Marcroft of Southport; and Messrs. Hirst & Rennie of Oldham, for the loan of the blocks of "Orator Hunt," the "Hunt Memorial," and the "Peterloo Medal"; (4) to Mr. John Murray for leave to reprint Lieutenant Jolliffe's letter; (5) to Mr. W. W. Manfield, for the loan of the three Relics of Peterloo; and (6) to Mr. R. H. Fletcher, amateur photographer, of Eccles, for photographing the relics, etc.
F. A. B.
Three Accounts of Peterloo
BISHOP STANLEY
The Rev. Edward Stanley (1779-1849) was the second son of Sir J. T. Stanley, the Sixth Baronet, and Margaret Owen, of Penrhos, Anglesey. His elder brother was the first Baron Stanley of Alderley. As a boy, he had a natural inclination for the sea, but this was not encouraged. For thirty-two years he was Rector of Alderley, in Cheshire. While making himself beloved as a Parish Priest, he found time for many scientific and other interests. His _Familiar History of Birds_ is a standard work; he advocated, and assisted in, the teaching of Science and Temperance at Alderley; and he became one of the first Presidents of the Manchester Statistical Society. Though he declined the See of Manchester, when it was offered him, he accepted from Lord Melbourne, in 1837, the Bishopric of Norwich, and introduced a number of reforms into that diocese. A short memoir of him was written by his son, the famous Dean of Westminster.
At the date of Peterloo, a number of clergymen sat on the Bench of Magistrates for Lancashire and Cheshire, but Stanley stated clearly at the Trial that he was not a Magistrate. He was then forty years of age, and Rector of Alderley, and in his evidence he was careful to say that his narrative of Peterloo was compiled about two months after the event, for private circulation among his friends, and had never been published. It is clear that a copy was in the hands of Counsel who cross-examined him at the Trial in 1822. The manuscript is very neatly written (I should conjecture by Stanley himself) on nine large quarto pages, the plan being drawn by the same hand, and the notes given at the end. I have thought it more convenient for the reader to have the notes thrown to the foot of the respective pages. The manuscript was lithographed, in 1819, by the Lithographic Press, Westminster, and entered at Stationers' Hall. I found on enquiry that there was one copy in the Manuscript Department of the British Museum (Add. MSS., 30142, ff. 78-83). It is addressed to Major-Gen. Sir Robert Wilson, and sealed with the Stanley crest. The authorship was not known, and the Keeper of the MSS. was glad to be able to add this to the document as the result of my communication. In the Printed Book Department of the British Museum there is a second copy, catalogued under Manchester, with press-mark 8133i. There is no trace of Stanley's MS. in the Public Records Office. I can find no other copy but the one at the Manchester Reference Library, which is in excellent preservation, and has recently been rebound. Mr. J. C. Hobhouse quoted from Stanley's narrative once in a speech in the House of Commons. Speaking on May 19th, 1821, in support of a Petition for an enquiry as to the outrage at Manchester, Mr. Hobhouse, following Sir Francis Burdett, said: "The Rev. Mr. Stanley, who watched from a room above the magistrates, saw no stones or sticks used, though if any stone larger than a pebble had been thrown, he must have seen it." I have not found any other reference to the narrative except that made by Counsel at the Trial, and that is recorded in the Evidence which follows.
* * * * *
Three notes may find a place here. The first two refer to points mentioned by Stanley:--
1. Pigot and Dean's _Manchester Directory_ for 1819 mentions:
(_a_) Edmund Buxton, Builder, &c., No. 6, Mount Street, Dickinson Street.
(_b_) Thomas & Matthew Pickford & Co., Carriers, Oxford Street.
I do not find Mr. Buxton's "shop," which is mentioned by Stanley; nor are Pickfords described as "timber merchants," though timber may easily have been stacked in their yard.
Stanley's movements on reaching Manchester are not, at a first reading, quite clear. Riding in from Alderley, he seems to have approached by way of Oxford Road, passing (as he tells us) the Manchester Yeomanry, posted at Pickford's yard. At twelve o'clock, he turned up Mosley Street (very likely to avoid the crowd which was already filling the Square) and in Mosley Street he met the contingent of Reformers coming from Ashton. He then proceeded to Mr. Buxton's _shop_, which seems to have been near the lower end of Deansgate. Not finding Mr. Buxton there, he was directed to his _residence_ in Mount Street. The shortest way to Mount Street from Alport would have taken him through the crowd. He therefore approached Mount Street "by a circuitous route to avoid the meeting" (possibly by Fleet Street and Lower Mosley Street, the route afterwards taken by the Hussars), and met Mr. Buxton on the steps of his house.
Stanley evidently knew little of Manchester. He confesses in his narrative that he had not been in St. Peter's field before or since the tragedy; in his evidence he said: "I know no street," and stated that he could not locate the Friends' Meeting-house.
2. Stanley's estimate of a hundred yards, as the distance from the hustings to Mr. Buxton's house can be demonstrated to-day to be almost exactly correct. This is only one of many points in his narrative which show what a shrewd, quick, and accurate observer he was. When Mr. Hulton was asked, at the Trial, to estimate the same distance, he conjectured four hundred yards, and this was actually quoted as the distance in one of the standard histories of the period.
For the rest, it seems better to leave Stanley's extremely lucid account to speak for itself. To annotate it in detail would be to spoil its completeness. As has been stated above, each observer witnessed the scene from his own stand-point. A complete picture can only be obtained by forming a mosaic of the various reports. Stanley's narrative is that of an outsider, who came upon the scene unexpectedly, and watched the whole with the eye of a statesman and a statistician. Lieutenant Jolliffe's account gives the view of a young soldier, a stranger to Manchester, who rode in the charge of the Hussars, and afterwards took part with them in the patrol of the town. Mr. J. B. Smith speaks from the point of view of a Manchester business man, familiar with the civic and economic conditions that led to the catastrophe, and his narrative reaches a few days beyond the tragedy itself. Samuel Bamford's account--too well-known to need repetition here--was written from the stand-point of a local weaver, who had already suffered for his outspoken advocacy of Parliamentary Reform, had a large share in organising the Peterloo meeting, and served a term of imprisonment for his share in the proceedings. An attempt to dovetail these and other Reports into a continuous narrative has already been made in _The Story of Peterloo_ (Rylands Library Lectures, 1919.).
3. Stanley's Evidence at the Trial, which is here printed immediately after his connected narrative, has been taken from McDonnell's _State Trials_, supplemented--where passages are omitted by McDonnell--by Farquharson's verbatim report, issued by the Defence after the Trial. As a matter of fact McDonnell made use of Farquharson's version.
* * * * *
The portrait of Bishop Stanley which appears here is from a print kindly lent for the purpose by Lord Sheffield.
Stanley's Notes attached to his Plan
Never having seen St. Peter's fields before or since, I cannot pretend to speak accurately as to distance, etc. I should, at a guess, state the distance from the hustings to Mr. Buxton's house to be about a hundred yards, which may serve as a general scale to the rest of the plan.
KEY TO STANLEY'S PLAN.
1. The hustings. The arrow shows the direction in which the orators addressed the mob, the great majority being in front: F, F, F.
2. The Barouche in which Hunt arrived, the line from it showing its entrance and approach.
3. The spot on which the Manchester Yeomanry Cavalry halted previous to their charge; the dotted lines in front showing the direction of their charge on attacking the hustings.
4. On this spot the woman alluded to in the account (p. 15) was wounded and remained apparently dead, till removed at the conclusion of the business.
5. Here the 15th Dragoons paused for a few moments before they proceeded in the direction marked by the dotted line.
6. The Cheshire Cavalry; my attention was so much taken up with the proceedings of the Manchester Yeomanry Cavalry, etc., and the dispersion in front of the hustings, that I cannot speak accurately as to their subsequent movements.
7, 7, 7. The band of special constables, _apparently_ surrounding the hustings.
8, 8, 8. The mob in dense mass; their banners displayed in different parts, as at x, x.
9, 9, 9. A space comparatively vacant; partially occupied by stragglers; the mob condensing near the hustings for the purpose of seeing and hearing.
10, 10, 10. Raised ground on which many spectators had taken a position; a commotion amongst them first announced the approach of the cavalry; their elevated situation commanding a more extensive view.
Bishop Stanley's Account of Peterloo
Soon after one o'clock on the 16th of August, I went to call on Mr. Buxton, with whom I had some private business. I was directed to his house overlooking St. Peter's field, where I unexpectedly found the magistrates assembled.[1] I went up to their room, and remained there seven or eight minutes. Hunt was not then arrived; a murmur running through the crowd prepared us for his approach; a numerous vanguard preceded him, and in a few moments the Barouche appeared in which he sat with his coadjutors, male and female; a tremendous shout instantly welcomed him; he proceeded slowly towards the hustings. On approaching the knot of constables the carriage stopped a short time, I conceive from the difficulty of making way through a band of men who were little inclined to fall back for his admission. The Barouche at length attained its position close to the hustings, and the speakers stepped forth, the female--as far as I can recollect--still remaining on the driver's seat with a banner in her hand. I then left the magistrates and went to a room immediately above them, commanding a bird's-eye view of the whole area, in which every movement and every object was distinctly visible. In the centre were the hustings surrounded _to all appearance_[2] by a numerous body of constables, easily distinguished by their respectable dress, staves of office, and hats _on_; the elevation of the hustings of course eclipsed a portion of the space immediately beyond them, so as to prevent my seeing, and consequently asserting positively, whether they were completely surrounded by this chain of constables. The chain from this its main body was continued in a double line, two or three deep, forming an avenue to Mr. Buxton's house, by which _there seemed to be_ free and uninterrupted access to and from the hustings. Had any interruption of their communication occurred previous to the change, I think I must have perceived it from the commanding position I occupied. A vast concourse of people, in a close and compact mass, surrounded the hustings and constables, pressing upon each other apparently with a view to be as near the speakers as possible. They were, generally speaking, bare-headed, probably for the purpose of giving those behind them a better view. Between the outside of this mob and the sides of the area the space was comparatively unoccupied; stragglers were indeed numerous, but not so as to amount to anything like a crowd, or to create interruption to foot passengers. Round the edges of the square more compact masses of people were assembled, the greater part of whom appeared to be spectators. The radical banners and caps of liberty were conspicuous in different parts of the concentrated mob, stationed according to the order in which the respective bands to which they belonged had entered the ground, and taken up their positions.
After the orators had ascended the hustings, a few minutes were taken up in preparing for the business of the day, and then Hunt began his address. I could distinctly hear his voice, but was too distant to distinguish his words. He had not spoken above a minute or two before I heard a report in the room that the cavalry were sent for; the messengers, we were told, might be seen from a back window. I ran to that window from which I could see the road leading to a timber yard (I believe) at no great distance, where, as I entered the town, I had observed the Manchester Yeomanry stationed. I saw three horsemen ride off, one towards the timber yard, the others in the direction which I knew led to the cantonments of other cavalry.
I immediately returned to the front window, anxiously awaiting the result; a slight commotion among a body of spectators, chiefly women, who occupied a mound of raised, broken ground on the left, and to the rear, of the orators, convinced me they saw something which excited their fears; many jumped down, and they soon dispersed more rapidly. By this time the alarm was quickly spreading, and I heard several voices exclaiming: "The soldiers! the soldiers!"; another moment brought the cavalry into the field on a gallop,[3] which they continued till the word was given for halting them, about the middle of the space which I before noticed as partially occupied by stragglers.
They halted in great disorder, and so continued for the few minutes they remained on that spot. This disorder was attributed by several persons in the room to the undisciplined state of their horses, little accustomed to act together, and probably frightened by the shout of the populace, which greeted their arrival. Hunt had evidently seen their approach; his hand had been pointed towards them, and it was clear from his gestures that he was addressing the mob respecting their interference. His words, whatever they were, excited a shout from those immediately about him, which was re-echoed with fearful animation by the rest of the multitude. Ere that had subsided, the cavalry, the loyal spectators, and the special constables, cheered loudly in return, and a pause ensued of about a minute or two.
An officer and some few others then advanced rather in front of the troop, formed, as I before said, in much disorder and with scarcely the semblance of line, their sabres glistened in the air, and on they went, direct for the hustings. At first, _i.e._, for a very few paces, their movement was not rapid, and there was some show of an attempt to follow their officer in regular succession, five or six abreast; but, as Mr. Francis Phillips in his pamphlet observes, they soon "increased their speed," and with a zeal and ardour which might naturally be expected from men acting with delegated power against a foe by whom it is understood they had long been insulted with taunts of cowardice, continued their course, seeming individually to vie with each other which should be first. Some stragglers, I have remarked, occupied the space in which they halted. On the commencement of the charge, these fled in all directions; and I presume escaped, with the exception of a woman who had been standing ten or twelve yards in front; as the troop passed her body was left, to all appearance lifeless; and there remained till the close of the business, when, as it was no great distance from the house, I went towards her. Two men were then in the act of raising her up; whether she was actually dead or not I cannot say, but no symptoms of life were visible at the time I last saw her.[4]
As the cavalry approached the dense mass of people they used their utmost efforts to escape: but so closely were they pressed in opposite directions by the soldiers, the special constables, the position of the hustings, and their own immense numbers, that immediate escape was impossible. The rapid course of the troop was of course impeded when it came in contact with the mob, but a passage was forced in less than a minute; so rapid indeed was it that the guard of constables close to the hustings shared the fate of the rest. The whole of this will be intelligible at once by a reference to the annexed sketch.
On their arrival at the hustings a scene of dreadful confusion ensued. The orators fell or were forced off the scaffold in quick succession; fortunately for them, the stage being rather elevated, they were in great degree beyond the reach of the many swords which gleamed around them. Hunt fell--or threw himself--among the constables, and was driven or dragged, as fast as possible, down the avenue which communicated with the magistrates' house; his associates were hurried after him in a similar manner. By this time so much dust had arisen that no accurate account can be given of what further took place at that particular spot.
The square was now covered with the flying multitude; though still in parts the banners and caps of liberty were surrounded by groups. The Manchester Yeomanry had already taken possession of the hustings, when the Cheshire Yeomanry entered on my left in excellent order, and formed in the rear of the hustings as well as could be expected, considering the crowds who were now pressing in all directions and filling up the space hitherto partially occupied.
The Fifteenth Dragoons appeared nearly at the same moment, and paused rather than halted on our left, parallel to the row of houses. They then pressed forward, crossing the avenue of constables, which opened to let them through, and bent their course towards the Manchester Yeomanry. The people were now in a state of utter rout and confusion, leaving the ground strewed with hats and shoes, and hundreds were thrown down in the attempt to escape. The cavalry were hurrying about in all directions, completing the work of dispersion, which--to use the words given in Wheeler's _Manchester Chronicle_, referred to by Mr. Francis Phillips--was effected in so short a space of time as to appear as if done "by magic."