Catalogue Number
NMLH.1996.36
Object Name
Handkerchief
Title
'A Representation of the Manchester Reform Meeting Dispersed by the Civil and Military Power Aug 16th 1819'
Place
St Peter's Field, Manchester, Lancashire, England, UK
People
Henry Hunt, Samuel Bamford, Major John Cartwright
Events
Peterloo Massacre
Description
A sepia coloured handkerchief depicting the Peterloo Massacre - a sea of people being attacked by soldiers with swords on horseback, with urban buildings are in the background. Four phrases 'Universal Suffrage', 'Annual Parliaments', 'Election by Ballot' and 'Major Cartwright's Bill' are repeated over and over in the spirals at the margin of the handkerchief. The title at the top of the picture is 'A Representation of the Manchester Reform Meeting Dispersed by the Civil and Military Power Aug 16th 1819'.
Hundreds of these handkerchiefs were produced following the 1819 Peterloo Massacre. They would have been carried by radical supporters and perhaps sold to raise money for those injured. The four repeating phrases were the demands of those who had gathered at Peterloo, who felt unrepresented by the existing political system at the time, where only some landowners could vote, leaving workers with no say in who represented the areas they lived in. 'Major Cartwright's Bill' is a reference to Major John Cartwright, a prominent radical politician who demanded parliamentary reform and the extension of the vote.
On 16 August 1819, sixty thousand people, mostly workers from around Lancashire, had gathered at St Peter's Field in Manchester city centre, close to what is now Deansgate, to demand the vote. Fearing revolution, the authorities ordered the arrest of Henry Hunt, a famous orator who was giving a speech to the crowd. Many of the Yeomen who had been assigned to police the gathering were on horseback, and the densely packed crowd couldn't escape as they charged on horseback, attacking with sabres. Eighteen people were killed either from the Yeomen's' weapons, or being trampled by horses, and many more were injured, some becoming permanently disabled. The event became known as the Peterloo Massacre. There is now a memorial to the Massacre outside Manchester Central Convention Complex.
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