Catalogue Number
NMLH.2000.10.859
Object Name
Print
Title
The Belle Alliance Or The Female Reformers Of Blackburn!!! Liberty Or Death Was Vociferated From Every Mouth......
Place
Blackburn, Lancashire, UK
People
George Cruikshank
Events
Parliamentary reform
Date
1819
Creator(s)
Cruikshank, George
Description
A large crowd of caractures of poor and ugly working class men, women and children watch others on a stage, some wearing red caps like French revolutionaries. They are crowning a flag saying 'Reform' with a red cap.
Many female reform societies, including Blackburn, attended Peterloo. Here Cruickshank depicts the women as grotesque parodies - at the time physical characteristics like the shapes of facial features were seen as a way to judge a person's character. Cruickshank is engaging in this pseudoscience which would have been familiar to much of his audience. By portraying the voting reform advocates as ugly and some as disabled, he may be implying they are incapable of rational thought and thus ineligable to vote. This sense of mocking continues with the print's title, as Belle is the French word for beautiful.
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