The Road to Peterloo

Two centuries ago, mounted and armed troopers viciously waded into thousands of men, women and children who were gathered peacefully in what is now the heart of modern-day Manchester to protest their poverty, deprivation and utter lack of political representation. The troopers hacked, bludgeoned and trampled indiscriminately, killing at least 18 innocent people and wounding many hundreds more in an infamous incident that quickly became known as the ‘Peterloo Massacre.’ This outrage inspired not only radical art such as Shelley's famous ‘The Masque of Anarchy’ poem but also many ballads and broadsides, which remain less well-known. With the help of academic Dr Alison Morgan, local folk musicians Pete Coe, Brian Peters and Laura Smyth have collected many of them here, dividing them into two sections: ‘The Roots of Rebellion’ and ‘Massacre and Aftermath’. The first eight set the contemporary scene – hard times in the cotton mills, the Luddite reaction and Thomas Paine's Rights of Man pamphlet – while the following tunes continue the story of Manchester radicalism up to the revolutionary Chartists. Spies and the dishonourable yeomen who struck down their neighbours are lambasted while unsung heroes such as radical orator Henry Hunt are celebrated in an ambitious and stirring undertaking that shines an uncompromising light on a still under-represented part of the people's history.