| Title | Peterloo Relief Fund Manuscript. Index A. |
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| Creator | Peterloo Relief Fund
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| Description | On the afternoon of 16th August 1819, 600 men of the 15th Hussars, 120 men of the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry, 400 men of the Cheshire Yeomanry and 400 special constables were ordered by Manchester Magistrates to break up a peaceful meeting of some 50,000 people, and arrest the organisers and speakers, who included Henry "Orator" Hunt and Richard Carlile at St. Peter's Field, Manchester. Leading Manchester radicals Joseph Johnson, John Knight and James Wroe had organised the meeting to further the cause of parliamentary reform.
Officers of the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry used their sabres to cut through the crowd as they attempted to arrest Hunt. By the end of the day, eleven people had been killed and over 400 injured. Wroe later coined the term "Peterloo Massacre" (drawing an analogy with the Battle of Waterloo). Manchester's workers did not quickly forget Peterloo. At the Liverpool-Manchester Railway's inauguration on 15th September 1830, Manchester cotton workers stoned the carriages, their anger focussed on the attending Prime Minister, the Duke of Wellington, for his role in the Peterloo Massacre and his opposition to parliamentary reform.
This manuscript, held by the John Rylands University Library, is an important example of a relief fund book, and lists the names and addresses of those injured at the Peterloo Massacre, with details of their age, injuries and the relief paid to them, and time of work taken as a result of their injuries.
Index: A |
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| Date Created | 1819 |
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| Manufacturer/Publisher | |
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| Holding Organisation | John Rylands University Library of Manchester |
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| Accession Number | R46376 |
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| Associated Objects | "Peterloo poster: To the Inhabitants of Manchester and Neighbourhood" [EGR 4/2/3/2/10], 1819, Hunt, Henry
"Newspaper report from the day after Peterloo.", 17th August 1819, Manchester Mercury
"Newspaper report of the events at Peterloo.", 21st August 1819, Manchester Observer
"Peterloo Feight.", 1882, Ashton-under-Lyne Reporter
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