Competition for Peterloo memorial launched
Article published: Friday, September 3rd 2010
A competition is under way to design a memorial in honour of those who lost their lives in the infamous Peterloo Massacre of 1819.
The current memorial plaque at Free Trade Hall
It will have pride of place in the newly-renovated St Peter’s Square which is due to be completed next year. The last sculpture commemorating the event was located in Ancoats but was demolished over 100 years ago.
Why it has taken so long for a replacement to be erected to an historical event of national importance is unclear. Campaign organiser Paul Fitzgerald shed light on the matter: “You can see why previous administrations have resisted a ‘monument to democratic protest’ in the past, we sincerely hope that isn’t true today”.
The massacre took place in what was then St Peter’s Field, the area which now includes the G-Mex and Free Trade Hall, when approximately 60,000 people assembled to protest about living conditions in the country as part of a broader social movement.
15 of the protesters were killed and over 400 wounded after local magistrates, fearful of the large crowd present, ordered the cavalry to charge on the masses. Eyewitness accounts told of the people being cut down outside the city as the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry unleashed a brutal attack on the unarmed demonstrators. In the aftermath the incident was dubbed “Peterloo” – an amalgam of ‘Peter’ and ‘-loo’, drawing an ironic comparison with the bloody patriotic battle of Waterloo in which the French forces were defeated at great human cost.
The political backdrop in Britain at the time was of deep financial ruin following the Napoleonic wars. Starvation and dire living conditions ravaged the country, while gross inequities in representation characterised the political system. The existence of so-called “rotten boroughs” – geographically small and low populated areas which returned disproportionately high numbers of MPs compared to densely inhabited urban industrial centres – and suffrage dependent on ownership of property led to the rise of a popular movement across the north of England calling for parliamentary reform.
The massacre is seen as playing a key role in the struggle for democratic rights and instrumental in the rise of the later trade union and Chartist movements. However currently there is only one reference in the city to the massacre – in the form of a plaque on the Free Trade Hall. Campaigners and local historians hope that the new memorial will emphasize the atrocity’s significance in British political history.
Paul Fitzgerald said: “We think Peterloo is the message in itself, there for all to interpret as they see fit. All we demand is that the memorial meets some basic criteria- it should be prominent, informative, realistic and respectful.”
The competition was launched on the 191st anniversary of the atrocity on 16 August. For more information or to take part in the competition go to http://www.peterloomassacre.org/ or http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=146735302012540 .
Tom Evans
More: Manchester
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