GUY CARLETON L’ESTRANGE AND THE MASSACRE OF PETERLOO

(The reader is referred to the plans at the end of this chapter)

On the 26^th August 1819 , a crowd of at least 60,000 men and women and children gathered in St Peter’s Field, Manchester to demonstrate in favour of parliamentary reform. Shortly after the proceedings began in the early afternoon  the crowd was dispersed by a cavalry charge.  Eleven persons were killed and about five hundred  injured.  All the troops, with the exception of the Manchester Yeomonry, were under the command of Lt. Guy L’Estrange.

If one were to remove large modern buildings in Manchester such as the Central Library and the Midland Hotel the lay out of the streets and buildings in 1819  would be much the same as it is to day.  The open space of today’s  St Peter’s Square is the successor of the larger and grass-covered St Peter’s Field of 1819.  St Peter’s Field  was used from time to time by the citizens ofManchester and the surrounding cotton towns and villages as the venue for monster meetings held in protest against the miseries and evils of the time.

For the industrial revolution, the product of technical inventions, was well under way by 1819.  Social conditions were appalling.  Wages were low, while the corn laws kept the price of food high; housing often consisted of shacks furnished with sacking and straw, and the death rate was extremely high.  How were these conditions to be changed?  The answer was either by parliamentary reform or revolution.  To the Radicals, who eventually won the day, the answer was reform, and they enrolled the working classes under their banner.  In  the unreformed House of Commons before 1832  a rapidly growing town such as Manchester, together with the other cotton towns of Lancashire, had no parliamentary representation at all. This had to be changed before the lot of the working classes could be improved.  On the other hand the Tory government of Lord Liverpool and the land-owning and  professional classes feared revolution.  In fairness to them it must be borne in mind that the French Revolution and the Terror were of ery recent memory.  Government policy, instead of introducing gradual and reasonable reforms was one of repression of all working class demands.   The Magistrates present at Peterloo were faithful representatives of the government.  They were in such a state of fright  as they witnessed the enormous crowd that they panicked and jumped to the conclusion that it was their duty to disperse a revolutionary mob.

A leading Radical, Henry Hunt, by origin a Wiltshire country gentleman, had been invited to address the meeting of the 16^th August.  A large man, who affected a large white hat, he had a charismatic appeal to crowds, which he exercised through his showmanship and oratory.  He was genuinely and passionately devoted to parliamentary reform and he had never incited any crowd to violence.

Monster meetings demanding reform had taken place in Lancashire and in London before, but the meeting in St Peter’s Field on this occasion was intended to be the most impressive the country had ever seen. Those who attended came not only from Manchester, but contingents, some numbering 8000 persons, started at dawn from the Lancashire industrial towns to march to the rendezvous.  They carried their banners and were accompanied by their bands. They had prepared  members by drilling  under ex-army instructors, not for the purpose of aggression but that some order could be preserved when they converged on Manchester.  All these preparations were well know to the authorities.  A constant stream of reports reached Lord Sidmouth, the Home Secretary, from the Magistrates and from paid local spies.  The Home Office had organised the provision of troops in Manchester and in the principal Lancashire and Cheshire towns.  If the crowd in Manchester turned into a mob, pillaging and looting the cavalry stationed in the surrounding towns could be summonsed as re-inforcements.

The general in command of the Northern Command was Sir John Byng.  In the Peninsula Guy L’Estrange had served under him.  Byng having told the Home Office that he had absolute confidence in L’Estrange, appointed the latter to command the troops in Manchester when the meeting took place.  Byng himself did not intend to be present, although he had previously commanded the troops at such meetings.

The troops commanded by L’Estrange consisted of 6 troops of cavalry of the 15^th Hussars and 7 companies of infantry of the 31^st and 88^th Regiments.  These totaled over 1000 men and would be enough to subdue any violence offered by an unarmed crowd.  In addition L’Estrange had under his command  units of the Cheshire Yeomanry, not regular troops, but experienced and well founded and consisting of country gentlemen and their employees.  The one group of soldiers not under L’Estrange’s command was the Manchester Yeomanry.  This body of cavalry had been founded as recently as 1817 and lacked experience.  They were brash townsmen and had already been described as mounted tyrants.  They came under the direct control of the Magistrates. To have a separate ‘private army’ of this kind under the command of a magistrate, who had no military experience and who could make no military judgement of what action was required was a recipe for disaster.  L’Estrange has been criticised for permitting any troops to operate outside his command, but General Byng knew of the arrangement and acquiesced in it.

L’Estrange stationed his main body of troops in Byrom Street and St John’s Street (at the extreme left of the first plan).  These troops consisted of six troops of the 15^th Hussars commanded by L’Estrange’s subordinates Lt. Colonel Dalrymple, who had a leg shot off at Waterloo, and the men of the Cheshire Yeomanry commanded by Lt. Col. Townshend.  The one troop of Manchester Yeomanry in Byrom Street was of necessity under L’Estrange’s command for they were separated from the two main troops of the Manchester Yeomanry in Portland Street (upper right hand corner of the plan).  It was this contingent in Portland Street  which caused the trouble.   At this point a further criticism of L’Estrange arises.  Historians point out that he should have left his forces in Byrom Street and St John’s Street under the command of their two commanding officers and taken up his own position with the magistrates.  Then he could have advised and restrained them.  He would hardly have allowed them to let loose the Manchester Yeomanry on their own for the purpose of arresting Mr. Hunt.  This, as we shall see, is what they did.

The Magistrates were assembled on the first floor of a terraced house overlooking the field.  Some distance away from them at the side of Windmill Street two wagons had been roped together as the hustings from which the speakers would address the crowd.  Between the Magistrates and the hustings there stretched two lines of constables, several hundred in number.  The purpose of this formation was to provide a clearway by which to arrest Hunt if the necessity arose.  But before the meeting started the wagons had been pushed away from the lines of constables and surrounded by members of the crowd.  These people would have to be removed if an arrest took place.

At 1p.m. Hunt drove up to the hustings in a carriage followed by a large crowd. When he mounted the hustings a great shout went up.  On hearing the shout L’Estrange ordered his cavalry to mount.  On the field the combined bands played the “ See the Conquering Hero Comes”  and “ God Save the King”.  The magistrates gazed with growing apprehension at the vast crowd and their banners.  More sinister than the banners were the numerous caps of liberty the symbol the French Revolution, held aloft on poles.   Hunt began to speak his words could not be heard by the magistrates or by most people in the crowd.  The nerve of the magistrates cracked.  They decided to arrest Hunt.  They were under an immediate duty  to preserve the peace  and to suppress  unlawful force and violence and it would be enough for them to act if violence were immediately threatened.  But Hunt had not been heard to utter any incitement to violence and no violence had taken place.  At the same time we must be fair to the magistrates and put ourselves in their position for throughout England the propertied classes were gripped by fear of the revolution.

For the constables to arrest Hunt would be to put their lives at risk.  The chairman of the magistrates, therefore, sent two mounted runners, one to L’Estrange and the other to Major Trafford commanding the Manchester Yeomanry in Portland Street. To each they carried the following message: ‘I request you to proceed immediately to No. 6 Mount Street, where the magistrates are assembled.  They consider the Civil power wholly inadequate to preserve the peace’.

This message must have been sent in panic by frightened men.  It might have been appropriate if this crowd was an armed mob engaged in looting property. But the crowd was peaceable.  Many present were women with their children, and some had babies in their arms.  After the event the chairman explained that when he wrote the two messages he considered that the lives and properties of all persons in Manchester were in the greatest possible danger and that the meeting was part of a great scheme being carried on throughout the country. This meant a conspiracy to overthrow the government.  This view was based on panic, not reason .

To send the messages to two independent military commanders was another recipe for trouble.  Because the route to the Manchester Yeomanry was shorter, that force galloped first into Mount Street. On their way one of the horses knocked down a women, and her baby was trampled to death under the horses hooves.

The Manchester Yeomanry lined up in front of the magistrates’ house.  They were told to surround the hustings in order that the constables could reach Hunt and arrest him.  they advanced five or six abreast between the tow lines of constables.  Their pace quickened to a canter.  When they reached the crowd surrounding the hustings they lashed out indiscriminately with the flats of their sabres.  Not only civilians but also constables were knocked down.  A cloud of dust arose from the hooves.  Hunt, to save further trouble, succeeded in surrendering himself to a head constable and was led under a hail of blows from the Yeomanry to the magistrates’ house.

Colonel L’Estrange at the head of the Hussars galloped up by the shortest route which was still clear.  He could have had no understanding of the fracas taking place at the hustings.  Accordingly he spurred his horse to the magistrates’ house and shouted up to them asking what they wanted him to do.  He received the shouted reply: ‘Good God Sir!  Do you not see how they are attacking the Yeomanry?  Disperse the crowd!’  The phrase ‘attacking the Yeomanry’ was far from the truth, but it reflects the magistrates’ state of mind.  L’Estrange passed the necessary order to Dalrymple and the Hussars lined up facing the field in front of the magistrate’s house.  The Cheshire Yeomanry lined up at approximately right angles to the Hussars.  A trumpeter sounded the charge.

L’Estrange was obviously not fully informed as to the facts of the situation.  Matters would have been different had he been with the magistrates from the start. Meanwhile the Manchester Yeomanry had already got into the crowd and were slashing at them with the blades of their sabres.

L’Estrange’s cavalry used the flats of their sabres not the blades and more than once a Hussar shouted at a Manchester Yeoman such words as: ‘For shame, won’t you give the people time to get away?’  The presence of the indisciplined Manchester Yeomanry made a controlled advance of the regular troops difficult.  Several Hussars were knocked or torn from their horses and some horses were slashed.  Bricks were thrown and cudgels used by some in the crowd and an accurately aimed brick struck L’Estrange on the head.  Half-way across the field L’Estrange ordered the retreat to be sounded. Within a quarter of an hour of the initial intervention by the Manchester Yeomanry the field had been cleared, the crowd having taken precipitate refuge in the surrounding streets. On the ground lay the injured and the dead, broken banners and the smashed musical instruments of the bands. The Manchester Yeomanry were still pursuing the crowd in the streets.

Peterloo caused a wave of protest and condemnation. The press coined the ironic name ‘Peterloo’.  But no public enquiry was held into the event.  An inquest was held into the death of one victim, a veteran of Waterloo.  It was adjourned on a technicality and never resumed.  Hunt and his associates were prosecuted and convicted at York Assizes of conspiring to alter the law by force or threats and attending an illegal riotous and tumultuous meeting.  Hunt was sentenced to two and a half years imprisonment.  In 1822 a banner bearer who had been cut several times by sabres brought a civil action against four named members of the Manchester Yeomanry. The defendants were successful on the ground that their actions were justified in dispersing an illegal assembly. In fact the assembly was not an unlawful one.  The event might have passed off peacefully enough had it not been for the panic of the magistrates and the irruption onto the field of the Manchester Yeomanry.

Lord Sidmouth through General Byng wrote expressing the Prince Regent’s ‘high approbation of the exemplary manner in which Lt. Col. L’Estrange and his troops assisted and supported the civil authorities’. The magistrates wrote to L’Estrange to thank him and his troops ‘for the energy, tempered by the greatest humanity, displayed in their conduct yesterday, conduct peculiarly characteristic of the British soldier’.

Later generations might not describe Peterloo as a massacre but that word widely used by the contemporary press, indicates the horror which the public felt when they learned what had happened.  The shameful episode disgusted the middle classes as much as dismayed the working classes.  Here in grim reality were ‘the two nations’, a phrase coined by Disraeli in 1845, which has come into existence during and as a result of the industrial revolution.  Perhaps too much faith was placed in the extension of the franchise as a cure for the country’s ills, but the Great Reform Act was passed in 1832, to be followed by other acts which finally nearly a hundred years later , resulted the franchise been extended to all adults.  None of this was achieved without the strongest opposition but history was on the side of the reformers.