Peterloo Massacre

 

'The universal significance of this historic event becomes ever more relevant in our own turbulent times.' Mike Leigh 

 

'One of our nation's defining moments.' Stuart Maconie

 

The Peterloo Massacre is a revealing and compelling account of that event, one of the darkest days in Britain's social history. 

 

On 16 August 1819, a strong force of yeomanry and regular cavalry charged into a crowd of more than 100,000 workers who had gathered on St Peter’s Field in Manchester for a meeting about Parliamentary reform. This violent, startling event became known as Peterloo, one of the darkest days in Britain’s social history.

 

The Peterloo Massacre provides a revealing narrative account of the events leading up to Peterloo, starkly describes the actions of that fateful day, and examines its aftermath. It offers a new perspective on the political and military activities of the time, and shows how the very nature of society was powerfully influenced by irreversible technological change: a pattern that, two-hundred years later, still has relevance in understanding the forces shaping our world today.