Peterloo Massacre Peterloo Massacre The Peterloo Massacre occurred at St Peter's Field, Manchester, England, on 16 August 1819, when cavalry charged into a crowd of 60,000–80,000 who had gathered to demand the reform of parliamentary representation. The end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 had resulted in periods of famine and chronic unemployment, exacerbated by the introduction of the first of the Corn Laws. By the beginning of 1819, the pressure generated by poor economic conditions, coupled with the relative lack of suffrage in Northern England, had enhanced the appeal of political radicalism. In response, the Manchester Patriotic Union, a group agitating
The Peterloo Group The Peterloo Group The Peterloo Group was a group of poets, artists and writers in Manchester during the latter part of the 1950s. It had three founder members; Robin Skelton, poet and professor of English at Manchester University, Tony Connor, poet and Michael Neville Seward Snow, painter. Their objective was to bring together the isolated people who were writing and working in the visual arts within the region, and to provide a forum for discussion and exhibition of their work. The first meeting was held in May 1957 in a hired room above the Town Hall Hotel, a Victorian gothic