Thomas de Trafford Henry Hunt. Major Trafford did send his 116 troops in response, but he appears not to have been present for the disastrous attack on the assembled crowd. Fifteen people died and hundreds were wounded. The government and landowners viewed the yeomanry's actions at Peterloo as a courageous defence against insurrection. Following the Peterloo Massacre, on 27 August 1819, Lord Sidmouth sent a message of thanks from the Prince Regent to Major Trafford, among others. However, public horror at the actions of the yeomanry grew after the massacre. Major Trafford resigned his commission in 1820, and the yeomanry corps was disbanded
Peterloo Massacre the borough council. On the other hand R J White has affirmed the true significance of Peterloo as marking the point of final conversion of provincial England to the struggle for enfranchisement of the working class. "The ship which had tacked and lain for so long among the shoals and shallows of Luddism, hunger-marching, strikes and sabotage, was coming to port" : "Henceforth, the people were to stand with ever greater fortitude behind that great movement, which, stage by stage throughout the nineteenth century, was to impose a new political order upon society." : "With Peterloo, and the departure of