#Peterloo massacre

[enbycrip]

ID: printed from a newspaper letters column:

“Don't Tell the Children about Peterloo

Teach them how Tommies defeated the Hun

The victorious glory of a war no one won

Despising the Kaiser

That prophet of Doom

Then get them reciting from Brooke

Not Sassoon.

Dish out paper poppies

But whatever you do

Don't tell the children about Peterloo.

Don't teach how landowners, soldiers and cops

Rode into Manchester

Our protests to stop.

Of Yeomanry charges on people unarmed

Of victims of violence inciting no harm

Legitimate grievances silenced by force

Battered by batons and trampled by horses

Where the Gates of Saint Peter let the Devil ride through, but

Don't tell the children

About Peterloo.

Throughout years of history lessons in a Salford school nobody ever mentioned Peterloo, a hugely significant social and politi- cal event in the struggle for democracy and representation. This poem examines the motives of those who would steer clear of it in the classrooms of Greater Manchester - TONY KINSELLA”.

This is so depressingly true.

And, tbh, why I want to go into history as a career. I doubt I’ll ever be well enough to teach children, though I might manage part-time lecturing. But I want to write history about queer, trans, disabled, poor, BIPOC. I want to write about class warfare and marginalisation and how our society actually operates, ideally where people can read it.

Link to the Wikipedia entry on the Peterloo Massacre for context: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peterloo_Massacre.

I was listening to a podcast about it in the car with my OH recently and it struck me that, if the occasional names of politicians in specific posts had been left out, I wouldn’t have been that surprised to hear the same basic details in a contemporary news report. Current criminalisation of protest by the UK Tory government has reached very similar levels as it had at this time, and they appear to have about the same level of scruples about violence towards protestors to break up peaceful, determined protest.

[yourbespokeartisanalapocalypse]

Today is the anniversary of the Peterloo Massacre in Manchester, 1819, one of the most important events in England in the nineteenth century.

What happened? Well... here's as good a description any...

On 16 August 1819 Mary Fildes and members of the Female Reform Society marched to St.Peter’s Fields in the centre of Manchester with many other people to angrily demand the end of political corruption, hunger and unemployment. The women said, “Every succeeding night brings with it new terror, so that we are sick of life and weary of a world, where poverty, wretchedness, tyranny and injustice, have so long been permitted to reign amongst men.”

As Mary and a peaceful crowd of tens of thousands of men, women and children listened to a speech by radical orator Henry Hunt, they were attacked without warning by the military, sent in by Manchester’s unelected authorities, resulting in many deaths and injuries. Mary only narrowly escaped serious injury as horsemen slashed at her with sabres. This shocking event became known as Peterloo Massacre.

Source

The effect? The newspapers were horrified but the government knee jerk response was to pass the hugely oppressive Six Acts which aimed to prevent the working classes from engaging in or accessing politics of any kind (perhaps the worst of which was a tax on newspapers which kept the news out of economic reach and wasn't fully repealed until the mid century. There was a vibrant illegal press in response to this though).

The massacre quickly entered into folk history and served as a rallying cry for the democratic movements that followed.

Find out more from the People's History Museum here and the Society for the Study of Labour History here.

[empirearchives]

The early 19th century version of adding “gate” to the end of everything was adding “loo” after Waterloo:

[cliffordthurlow]

Bob Dylan and the Judas Call

Bob Dylan and the Judas call are legend. What’s less well known is that this seminal moment in rock history had roots going back to the Peterloo Massacre in 1819. Dylan on stage with The Hawks,in Manchester, 1966: Photo Mark Makin. They sat there not knowing what to expect. The atmosphere was tense – one fan described it as ‘electric.’ He’d seen amplifiers and a drum kit on the stage when he…

[genderqueerpond]

after the events at peterloo, itself not long after the vampire fiasco, Nyssa screaming, Nyssa breaking things, smashing her own scientific equipment--

she's never done anything like this before--

Nyssa wondering if they are even a force for good, if *she* is even good. if she can ever be good again.

Tegan holding her and saying of course she can. of course she is. the best person I have ever known. Tegan holding her until she stops shaking with tears, and kissing the top of her head.

[werewolfetone]

About to watch the movie they made about the Peterloo Massacre for the first time

[suparhythm]

Echo's Legacy - Sparking Rebellion in 2424

My knuckles scraped against the pavement stones as I tumbled out of the shimmering portal, landing breathless on my back. Above, a bruised lilac sky bled into dusk, and the acrid tang of chimney smoke tickled my nose. I coughed, wiping grit from my jaw, and blinked against the unfamiliar sight of gaslights sputtering to life along the narrow street. “February Thursday 5th, 1821,” I muttered,…

[trans-cuchulainn]

let's be more positive about books for a while! here are some queer historical romance novels that i've been rereading recently that i think do something interesting with making characters feel historical in their mindset and worldview, but are also fairly progressive, diverse queer books that are, frankly, a delight to read

this is by no means exhaustive and to be honest i could put almost anything by cat sebastian or kj charles on a list like this so this is purely the highlights of what i've reread in the past week to take my mind off work, and why i think they're interesting from this specific angle

cat sebastian, the ruin of a rake (turners #3)

this is technically the third in a trilogy but they're only very loosely connected, so you don't need to have read the others if you don't care about knowing who all the background characters are. the others are also good though

why it's interesting: features a character who has had to painstakingly study and learn the rules of polite society in order to claw his way up to respectability, and is now deploying those skills to help another man repair his reputation. shows the complexity of those rules, the social purposes they serve, and the work that goes into living by them, as well as the consequences of breaking them. also explores some of the financial side of aristocracy, and features a character with chronic illness (recurring malaria following repeated infections as a child in india) whose feelings about his illness are very relatable without feeling overly modern.

kj charles, society of gentlemen series.

this trilogy is closely related plot-wise and best read in order. all three explore cross-class romances and characters struggling to reconcile their political views and personal ethics with their desires, in the aftermath of the peterloo massacre, with a strong focus on the political role of the written word. first book is long-lost gentleman raised by seditionists / fashion-minded dandy teaching him to behave in society; second book is tory nobleman submissive / seditious pamphleteer dominant who've been fucking for a year without knowing the other's identity; third book is lord / valet and all the complicated dynamics of consent there with a generous side-helping of crime.

why they're interesting: close attention to the history of political printing and the impact of government censorship and repressive taxes on the freedom of the press; complex ideological disagreements that aren't handwaved as unimportant; examination of trust, consent, and social responsibility across class differences and in situations with problematic power dynamics; most of the characters are progressive for their time without feeling like they have modern attitudes. the second book, a seditious affair, deals most strongly with the revolutionary politics side of things, but all tackle it to some extent.

kj charles, band sinister.

look i'm probably biased because this might be my favourite KJC. it's a standalone about a pair of siblings: the sister wrote a gothic novel heavily inspired by their mysterious and scandalous neighbour whose older brother had an affair with their mum (causing scandal); the brother is a classics nerd. the sister breaks her leg on a ride through their neighbour's estate and can't be moved until she heals so they both have to stay at the house and find out if the neighbour is really as scandalous as he seems.

why it's interesting: discussion of atheism and new ideas about science and creation (very shocking to the brother, who is the viewpoint character); details of agriculture and estate management via main LI's attempt to grow sugar beet, as well as the economics of sugar (including references to slavery); "unexpurgated" latin and greek classics as queer reference points for a character who nevertheless hasn't quite figured out he's queer; material consequences of society scandal

bonus: wonderful sibling dynamic and a diverse cast including a portugese jewish character, which i don't think i've seen in a book before

i will add to this list as i continue to reread both of their backlists! (bc i have read them all enough times and in close enough succession that they blur together in my head unless i've read them very recently)

[useless-englandfacts]

one of the things i find most interesting about the protests in france at the moment is this idea that the british would supposedly never do such a thing, because it makes me think about how different this country might be if we taught history properly.

by which i mean instead of just teaching kids about kings and queens and world war two, we taught them about chartists and suffragettes (and not just the polite, middle-class suffragettes), the peterloo massacre, the poll tax riots, the peasants' revolt, the general strikes of 1842 and 1926, the bristol bus boycott, the brixton uprising... i could go on but you get the picture.

[racefortheironthrone]

Someone on Twitter asked who was the British politician who has harmed the British people the most. Of course all the answers were modern politicians - the earliest suggestion was James Callaghan. Looking further back in history, who were the really bad British politicians?

In order to not answer this with a long list of "History's greatest colonialist monsters," I'm going to focus on just the ones who had a negative effect on "the British people," and in order to not answer that with a long list of "the history of English oppression of the Irish," I'm going to focus on just harm done to "the people who lived in what is currently the U.K." I am well aware that this is highly restrictive, but I don't have the time to write a complete history of Britain.

So who's on my shortlist?

Pitt the Younger. Fought the Napoleonic Wars on the backs of the poor while violently suppressing any dissent with a police state. He passed the Treason Act of 1795 to criminalize dissent, the Seditious Meetings Act of the same year to criminalize public assemblies, spied on pretty much anyone who wasn't an arch-Tory, suspended the writ of habeus corpus, and passed the Combination Act of 1799 to criminalize trade unions. In a just world, would have died on a guilottine in Trafalgar Square.

Lord Liverpool. In the wake of the Peterloo Massacre which he was absolutely responsible for, passed the Six Acts to allow the government to search people's houses for arms without a warrant, arrest and transport people for owning weapons or attending a meeting that was deemed to involve unlawful military drilling, reduced due process, shut down all public meetings that involved politics or religion, arrest and transport anyone who wrote anything that criticized the government or Christianity, and heavily tax and impose bonds on newspaper publishers. In a just world, the Cato Street Conspirators would have exercised better tradecraft and assassinated him and his entire government.

Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington. Followed up his victory in the Napoleonic Wars by fighting a war against the British people. Arch Tory bastard, adamantly opposed any political Reform that would enfranchise ordinary people, and opposed Jewish emancipation while supporting Catholic emancipation. To be honest, I wish the mob had torched Apsley House with him inside when they had the chance.

As for the runners-up?

Bonar Law, Stanley Baldwin, and Ramsay fucking MacDonald for dropping the Geddes Axe and then subjecting British workers to twenty years of crippling austerity and repression.

[workingclasshistory]

On this day, 28 June 1830, Joseph Grantham became the first officer of the new London Metropolitan Police to be killed in the line of duty, in an incident which was later deemed to be "justifiable homicide". Grantham tried to stop a fight between two drunk men in Somers Town, North London, and was then kicked to death. At the subsequent inquest, the jury determined that his killing was "justifiable" and that Grantham himself was responsible due to "over exertion in the discharge of his duty". The Met were the world's first modern, professional police force, created in 1829 and based in part on the experiences of the Royal Irish Constabulary, responsible for enforcing British colonial rule in Ireland. They were specifically designed to control the growing numbers of working class people, and break up strikes and demonstrations ideally without massacring people – as occurred in Peterloo 10 years prior, and which caused protests to escalate. As such, they were extremely unpopular, especially in working class areas of London, where a popular game for children was to hide in doorways until an officer walked past, at which point they would throw a brick or stone at him. Other police forces began to be created elsewhere, often by colonial authorities. For example in Kenya, the first police force was created by the Imperial British East Africa Company to protect their stores, and other police forces were established across the British empire. After colonised countries gained independence, in most cases police forces remained relatively intact. In the United States, the first forces in the North were set up to control working class crowds. In the South, many forces emerged from slave patrols, which were responsible for pursuing enslaved people who escaped, and deterring resistance by doling out brutal violence and terror. If you appreciate our historical work, please consider supporting us and accessing exclusive content here: https://patreon.com/workingclasshistory https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=651804640326088&set=a.602588028581083&type=3

[kiddthemaniac]

In Taking Notes, Alice mentions Starkwall, the "private military contractors" that show up in Give And Take.

Sam mentions "The San Pedro Square Massacre."

Which isn't a real thing that happened.

There was, however, the Peterloo Massacre that happened in St Peter's Square. San Pedro being St Peter in Spanish.

St Peter's Square is in Manchester. Where the new Magnus Institute is.

The Peterloo Massacre involved the British Government siccing cavaliers on working class protestors.

Maybe in the TMP timeline, they brought in Starkwall, similarly to how American companies would hire The Pinkertons?

Of course, it's just a theory, but I haven't seen anyone pick up on this yet.

[theculturedmarxist]

Over 500 children have been killed in Gaza in the last week and over 2,000 maimed, many with life changing injuries. Nobody can claim they do not know what is already happening or what is about to unfold. The cutting off of food and water to Gaza is a major international crime, which the western proponents of the “rules based order” universally refuse to condemn.

In both the UK and the US there can be no more stark illustration of the lack of any kind of meaningful democracy, than the fact that there is no major political party that opposes the genocide – despite massive public opposition.

The bought and paid for media and political class in the west are extremely nervous, throughout the western world. Now they have come to the final genocide for which zionism has always aimed, they face a good deal of popular resistance.

Throughout Europe there is a massive gap between the zionist unanimity of the politicians and the much greater understanding of the Palestinian situation among the general public. Tellingly the response by the zionist political class has been a wave of outright fascist suppression.

In France, Macron has made all pro-Palestinian demonstrations illegal, but as so often the French people are not standing for that kind of authoritarianism.

In the UK, the police have adopted the cowardly tactic of arresting a couple of individuals, one in Brighton and one in Manchester, for pro-Palestinian demonstration. Under Tony Blair’s notorious draconian “anti-terror” legislation, they could face up to 14 years in prison.

The young man in Manchester was arrested on the precise site of the famous “Peterloo massacre”, which generations of British people were taught at school was a terrible crime in breach of the rights to freedom of speech and assembly. Let the irony of that set in.

You can go out in the streets of the UK with an Israeli flag and yell that you want every Palestinian to be cleansed from Gaza. That is not illegal. If you say the Palestinians have a right to resist their genocide, that is illegal.

That appears to be a genuine analysis of the law in the UK, France and many other western countries.

That is intended to terrify all of us. It will not work.

The European Commission has been ferociously zionist and gung-ho for this Palestinian genocide. It displayed the Israeli flag on its Berlaymont headquarters. It has taken a side in the most ferocious way.

It is therefore deeply sinister that the European Commission is actively working to shut down pro-Palestinian information and comment on social media. The European Commission has written to all major social media organisations and is able to threaten them with massive fines if they do not remove information of which the European Union disapproves.

The notion is plainly nonsense that through the fog of war the European Commission – which is 100% parti pris – is qualified to say what information is true and what information is false, and what comment is legitimate.

Thierry Breton, the European Commissioner in charge of this operation, is a former chief executive of electronic companies – and defence contractors – Atos and Thomson. He has no genuine interest in freedom of speech, and is engaged in a process of silencing dissent for military aims, which is quite simply fascist.

We are witnessing almost all western governments deliberately facilitating massacre, ethnic cleansing and genocide. We are witnessing almost all western governments turning on their own people to crush dissent at that complicity in genocide.

This feels not so much like the week that western democracy died, as the week it was impossible any longer to deny that western democracy died some time ago.

[thishadoscarbuzz]

305 - Peterloo (with Fran Hoepfner)

With the upcoming return of Mike Leigh to cinemas with Hard Truths, we invited writer and Fran Mag creator Fran Hoepfner to join us to talk about his last theatrical effort, 2019's Peterloo. The film tells the story of the buildup to the Peterloo massacre, in which years of political movement to get parliamentary representation for the people of Manchester resulted in bloodshed. Told with the attention to detail that has long been Leigh's trademark, the film had a cold fall festival response in 2018, which led American distributor Amazon to punt the film to an unceremonious 2019 release.

This week, we dive into the film's underrated and underexamined merits and what contributed to its unfair reception. We also talk about our anticipation for Hard Truths, this film's lack of marquee Leigh players, and some of Leigh's other undervalued films.

Topics also include the film's political timeliness, Amy Raphael's Mike Leigh on Mike Leigh, and Leigh on the THR Director Roundtable.

The 2018 Academy Awards

The 2019 Academy Awards

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[acwern]

For anyone who thinks that the uk government's reaction to the pro-palestine protests are in any way justified: first of all, fuck you, second of all, go read up on The Six Acts. *This isn't the first time* the British government has responded to the people's pleas in such a predatory way, *and it certainly won't be the last*.

It isn't even the first time in recent memory, but I wanted to just share a story from 1819 to show just how deeply rooted this is. I'm going to summarise the Peterloo Massacre, a horrific case of anti-worker action, which led to a piece of legislation called the Six Acts.

For those of you who don't know, the Peterloo Massacre was a violent, brutal response to a peaceful protest in Manchester. An MP popular with the working class called Henry Hunt was due to do a talk at the protest about worker's rights.

To give you an idea about Henry Hunt, he believed in workers rights, and the right for women's suffrage at a time when the right to vote was even restricted among men. He's a legend in his own right but he pissed off a lot of the local businessmen who relied on the slave labour of the working class in their mills.

Will Hulton was such a businessman, and he ordered Joe Nadin (a very dodgy bounty hunter) to arrest Henry Hunt. Joe said "wtf there's a whole protest I can't do that alone" so Will decided to call on the Cavalry to help. The Cavalry in question was a new division created a couple years prior specifically to quell working class unrest in Northern England.

So they went to this peaceful protest at St Peter's Square, Manchester, and charged into a crowd of 10,000 people. A dozen or so were killed and hundreds were reported as injured.

The government's response? The Six Acts. Rules which restricted any talk at all of reform.

There's a good song about the massacre called "With Henry Hunt We'll Go". You can find a performance of it by Harry Boardman that's proper grand. The Oldham Tinkers also perform a song called "Peterloo". *Never forget Peterloo*.

[bookgeekgrrl]

My media this week (19-25 Nov 2023)

📚 STUFF I READ 📚

🥰 Old Town Road (Singles series) (Chris Molanphy) - Part of Duke University Press' series Singles, chart geek/music historian Chris Molanphy dives deep into "Old Town Road" which he describes as a 'one of one' phenomenon. To quote the book blub, which sums it up nicely: Molanphy shows how “Old Town Road” channeled decades of Americana to point the way toward our cultural future. Fairly short and incredibly readable.

🥰 Ordinary Numbers (BootsnBlossoms, Kryptaria) - 44K, canon-divergent meeting for 00Q

🥰 The Ruin of Gabriel Ashleigh (Society of Gentlemen #0.5) (KJ Charles, author; , narrator) - short story, kicking off KJC's incredible romance series set in during the Regency and political unrest around the time of the Peterloo massacre

😍 [Podfic] Mr Webster's Wager (fahye, author; HowOldAreWe, narrator) - 29K, very slight canon-divergent expansion of The Ruin of Gabriel Ashleigh, expanding on Francis & Ash getting together - so well done I almost consider it a part of the series, at least for my own rereads - this is a really great podfic of it!

😍 A Fashionable Indulgence (Society of Gentlemen #1) (KJ Charles, author; Matthew Lloyd Davies, narrator) - exquisite Julian finds purpose and love transforming young radical Harry into a gentleman. Plus there's the Peterloo massacre and personal murder plots

😍 A Seditious Affair (Society of Gentlemen #2) (KJ Charles, author; Matthew Lloyd Davies, narrator) - Tory/Radical romance with some incredible digging in to what it means to be a man of principle ('Wednesday by Wednesday, I have loved you')

💖💖 +75K of shorter fic so shout out to these I really loved 💖💖

Art Nouveau (voluptuous_panic) - MCU: shrunkyclunks, 12K - reread, forever fave - Cap!Steve has a disastrous first date at a hipster cider bar but luckily the hot, tattooed bartender is there to distract him. Short & very, very hot.

📺 STUFF I WATCHED 📺

Hot Ones - Melissa McCarthy

Screen Rant - Siobhan Thompson Talks Dimension 20 Burrow's End & Fantasy High Junior Year

Screen Rant - Brennan Lee Mulligan Talks Dimension 20 Burrow's End & Fantasy High: Junior Year

QI - series S, ep 1

Dirty Laundry - s3, e6

D20: Burrow's End - "Five" (s20, e8)

D20: Adventuring Party - "Everything, Every Stoat, All at Once" (s15, e8)

D20: Fantasy High: Freshman Year - e1-10

🎧 PODCASTS 🎧

What Next: TBD - Bedbugs Are Back, Baby!

⭐ Endless Thread - The Grand Can-Spiracy

Song Exploder - Paramore "Liar"

⭐ Hit Parade - Ride ’til I Can’t No More Edition

⭐ Hit Parade - The Bridge: Can’t Tell Me Nothin’

Shedunnit - Death at the Club

You're Dead to Me - Shakespeare

Desert Island Discs - Patrick Grant, designer and broadcaster

The Atlas Obscura Podcast - A Gaga Tour of the Town

Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus - Julia Gets Wise with Carol Burnett

NPR's Book of the Day - Jamie Loftus' 'Raw Dog' investigates the social and culinary history of the hot dog

Cautionary Tales - Photographing Fairies

Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus - Julia Gets Wise with Isabel Allende

What Next: TBD - Inside OpenAI's Implosion

The Allusionist - 185. Gems and Patties

Cautionary Tales - The Art Forger, the Nazi, and "The Pope"

Today, Explained - How Cassie sued Diddy

99% Invisible #561 - Long Strange Tape

Pop Culture Happy Hour - Scott Pilgrim Takes Off

One Year - 1990: Pizzastroika

Ologies with Alie Ward - Abstract Mathematology (UH, IS MATH REAL?) with Eugenia Cheng

⭐ Off Menu - Ep 215: Paul Rudd

⭐ Pop Culture Happy Hour - Rethinking Killers Of The Flower Moon

NPR's Book of the Day - In 'Blackouts,' Justin Torres shines a light on silenced LGBTQ history

What Next: TBD - Where Scams Are Born

🎶 MUSIC 🎶

Rockstar [Dolly Parton] {2023}

Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, Vols 1 & 2 [Ray Charles] {1962}

Presenting Massive Attack

Presenting Nine Inch Nails

New Blue Sun [André 3000] {2023}