More than 3,000 members of the public will play a part in marking the Peterloo massacre on the 200th anniversary of the bloody protest for parliamentary reform and political representation at St Peter’s Field in Manchester.
There will be no passive spectators at From the Crowd, an immersive experience which will weave together eyewitness accounts of those present at Peterloo in 1819 and the words of contemporary protesters and poets.
Described as a dialogue between 1819 and 2019, three repeat performances will each bring together 1,000 members of the public with about 150 musicians, performers and volunteers to amplify the story of Peterloo and its legacy.
Audiences will bathe in 360-degree sound, with music composed and directed by a member of Dutch Uncles, Manchester’s champions of complex, oddball pop.
“The piece explores the power of the crowd, the sense of the unexpected and the galvanising solidarity that manifests when people are together as one. We’ll be remembering those that protested and lost their lives at Peterloo and those whose lives today are affected by different oppressions,” said Evie Manning, From the Crowd’s creative director.
Helping to lead the participants will be 100 people who have volunteered to be “Laurels”. They are a reminder that Peterloo was a peaceful protest, named after one group of marchers who made their way to St Peter’s Field from Middleton carrying branches of laurel as a symbol of peace along with banners that told of their purpose, including “Liberty and fraternity” and “Suffrage universal”. Among those taking on the role of being a Laurel are a number of direct descendants of the 60,000 people present in 1819.
What was the Peterloo massacre?
On 16 August 1819, a crowd of more than 50,000 gathered at St Peter's Fields outside Manchester to demand the reform of parliamentary representation.
Magistrates ordered the Manchester Yeomanry to disperse the demonstration and the sabre-wielding cavalry charged the crowd. At least 15 people died and up to 700 were injured.
Labelled Peterloo as an ironic nod to the battle of Waterloo, which had occurred four years earlier, the massacre sparked an outcry that was a key contributing factor in the establishment of the Manchester Guardian.
John Edward Taylor, a radical Quaker cotton merchant who did unpaid journalism for the Manchester Gazette, was at St Peter's Field on the day of the slaughter.
When the reporter from the London Times was arrested, Taylor and a friend sent an account of the killings to the paper to make sure the truth wasn’t smothered by the official version. This was published along with an angry editorial based on the reporting.
Peterloo and its aftermath confirmed to Taylor that reformers in Manchester needed their own voice. Two years later, and with the financial backing of 11 supporters, a prospectus for a new paper, the Manchester Guardian, was issued, stating: “It will zealously enforce the principles of civil and religious Liberty … It will warmly advocate the cause of Reform.” The first edition of the paper was published on 5 May 1821.
Free tickets will be released on 25 July for three performances on the day, in which visitors can play their part by reading from scripted lines printed onto entry wristbands.
At 1.30pm – the time the cavalry charged the crowd 200 years ago – the annual reading of the names will take place, while musicians Streetwise Opera, Aziz Ibrahim and Commoners Choir will perform throughout the day.
Karen Shannon, the head of the charity Manchester Histories, says: “The Peterloo massacre is a globally significant milestone in the history of democracy that also set Manchester’s path as a radical city of progress, change and where equality is championed.”
The Peterloo massacre led to the establishment of the Guardian, after reporter John Edward Taylor correctly feared that without the account of a journalist on the scene, Londoners would get only the official version of events, which would protect the magistrates who had caused the bloodshed.
After reporting doggedly on the protests for months in the massacre’s aftermath, Taylor founded the Manchester Guardian in 1821.
