The link between Poldark and Peterloo
The last series of Poldark has just started on BBC TV. It features Poldark meeting up with an old acquaintance ‘Ned’ Despard, infact Colonel Edward Marcus Despard (1751-1803). Despard who had served alongside Nelson was tried for revolutionary conspiracy and hung on 21st February 1803. Nelson spoke in his defence at his trial.
Despard, an Irishman had previously been impressed and released as a result of a campaign by the radical Francis Burdett.
Henry Hunt the speaker at Peterloo, was imprisoned for six weeks in 1800 after a dispute with a fellow Wiltshire farmer about pheasants. While in jail he came across both Despard and Burdett, whose ideas became a major influence on Hunt and informed his radical politics.
E P Thompson notes in the Making of the English Working Class that on meeting Despard in prison found him a ‘mild gentleman-like man’.
Such in any case is the unlikely but true link between the fictional Poldark and the very much factual Henry Hunt.
Leave a Reply