The Times (Editorial 3rd August) has opined that Peterloo has ‘no wider historical significance’ as events to mark the 200th anniversary of the massacre on 16th August are held.
One possible reason why The Times is so keen to forget about Peterloo could be the figure or William Hulton (1787-1864), the Magistrate who gave the order to send the Yeomanry into the crowd on that August day.
On the 150th anniversary of Peterloo in 1969 Robert Walmsley published Peterloo: the case reopened. The book was largely a defence of the role of Hulton.
The anonymous review in the Times Literary Supplement (as when the custom) concluded by noting that in 1832 as a consequence of the Reform Act, itself a result of Peterloo in 1819, the Tories lost the new constituency of South Lancashire to the Whigs.
William Hulton was one of those who met in a beer house to form the South Lancashire Conservative Association dedicated to defending, like the name of the family horse, Church and King.
The Conservatives have never apologised for Peterloo and one senses 200 years on that the Times remains very twitchy about the matter
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