London Socialist Historians Group
Media Release 16th August
Contact Dr Keith Flett 07803 167266
On 200th anniversary historians call on Boris Johnson to apologise for Peterloo
The London Socialist Historians Group, which convenes the socialist history seminar at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London has called on Boris Johnson to apologise for Peterloo on the 200th anniversary.
Many thousands had come from surrounding towns and villages to hear speakers including Henry ‘Orator’ Hunt at a demonstration demanding the right to vote held on St Peters Field in central Manchester on 16th August 1819.
They were cut down by Yeomanry on horseback using sabres and numbers died or were injured.
Wlliam Hulton the Chair of the Magistrates on the day who gave the order to send in the Yeomanry, was a lifelong Conservative.
Before the 1832 Reform Act Hulton was part of the ‘blue party’. His family owned a horse called Church and King. When the Tories lost to the Whigs (Liberals) in South Lancashire in the Election of that year, Hulton was a founding member of the South Lancashire Conservative Association.
According to his biographer Robert Walmsley (Peterloo The Case Reopened 1969) Hulton did make an apology of sorts for Peterloo but this was lost on the reformers of Lancashire including The Guardian newspaper that perpetually referred to Hulton as a ‘foolish country squire’.
London Socialist Historians Convenor Dr Keith Flett said, in his Tory leadership campaign Boris Johnson talked of One Nation Conservatism. If he was serious he needs to recognise the important moment in the development of British democracy that Peterloo represented and apologise for the reality that the Conservatives and particularly Hulton were implicated in the dreadful events of that August day
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