Kmflett's Blog

200^th anniversary of the ‘Cinderloo Massacre’ 1^st & 2^nd February 1821

200 years ago 70 members of the Shropshire Yeomanry shot dead 2 miners and injured more in a dispute over wage cuts. The event became known as Cinderloo a conscious echo of Peterloo in1819.

There is an excellent website and there are commemorative events:

The origins of the dispute lay in attempts by local ironmasters to cut wages. Miners fearing that if this happened they too would face cuts went on strike on 1^st February 1821 and protested at what became known as ‘Cinderloo’ in East Shropshire.

The massacre warrants a brief mention in E P Thompson’s Making of the English Working Class. Thompson sees it in the context of the relationship between Methodism and the early labour movement.

The right-wing historian Halevy had argued that it was the influence of Methodism that had prevented revolution in England during this period. Eric Hobsbawm by contrast argued that Methodism and working-class politics went hand in hand. Thompson developed a third and controversial position. He argued that the impact of Methodism during this period represented the ‘chiliasm of despair’.

Cinderloo had a limited impact in terms of addressing an employers offensive and it was met by a vicious local ruling class response. It was one of a series of defeats in this period that led workers to look elsewhere for explanations of events

Thompson argued his case in respect of Cinderloo particularly in the Postscript published in the 1968 paperback edition of the book.