Articles

The Magistrate who sent the Yeomanry in at Peterloo on 16th August 1819 went on to be a founder of the modern Tory Party

In Uncategorized on August 15, 2025 by kmflett

The Magistrate who gave the order to send the Yeomanry in at Peterloo in Manchester in August 1819 was William Hulton (1787-1864).

In a review of books published to mark the 150th anniversary of Peterloo in 1969 EP Thompson noted that Hutton’s mother had a prize horse called ‘Church and King’ providing a flavour of what the family was like. He noted that when it came to events like Peterloo it was not so much that Hulton would lie about what took place (he did) but that he was simply not interested in what the ‘plebs’, those fighting for the vote, said or did.

Hulton left another legacy aside from Peterloo. As EP Thompson notes in 1832 the Reform Act, a result of Peterloo in 1819, saw the Tories lose South Lancashire. Hulton was one of those who met in a beer house in 1834 to form the South Lancashire Conservative Association dedicated to defending, like the family Horse, Church and King.

That organisation was one of the forerunners of the modern Tory Party.

No apology for Peterloo has ever been forthcoming from the Tory Party

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.