Out of the four main leaders of the radicals Henry Hunt was the most influential to the working and middle classes. He certainly not a revolutionary leader but he did lead the masses in demanding social reform. He did this through meetings where several hundreds of people would attend just to listen to his opinions on the social situation in Britain and what they could do about it. He did not encourage any form of revolution, he simply told the working classes what was going on and that if they wanted change they would have take action, but not violent. The government did not like this at all. They saw Henry Hunt as a revolutionary leader and felt his motives threatened their power and rule. The Peterloo Massacre is a very good example of how the government totally misread a situation simply to combat a threat that was not there. On the 16th of August 1819 a meeting was called by the radicals on St Peter’s Field in Manchester. Henry Hunt and another speaker Richard Carlisle were to speak to the people of Lancashire on the subject of social reform. They wanted to discuss the land reform, the voting system and simply getting the working class of Lancashire a better quality of life. The meeting was attending by over 50,000 people, including Women and children. These people had come from all over the county just to listen to what the speakers had to say; many went to the meeting for a day out. There was picnicking and children playing in the crowd. Still the authorities saw this as a threatening revolutionary crowd and mobilised local armed units. These armed units included cavalry and even artillery. At 1:30 pm the local magistrates came to the conclusion that the town was in danger and ordered the army to move in and disperse the crowd. The Manchester Yeomanry moved in on horse back with sabres ready to strike. As you would expect the horses became panicked in he crowd as people scrabbled to move away from them as they pushed their way through. Even then the mood was still not hostile towards the authorities, but the soldiers started hacking wildly with their sabres. Eyewitnesses say the soldiers were drunk as they went into the crowd. Other groups of soldier moved in from other sides of St Peters field making it impossible for the crowd to leave with out going through the armed units. By 2pm the soldier had almost cleared the field of its 50,000+ occupants leaving 11 people dead and 400 seriously wounded including 100 women. Henry Hunt was arrested along with other radicals on the speaker’s podium, but Richard Carlisle escaped and was hidden by local radicals before returning to London later. The massacre was given its name as a mock of Waterloo. That had been their finest hour, not Peterloo was their worst.
The Peterloo massacre is a perfect example of how much the government feared revolution at the time and saw literally any gathering as a major threat. Of course the meeting at Peterloo was nothing more than a family day out to listen to someone update people on the current affairs in social reform. The crowd was unarmed, totally sober and played host to a playful good mood. It was not necessary for the government to intervene in anyway especially the way that they did. In this case their fear of revolution was justified in no way, shape or form. There aim to arrest Henry Hunt was also unjustified, if they had taken time to actually listen to him then they would have noticed that the was no way that he was going to lead a revolution.
Leading up to Peterloo there had been several other movements by the working classes, which the government saw as revolutionary. The most worring of these for the government was the march following the spa fields meetings. These took place in 1816 during November and December. They were organised by radical groups, the first was organised by the Spencean group. They supported the idea of revolution and encouraged the 20,000 strong crowds to march into London. Henry Hunt was speaking at this meeting about land reform. He tried to persuade the crowd to leave peacefully saying that violence would get them no closer to reform. The meeting was then hijacked by Watson and Thistlewood, these two men saw themselves are revolutionary leaders. They were of course only “wanna be’s” but still they gathered a group of around 200 who marched through Westminster into London. On the way they pillaged for weapons and alcohol, by the time they actually reached London they were nothing more than a mob of drunken thugs. As they reached the parliament buildings one magistrate and six police officers met them. Most them dispersed and went home at the sight of this resistance. The rest including Watson and Thistlewood were arrested by the seven men. This was the closest any one actually came to marching on parliament, it was a pathetic attempt. The so-called revolutionaries left at the first sign of trouble. It really doesn’t say much for their will power when seven unarmed men can scare off a crowd of 200. This is another example of how unjustified the Governments fear of revolution was. At least in this case they didn’t combat the march with the extreme force used at Peterloo.
Another famous attempted march on London is known as the March of the Blanketeers. This was le by three radical leaders who wanted to hand a petition to the prince regent. They were protesting about the problems of unemployed spinners and weavers in Lancashire. They believed that by the time they had reached London at least another 100,000 marchers would join them. It was decided that each man would wear a blanket, to keep warm on the journey and also as a sign to other weavers and spinners that wanted to join them. Spies working for Manchester authorities said there was a threat of violence on the march so the magistrate decided to stop the march. They were to meet to start the march at St Peters field. The kings dragoon guards immediately arrested 29 men including the leaders. However a large number of men were determined to carry on. These were pursued by cavalry one group was stopped a mile outside Manchester others at Macclesfield and Ashbourne. The worst violence took place at Stockport where several marchers were injured by sabres and one shot dead. The march was a total failure and showed just how little commitment and organisation the working class actually had. After this event the Manchester authorities decided that they needed their own army to deal with these problems, so the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry were formed. The same force that would play a major part in the massacre of Peterloo 3 years later.
The government didn’t only combat any situations with force like at Peterloo and the spa fields march they also set up their own meetings between revolutionaries so they could arrest the leaders with what the public would see as a proper reason. They set these meetings up using their own spies and informers. One of the most famous government spies was W.J. Richards AKA “Oliver”. He set up the Pentrich uprising in Nottingham. Oliver became acquainted with several revolutionary groups, he organised a march on Nottingham under the instruction of the government. The idea was that the groups would march into Nottingham expecting a major revolutionary uprising, but when they reached Nottingham there would be soldiers waiting for them. He organised this march for the 9th June 1816, but on the 4th of June he was spotted by reformers speaking to Major-General John Byng the army commander for the northern district. The news that Oliver was setting a trap was immediately sent to radical groups, but the news didn’t reach Jeremiah Brandreth and radical leader planning to take a group on the march into Nottingham. He promised his men lots of rum, beef and bread when the reached Nottingham and 100 guineas each for each man. On the 9th of June Brandreth led 300 men into Nottingham. He thought that they would be met by hundreds of thousands of marchers and men all over England were rising that day. He was very wrong. The army arrested Brandreth and his group as soon as they reached the city. 35 of the men were charged with high treason, Brandreth and two others were sentenced to death and another 11 transported for life. This was ruthless of the government; it was a scare tactic to show other reformers just what would happen if anyone did attempt a revolt. This was also a good form of repression. It scared a lot of people into thinking twice before pushing for reform. This was very effective when coupled with government legistlation. These were 6 acts of legislation put in place by the government to keep the working and middle class under control. The six acts were 1) Training prevent, anyone attending a gathering where training was taking place was liable to arrest and could be transported for 7 years. 2) Seizure of arms, giving any magistrate the right to search any property or person for arms. 3) Seditious meeting prevention, and act toe prohibit meetings larger than 50 people with the consent of a magistrate. 4) Misdemeanours act, measure that attempted to reduce the delay in the administration of justice. 5) A measure that provided much stronger punishments, including banishment for publications judged to be blasphemous or seditious and 6) newspaper and stamp duties, a measure which subjected radical publications to a duty. These laws were very rarely put into place but they work well to repress any ideas of revolution.
These laws were put in place mainly as a precaution; of course there wasn’t really a need for them as there was no real potential for revolution. There were three factors that could have contributed to a revolution. Firstly, the discontent of the working and middle classes. They were treated very badly by the social system, they had every right to revolt and push for social reform. They had a bad quality of life, bad working conditions and virtually no say in how their lives and country were ran. Secondly, due the treatment of the working and middle classes the government was very unpopular. If there had been someone with enough intelligence about them o lead a revolution then there would have been a clear motive for the revolt and it would have been totally justified. Finally, there were revolutionary idea; unfortunately for the masses there was no real leader to implement then. Although there were there factors that could have led to a revolution there were many more that meant that a revolution couldn’t have happened. There was no revolutionary leaders, people like Henry Hunt preached the ideals of reform but no-one was actually prepared to put their neck on the line and lead a full blown revolution against the government. The working class had no real leader from the middle class. They had plenty of role models and leaders but no one who would actually take control and tell what to do and where and when to do it. The working class commitment was very low too, they were not prepared to face resistance, as shown by the spa fields march and they didn’t have enough determination to carry out their aims. This is shown clearly by the march of the blanketeer’s, the marchers didn’t get any further than Stockport before they were all stopped by the authorities. If they had really determined to reach London they would have organised another march or even faced the problems in the first march and continued their journey. The government played a big part in a revolution not being fees able. They had a loyal army that would follow orders to the last word, as shown at Peterloo, the Pentrick uprising and on the march of the blanketeer’s. they fulfilled their aims completely and made it very hard for a revolution to take place unless it was very well organised. The spies and informers gave the government all the information they need to combat any form of uprising, including the Blanketeer’s march and the staged Petnrich uprising. Finally Government legislation and repression made people think twice about starting any form of uprising. They kept the working and middle classes down and didn’t give then any reform. The governments attitude was that if you gave then a small slice of reform then they would want more and more. If you give then none at all then they cant expect any, they didn’t encourage reform in the slightest.
All in all once the above factors are put together it is clear that the governments fear of an uprising was totally unjustified. They were to power and the revolutionaries to weak for a revolution like that in France o take place on British soil. The revolutionaries didn’t have enough factors in their favour to stage a real threat, and the government had plenty in their favour to combat any threat posed.
