Three Accounts of Peterloo by Eyewitnesses: Bishop Stanley, Lord Hylton, John Benjamin Smith; with Bishop Stanley's Evidence at the TrialStanley, Edward
History
Three Accounts of Peterloo by Eyewitnesses: Bishop Stanley, Lord Hylton, John Benjamin Smith; with Bishop Stanley's Evidence at the Trial
Stanley, Edward
Manchester (England) -- History; Peterloo Massacre, Manchester, England, 1819
[Illustration: BANNER CARRIED AT PETERLOO
_Photo by R. H. Fletcher_
_To face page 75_]
APPENDIX A.
Some Relics of Peterloo
1.--A BANNER CARRIED AT PETERLOO.
At the entrance to the Reading-room of the Reform Club at Middleton (on
the left as you reach the door) may be seen one of the Banners carried at
Peterloo by the Middleton contingent, which was led by Samuel Bamford. It
is of green material (or so it seemed to me) and the letters are stamped
on it in gold capitals. The motto facing the entrance is LIBERTY AND
FRATERNITY. On the other side of the Banner (seen from within the room)
are the words: UNITY AND STRENGTH. The explanatory inscription reads:
"This Banner was carried by the Middleton Reformers, with Samuel Bamford
at their head, to Peterloo, and is frequently mentioned in the historical
records of that movement." (See Illustration opposite).
In chapter XXXIII. of _Passages in the Life of a Radical_ Bamford speaks
of "the colours; a blue one of silk, with inscriptions in golden letters:
UNITY AND STRENGTH, LIBERTY AND FRATERNITY. A green one of silk, with
golden letters, PARLIAMENTS ANNUAL, SUFFRAGE UNIVERSAL." Apparently the
Banner here figured is the one of which he writes later in chapter XXXVI.:
"I rejoined my companions [_i.e._, after Peterloo], and forming about a
thousand of them into file, we set off to the sound of fife and drum,
_with our only banner waving_, and in that form we re-entered the town of
Middleton. The Banner was exhibited from a window of the Suffield's Arms
public-house." The Banner is now carefully preserved between sheets of
glass. The photograph was taken under considerable difficulties as regards
light by Mr. R. H. Fletcher, of Eccles. The Chadderton Banner, though much
dilapidated, is also still in existence, but I could not obtain the
address of the person in whose keeping it is. She had left Chadderton, and
was living at Blackpool.
2.--BAMFORD'S COTTAGE.
Some distance higher up the town may be seen the house where Bamford lived
at the date of Peterloo. Over the door is a stone inscribed: "Samuel
Bamford resided and was arrested in this house, Aug. 26, 1819." Bamford
describes the event in detail in chapter XL of the work named above,
beginning: "About two o'clock on the morning of Thursday, the twenty-sixth
of August, that is, on the tenth morning after the fatal meeting, I was
awoke by footsteps in the street opposite my residence. Presently they
increased in number, etc." The photograph is again by Mr. R. H. Fletcher.
(See Illustration.) In the Churchyard above may be seen Bamford's tomb and
also the monument raised to his memory.
[Illustration: SAMUEL BAMFORD'S HOUSE AT MIDDLETON
_Photo by R. H. Fletcher_
_To face page 76_]
3.--CONSTABLES' STAVES.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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