We are in a time where there are mass protests happening world-wide ~ despite, or perhaps due to, cognitive agendas to make people increasingly divided. This is why I am today replaying two live talks / Q & A ´s which I recorded at the last live Writing on the Wall festival in lovely Liverpool . Mike Leighs Film PETERLOO and the awareness it raises is more germaine today than ever, as our basic human rights that have been so hard won are trampled on daily with hob-nailed boots.
In the second half Helen Pankhurst, direct descendant of the famous SuffragetTes, also asks "Where are we now ? " which raises the question ~ has all our positive progress been in vain ? ~
The film PETERLOO marks the 200th anniversary of the notorious Peterloo Massacre. On 16 August 1819, a crowd of some 60,000 people from Manchester and surrounding towns gathered in St Peter's Fields to demand Parliamentary reform and an extension of voting rights.
The meeting had been peaceful but, in the attempt to arrest a leader of the meeting, the armed government militias panicked and charged upon the crowd. The toll of casualties has always been disputed but as many as 18 people were killed and up to 700 wounded. The immediate effect of the massacre was a crackdown on reform, as the government feared that the country was heading towards armed rebellion. The outcry led to the founding of the Manchester Guardian and played a significant role in the passage through Parliament of the Great Reform Act 13 years later.
Plot;
After the Battle of Waterloo, Joseph returns home from service in the Duke of Wellington's army to Manchester and his close-knit family headed by parents Joshua and Nellie. Joshua, son Robert, daughter Mary, and daughter-in-law Esther all earn a living from manual labour in a cotton mill. An economic depression makes work impossible for the traumatised Joseph to find and threatens the family's livelihood. The family is sympathetic to the radical campaigns for equal civil and political rights for all free men and against the Corn Laws that prevent them from buying cheaper imported grain. Joshua, Joseph, and Robert attend political meetings where local agitators including John Knight, Samuel Bamford and John Bagguley speak out against the system of government; Nellie attends a meeting of the Manchester Female Reform Society.
The local authorities, led by magistrates Colonel Fletcher, Reverend William Robert Hay, Reverend Charles Ethelston and Mr. Norris and Deputy Chief Constable Nadin, spy on the radical movement and wait for an excuse to arrest its leaders. The Home Secretary, Lord Sidmouth, is determined to suppress radical politics. When a disgruntled Londoner smashes the window of the Prince Regent's coach, Sidmouth uses this as a pretext for suspending habeas corpus.
Bamford and his friend Joseph Healey travel south to London to hear the famous radical Henry 'Orator' Hunt speak at a political meeting. Hunt has a reputation for vanity but Bamford persuades Manchester businessman Joseph Johnson to invite Hunt to address a mass meeting at St Peter's Fields; the Home Office discovers this invitation by intercepting Johnson's letter. Arriving at Manchester, Hunt goes into hiding in Johnson's home. Richards, a Home Office spy, is able to provoke Bagguley and fellow radicals Drummond and Johnston into publicly calling for armed insurrection, leading to their arrest and imprisonment.
The magistrates plan to suppress Hunt's meeting and make an example of the attendees using the local mounted militia, the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry and a regular army detachment led by General John Byng. Hunt remains certain that he can lead a peaceful rally and sidelines Bamford, when he warns of the likelihood of brutal treatment by the authorities.
On the day of the meeting, thousands of people march into Manchester from the surrounding towns to hear Hunt speak at St Peter's Fields, including Nellie and Joshua and their family. Bamford leads a procession from Middleton but leaves in disgust on finding that it has been arranged that only Hunt will be allowed to address the crowd. A special committee of magistrates has been assembled to take charge of events, chaired by Mr. Hulton. Norris, who urges restraint, is overruled. Byng has left his deputy in command of the soldiers, to attend a genteel horse racing meet.
Once Hunt begins to speak, Reverend Ethelston reads the Riot Act to the crowd. Although the crowd pays no attention to Ethelston, the magistrates are now legally empowered to disperse the meeting. The Yeomanry cavalry assault the peaceful assembly with sabres drawn, while Hunt and Johnson are arrested by Nadin's men. The army tries to clear St Peter's Fields but in the mayhem, the crowd is unable to escape before several people are killed and many more injured. Joseph is wounded with a sabre and later dies. The attending reporters furiously return to their newspapers to expose this atrocity, coining a mocking name for it, "The Massacre of Peterloo". Despite the massacre, the Prince Regent sends his congratulations to the magistrates for suppressing radicalism and restoring "tranquility".
HELEN PANKHURST CBE (born 1964) is a British scholar, women's rights activist and writer. Pankhurst is currently CARE International's senior advisor working in the UK and Ethiopia. Pankhurst is the great-granddaughter of Emmeline Pankhurst and granddaughter of Sylvia Pankhurst, who were both leaders in the British Suffragette movement. In 2018 Pankhurst convened the Centenary Action Group, a cross-party coalition of over 100 activists, politicians and women's rights organisations campaigning to end barriers to women's political participation.
<3 This show was originally recorded and broadcast in June 2019 <3