Bronze Relief by John Cassidy, R.C.A.
The Hunt Memorial in the Vestibule of the
Manchester Reform Club
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The Rev. Mr. Hay (the Chairman to the Magistrates) then stood on the steps of Mr. Buxton’s house and addressed the constables. I could not hear what he said, but he was cheered when he concluded. He then returned into the house, but came out again soon afterwards with Mr. Marriott, the Magistrate, and Hunt in the custody of Nadin, Chief Constable, and with Johnson in the custody of another constable. When Hunt made his appearance, he was assailed with groans and hisses by the soldiers and constables. Hunt took off his hat and bowed to them, which appeared to calm them while they marched towards Deansgate on their way to the New Bailey prison, escorted by the cavalry. On quitting the windows from whence we had witnessed so many painful scenes, we descended and found two special constables who had been brought into the house. One presented a shocking sight—the face was all over blood from a sword-cut on his head, and his shoulder was put out. The other was bloody from being rode over and kicked on the back of his head.
When the particulars of this bloody tragedy became known, strong feelings of indignation were expressed all over the country. The Manchester magistrates, alarmed at the tone of public opinion in London, had a meeting hastily convened on the 19th of August at the Police Office, which was adjourned to the Star Inn, where resolutions were passed thanking the magistrates and the soldiers. I happened by accident to be present at the meeting. A young man with whom I was acquainted, a clerk in the office of the Clerk to the Magistrates, happening to meet me in the street on his way to the meeting, took me by the arm and said: “Come with me.” I asked where he was going, and when I learned, declined to go. He replied: “Nonsense, you will hear what is going on,” and so I somewhat reluctantly went with him to the Star Inn. On our arrival we found the room pretty full and I took a seat. The Chairman, Mr. Francis Phillips, rose and said: “If there be any persons present who do not approve of the objects of this meeting they are requested to withdraw.” I thought he looked at me, and felt a little uncomfortable. He sat down again and rose to repeat his request. I thought that as I should know better what the object of the meeting was after I had heard it explained, I would sit still, and so I remained to the end. After the meeting I told some of my Reform friends how I came to be present at the meeting, and they wished me to write out an account of the proceedings. I did so, and with a few alterations and the omission of names it was inserted in Cowdroy’s Gazette. This statement created great alarm among those who got up the meeting to thank the magistrates, and they denounced it as a false statement, but another letter to Cowdroy’s Gazette affirmed the truth of the account of the meeting to thank the magistrates, and threatened to make public the names of the speakers if its correctness was again called in question.
The Peterloo Medal
Note the women and children, and the cap of Liberty held aloft in the centre
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The dispersion of a legally convened meeting by military force aroused a general indignation, and the smuggled passing of thanks to the magistrates so dishonestly sent forth occasioned an expression of public feeling and opinion such as had never been manifested in Manchester before. A “Declaration and Protest” against the Star Inn resolutions was immediately issued, stating that “We are fully satisfied by personal observation on undoubted information that the meeting was perfectly peaceable; that no seditious or intemperate harangues were made there; that the Riot Act, if read at all, was read privately, or without the knowledge of a great body of the meeting, and we feel it our bounden duty to protest against and to express our utter disapprobation of the unexpected and unnecessary violence by which the assembly was dispersed.
“We further declare that the meeting convened at the Police Office on the 19th of August for the purpose of thanking the magistrates, municipal officers, soldiers, etc., was strictly and exclusively private, and in order that the privacy might be more completely ensured was adjourned to the Star Inn. It is a matter of notoriety that no expression of dissent from the main object of the meeting was there permitted. We therefore deny that it had any claim to the title of a ‘numerous and highly respectable meeting of the inhabitants of Manchester and Salford and their neighbourhood.’”
In the course of three or four days this protest received 4,800 signatures.