Photo by R. H. Fletcher
Banner Carried at Peterloo
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.
