With the kind assistance of Mr. Swann, of the Reference Library, I have been able to find one (and only one) copy of this Report. It is bound up with a series of papers catalogued as “Lancashire and Yorkshire Tracts,” at the Manchester Reference Library. (The Reference number is “Lancashire and Yorkshire Tracts; Barlow’s Historical Collector. H. 63. 3. No. 3 (15104)”). It is entitled: “Report of the Metropolitan and Central Committee appointed for the Relief of the Manchester Sufferers, with an Appendix containing the names of the sufferers and the nature and extent of their injuries; also an account of the distribution of funds, and other documents. Published by order of the Committee. London, 1820.” This Committee seems to have been formed by amalgamating several organisations in the metropolis which sprang into being as a result of public sympathy with the sufferers, and it worked in conjunction with the Manchester and other Lancashire Committees. The subscriptions recorded to date amount to £3,408 1s. 8d. of which £1,206 13s. 8d. had been distributed, £250 having been received from the local Manchester Committees. The amount expended on law charges and expenses of witnesses is given as £1,077 6s. 9d.; advertisements and sundries cost £355 13s. 6d.; and this leaves a balance of over £768, which is pronounced inadequate to deal with the cases that remain. A fresh appeal is therefore made to the British Public. A Deputation was sent from London to investigate cases, and this Deputation reports, in January, 1820, that out of 420 sufferers visited and relieved 113 are females; that 130 received severe sabre-cuts, 14 of these being females. (To be quite safe, we must admit the possibility that the term “sufferers” may sometimes include members of the families of those killed or injured.) There follow 38 pages filled with the names of those killed and wounded at Peterloo, some 430 in all, with full details of their injuries, and in the case of the former the description is “Killed, or, who have subsequently died in consequence of injuries there received,” the number of these being given as eleven. Of these eleven: two were “sabred;” one was “sabred and trampled upon;” one was “sabred and stabbed;” one “sabred and crushed;” two (one of them a woman) “rode over by the cavalry;” one “trampled by the cavalry;” one “inwardly crushed;” and one (a woman) “thrown into a cellar.” In the case of two of these the words are added “killed on the spot.” The child killed in Cooper Street completes the total.
One of the Relief Committees met at Mr. Prentice’s warehouse, and the care with which the various cases were investigated, and successive grants made from the funds of the different Committees, is clearly shown by the details given in the account-book secured by Mr. Guppy in 1919 for the Rylands Library, which is mentioned above.
Perhaps it will never be possible to say exactly how many were left dead on the field. One, at anyrate, who died at once, or very shortly afterwards, was (by a strange irony) a Special Constable, and this is probably the “one man killed” of some of the accounts. It will be remembered that Lieut. Jolliffe reported “two women not likely to recover; one man in a dying state; and two or three reputed dead;” in the letter quoted above, describing his visit to the Infirmary on the Sunday following the event.
Most of the cases investigated by the Committees belonged to the side of the Reformers; but it must not be forgotten that the other side claimed to have serious casualties. Mr. Francis Phillips, e.g., enumerates the casualties to the troops, and an estimate of these is given also in the Centenary Volume of the Cheshire Yeomanry; we have already seen above, moreover, that a subscription list was opened for the families of the Special Constables, and that the appeal met with a generous response. It is a curious feature of the case that each side seems to be anxious to make its casualty list as imposing as possible. An interesting summary of the various estimates is given by MacDonnell in his State Trials. This summary includes the Official Report from the Infirmary, and the list of casualties to the troops. Without pursuing the matter further, we may say that a careful examination of the somewhat confusing evidence would seem to show that the estimate “eleven killed and between 500 and 600 wounded” will not prove to be far wrong, provided that (1) we understand “killed” to include those who died as the result of injuries received on the field; (2) we include in the general total the casualties incurred during the disturbances some hours later in the neighbourhood of New Cross. At least one list, published subsequently, brings the total of killed up to fourteen.
Two points not directly concerned with this discussion are dealt with by the Relief Committee, and are sufficiently interesting to be recorded: (1) The Committee paid out £710 “on account of the Trial at York; the Manchester Committee voting £100 for the same object.” (2) The Deputation sent from London to investigate the cases, mentioned in their Report some striking details of the conditions of life amongst the operatives. To quote only two sentences: “in no one instance among the weavers did your Deputation see a morsel of animal food, and they ascertained that in most families where there were children the taste of meat was unknown from one year to another.” “Six shillings a week was the average wage of an able-bodied and industrious weaver. Many could not get this.”
2.—PRESENCE OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN AT PETERLOO.
It has often been asserted that the peaceful intentions of the crowd at Peterloo are attested by the presence among them of women and young children. As every detail of evidence is of value, I give here a sentence from a letter which I received from Principal Reynolds: “My father was there, in his mother’s arms, though only one year old; so my grandmother told me.”
3.—SOME GLEANINGS FROM THE SCRAP-BOOKS.
It was the custom in the early decades of the nineteenth century, when newspapers were dear and newspaper files were not available, as there were no free libraries, to collect newspaper cuttings and illustrations, with tracts and “broadsides,” election squibs and so forth, in large scrap-books. Thus, at the Peel Park Library is preserved the scrap-book of Joseph Brotherton (for many years Member for Salford), running to over forty volumes. The Greaves scrap-book at the Reference Library contains a valuable collection of this kind. The Owen collection at the same Library fills over eighty volumes. At the Chetham Library may be seen Lord Ellesmere’s scrap-book and a number of others. From many references to Peterloo in these books we may select the three items which follow: The Greaves collection contains a rare print of Peterloo, somewhat lurid in its detail. Mr. Albert Nicholson has in his possession a highly-coloured copy of this, which he has shown me. No other copies seem to be known.