Robert Hardy re-examines the 'Peterloo Massacre'
At approximately 1.30 on the hot summer afternoon of 16 August 1819, the Yeomanry Cavalry of Manchester, sabres in hand, charged a crowd of 60,000 in St Peter 's Fields, Manchester, and trampled and cut down the people. Eleven were killed and 400 injured - men, women and children. In this fateful five minutes England reached one of those dangerous corners in the long road that led towards the establishment of those freedoms that we now perhaps take too much for granted.
Massacre is an alarming and perhaps too simple a word for a very confused affair. This confusion, involving the highest and lowest in the land, and the events and tensions that led to the agony of 'Peterloo', are examined through the words of contemporary witnesses and participants.

BBC Manchester