Peterloo Memorial

The Peterloo Memorial stands on Peter Street beside Manchester Central in the centre of Manchester, England, on the historic ground of St Peter's Field. On 16 August 1819 a crowd estimated at 60,000 to 80,000 people gathered to hear the radical orator Henry Hunt call for parliamentary reform and the extension of the vote to the growing industrial towns. Local magistrates ordered the yeomanry and later hussars to arrest the speakers, and the cavalry charge that followed killed around 18 people and injured several hundred. The event was named Peterloo in ironic reference to the Battle of Waterloo four years earlier. It prompted the Six Acts, the founding of the Manchester Guardian in 1821 and eventually contributed to the reform movement that led to the Great Reform Act of 1832. For nearly two centuries the only marker was a blue plaque on the Free Trade Hall that was widely criticised for suggesting 11 deaths. The present memorial, designed by the artist Jeremy Deller and the architect Madeleine Kessler, was unveiled in August 2019 for the bicentenary. It takes the form of a tiered stone structure of concentric steps rising to a central platform, evoking both a speaker's platform and an open amphitheatre, with the names of the dead and the injured inscribed around the sides. The steps are made from Yorkshire stone and the design is deliberately accessible, with inclined routes that allow people to reach the platform. The names include victims of different ages and professions and a number of women. The memorial is an open public space with no fee and nothing to book. It is close to the Free Trade Hall, the People's History Museum and Manchester Central, making it a natural stop on any walking route through the city's radical history.