Working Class Shame

 

I've been researching the Peterloo Massacre recently and I became quite irate about it all.
You see here we have a landmark moment in British socio-political history and when you go to Manchester all there is to show for it is a red plaque on the side of the Radisson Hotel.
Don't you think that's a disgrace?

On 16th August 1819, four years after the Battle of Waterloo, in a time when people were still influenced by the American and French Revolutions, somewhere in the region of 80,000 people marched peacefully to the heart of Manchester. That number represented almost half the population of Greater Manchester at the time, a real show of working class strength. Their cause, well it was this; at the time voting rights were limited to male land and property owners ie the ruling elite. That represented less than 1% of the population. They were the ruling classes.The constituency borders were outdated. The whole of Lancashire with a population of over 1 million had just 2 MP's. In other parts of the country certain unpopulated areas had more MP's than the whole of the Northwest Industrial belt. More than half of MP's iin Parliament were voted in by just 154 votes.
It didn't matter that so many working men had laid down their lives for this country in the wars with France, nor that they had placed the UK (or Great Britain) in a position of global industrial superiority.
They were not eligible to vote.
In France they were and had done so since 1792.
But here any notion of one man one vote, regardless of class or property fell on deaf ears..
So in Manchester they marched. They marched in an orderly and peaceful fashion; men, women and children. They marched in their Sunday best from all the surrounding mill towns; Oldham, Rochdale, Bolton, Bury, Salford and beyond. They made there way to St Peter's Fields near to Deansgate and expected to hear a speech given by Henry Hunt a radical orator who lobbied for Parliamentary reform and the extension of democracy.
But it never happened.
Magistrates located in a nearby building, fearing unrest and disorder, read the Riot Act and then ordered in mounted Yeomanry made up of local land and mill owners. Some of these men were drunk and were clearly out of ontrol. They rode in amongst the massed crowd and began to slash indiscriminately at the men, women and children present.
By the end of the day 15 were dead and between 400-700 innocent people seriously injured. Many were children dressed in their best clothes, taken there by their parents to witness what should have been an historical moment.
The news of what happened spread quickly, not just locally but also globally. It was commented upon by journalists, academics and artists, amongs them the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, who wrote the poem Masque of Anarchy in commemoration of events that day.
The reaction of the establishment was typical; the magistrates were commended by the Prince Regent, there was only one (unsuccessful) attempt to prosecute any members of the yeomanry, new sedition laws were passed to prevent publication of the truth of that day, journalists were prosecuted and imprisoned as was Henry Hunt himself.
One of the victims killed was John Lees of Oldham. Lees was a mill worker and father who had fought as a soldier in the Battle of Waterloo. It beggars the question as to whether he was on the right side that day. Killed for his political beliefs expressed in an established and democratic fashion.

And all that we have to mark that occasion and the events of that day, all that we have to remember the innocents who were massacred on August 19 1819 is a fucking red plaque stuck on a wall.

We as working class people should be ashamed of ourselves. These were our forebears, these were working class heroes, nay martyrs for the cause and we remember them with a red plaque. There should be a lasting and impressive monument to those who died that day.
There was once but it's gone now. It should be re-installed and there for all to see and remember.

Consider this;
When Thatcher died we, the people, financed a State Funeral that cost millions. A statue had already been commissioned to commemorate her and further it was reported recently in the press that British Prime Minister David Cameron is supporting a £15 million project to honour Margaret Thatcher, an expensive statue of her in Westminster is to be replaced, a road in Grantham is to be named after Thatcher and there is an online petition to rename Heathrow.
I for one feel physically sick when I see this. Flying in to MTA, I'd rather crash on the runway than land there.

Let's get together and support a cmpaign to commemorate Peterloo; so called by the press of the time who likened it to the great battle of Waterloo.
Leave me a comment and let's do something about this. Take down the red plaque and replace it with something more fitting.

Surely that's a cause worth fighting for.