Peterloo 1819-2019
On 16 August 1819 a peaceful mass rally for parliamentary reform at St Peter’s Fields, Manchester, was attacked by armed cavalry, resulting in 18 deaths and nearly 700 serious injuries. It was a formative event in the history of British democracy.
Professor Robert Poole has written the definitive history, Peterloo: the English Uprising (2019), and co-written a graphic novel, Peterloo: Witnesses to a Massacre. He has given dozens of public talks and workshops, and acted as consultant to the 2019 bicentenary programme, which received national media coverage. This project was an Impact Case Study for REF 2021
- Peterloo bicentenary website with links to reports, videos, projects & events
- Jen Thornton, Arthur Chapman, Polyp, Eva Schlunke & Robert Poole, ‘Peterloo: Interpretations, Enquiry, Resources’, materials for schools
- ‘Peterloo: the English Uprising: the Massacre that Changed Britain’, BBC Radio 4, 4 & 11 August 2019 and ‘A Poet Laureate’s Peterloo’, BBC Radio 4, 11 August 2019,
- ‘Peterloo: the Story of a Massacre’, BBC History Extra podcast, 15 August 2019
- Peterloo educational resources at the National Archives
- BBC Schools ‘Exploring the Past – Protest’ 2015
- Peterloo: the English Uprising (OUP, 2019), discount code AAFLYG6
- Peterloo: Witnesses to a Massacre, the graphic novel
- Schools version of the Peterloo graphic novel, ‘Age of Revolution’ site
- Peterloo animation
- Petition of the Month ‘The 1817 mass petitions for parliamentary reform’, UK Parliament petitions committee website, July 2020
- ‘The Peterloo massacre: how women’s bravery helped change British politics forever’, The Conversation, 15 August 2019
- ‘Peterloo 1819’, in Resist: Stories of Protest ed. Ra Page (Comma Press, 2019)
- ‘The best books on Uprisings’, Five Books, Nov. 2019
- ‘The Manchester Observer: biography of a radical newspaper’, open access at
- The digitised Manchester Observer, at the John Rylands Library Peterloo Collection
- Return to Peterloo ed. Robert Poole, Manchester Region History Review vol. 23
- Manchester Histories
- People’s History Museum, Manchester
- Peterloo Memorial Campaign