Resource
Gary Daverne: Peterloo (Cantata)
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About
Music: Gary Daverne
Script: Ruth Hamilton
About Peterloo
The setting is in England between 1815 and 1819. This was a period of immense political tension and mass protest as a result of the Napoleonic Wars.
Fewer than 2% of the population had the vote and hunger was rife with the disastrous Corn Laws making bread unaffordable, accumulating since the 1815 battles at Waterloo.
On the morning of 16th August 1819 a huge, but peaceful crowd, the majority dressed in their Sunday best, began to gather on the field around what’s now called, St Peters Square in Manchester.
Local magistrates watching from a window near the field panicked at the sight of the large crowd and read the riot act.
On horseback the cavalry came, armed with sabers. By 2pm the carnage was over and the field left full with abandoned banners and dead bodies, an event that became known as The Peterloo Massacre.
All in the name of liberty and freedom from poverty.
