This post focuses on Henry Monteith of Carstairs, a Scottish businessman and Tory politician who was twice the Lord Provost of Glasgow between 1814-1816 and 1818-1820. Monteith was frequently in communication with Henry Addington, 1st Viscount Sidmouth, who was Home Secretary for both of Monteith’s tenures as Lord Provost, as well as other Tory MPs who were concerned with the rise of Radical movements in Scotland after the cessation of the Napoleonic Wars. The selection of letters that I examined within the Monteith Correspondence are dated between the 1st of January 1819 to the 8th of April 1820 (the latter date being the end of the 1820 Scottish insurrection), although I did not read every letter within that timeframe, and there were a great number more letters that came after the 8th of April that unfortunately I ran out of time to read. However, I feel that I was able to get a wide range of content concerning the attitudes of both Monteith and others on Radicalism. I began by examining a letter sent by Sidmouth to Monteith on the 1st of January 1819. Viscount Sidmouth’s reputation for holding reactionary ideals underscores not simply this letter, but indeed their entire correspondence. His time as Home Secretary was marked with several moves that served to crack down on advocates of reform, such as the suspension of Habeus Corpus in 1817 or the passing of the 1819 Six Acts in response to the riots brought about by the Peterloo Massacre. Although it was admittedly difficult to read, it certainly discusses the quashing of Radical dissenters. From what I was able to extract from the document, Sidmouth asserts the importance of restraining newspapers from the “publication of seditions and blasphemous libels” . Further documents discussed the renewal of the 1800 Police Act, which established a professional police force in Glasgow and were particularly instrumental in suppressing post-1815 Radical uprisings, as well as the “proposed statue labour bill” . The closest bill that I could find that was being debated in the Commons around this time was the ‘labourer’s wages bill’, which was proposed by Edward Littleton, 1st Baronet Hatherton (who was key in passing other reforms such as Catholic Emancipation and the 1835 Municipal Corporations Act). The bill’s objective was to “relieve the labouring poor in manufacturing districts from being obliged by their employers to take their wages not in money but in groceries and other articles of consumption, upon which the employer had a profit, and whereby the labouring man was deprived of his option in disposing of his earnings to what he conceived the best advantage for his family” . Perhaps more significant, though, were two pieces of documentation sent to Monteith by individuals in Birmingham. One was a print of resolutions agreed in a committee meeting held by “merchants, manufacturers and traders” to aid the “severe distress” felt throughout the “manufacturing districts” . The other was an attached letter by Joshua Schofield, the High Balliff of Birmingham (whose son later became the first Lord Mayor of Birmingham) referring to the agreements made between the three parties. Schofield also requests Monteith’s help in “obtaining a petition from your town to cooperate with us, if it meet [sic] your approval in the object of our meeting” . This is especially notable because it reflects that reformist developments often involved both officials of their localities (such as Schofield) and others outside of their immediate vicinity. Indeed, in this case it is clear that reform was not solely driven by Radical, working class groups but that the resolutions were an agreement borne out of cooperation from various social strata as a result of a Parliamentary enquiry, and that Monteith was only made aware of the resolutions passed because of Schofield’s communication with him through his status as High Balliff. In the case of the Clydesdale Journal however, a Radical newspaper that supported “loyal and liberal principles” such as “universal suffrage, annual parliaments and election-by-ballot”, HM Borthwick (the founder of the newspaper) directly contacted Monteith asking if he wished to subscribe to the Journal for a discounted price. Yet both examples represent the hope of inspiring change that progressive movements felt, and the practical means in which they could achieve this change, such as corresponding with officials both inside and out of their vicinities. Another insightful aspect of the Monteith’s Correspondence is the communication that he has with various individuals during the ‘Radical War’ in April 1820. For instance, a letter sent to Monteith on the 3rd of April explains that “the working classes here are all idle and assembled in crowds… several of Calton Mill began in the morning at work, but have struck since breakfast” . This likely refers to the general cessation of work in the morning of the 3rd of April. There is also a particularly interesting manuscript within the correspondence – namely, an announcement from King George IV – that was given to Monteith by Lord Sidmouth, which asserts that the printers and distributers of the proclamation that was placed around Glasgow in the morning of April 1st must be brought to justice. Moreover, the call to justice also reveals that the King will give a full pardon to anyone (including other printers and distributors), alongside a £500 reward, who gives information that leads to the “detection of the authors and printers” and their subsequent arrest . The final letter I examined was sent by an individual named Thomas Sharp. I am unsure as to what role he held within the city, but it is likely to be in an official and relatively high-standing capacity since he had prior communication with Monteith (he references a letter he sent on the 5th of April within his letter on the 8th) and is clearly far-removed from the events in Glasgow, not just in a geographical sense but also regarding his sympathies for the movement. For instance, although there were reports of a “general rising”, Sharp did not “attach much credit” to this, claiming that “[h]ad the workmen in Scotland abstinently held out the whole week, I have not a doubt that they would have deserted their work here… on Monday, but the accounts from the North… check that situation” . Although Sharp may not necessarily be providing a moral judgement here on validity of the strike, he is equally not expressing any pro-reformist rhetoric; moreover, his language, such as his constant use of “they” or “their”, further underscores his likely standing (not dissimilar to that of Monteith) as a council or government official far removed from any intimate or immediate relations with Radical groups.

These manuscripts were the work of John MacKinnon, a Glaswegian weaver who was involved in the 1820 Scottish insurrection and later became a clerk in the Carnbroe ironworks. His correspondence consisted of two different manuscripts. The first is a collection of letters addressed to his son James, recalling his escapades during the 1820 uprising. The second is titled a Political History of Glasgow, which gives a more objective (although it is still interspersed with MacKinnon’s own remarks and commentary) and narrative account of the wider political background of the city. Letters to James: The collection also includes an amusing, fascinating and somewhat self-aggrandizing insert of a poem about the life of MacKinnon, written in 1858, presumably by MacKinnon himself. His letters to James began the subsequent year and covers almost every major event in his life. For the purposes of my research, I focused mainly on his recollection of events in 1820 and his own involvement in the uprising, but began by examining his account of the discontent that arose in Scotland post-1815, starting on page 45 (out of 116 pages in total). After the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo, unemployment levels soared due to the immense number of ex-soldiers who had previously found employment in the army. This sudden and sharp spike in unemployment was coupled with the passing of the Corn Laws in 1815, which, as MacKinnon explains, “cut off our trade with… a number of the continental nations” since its passing underscored a protectionist focus on British mercantilism rather than foreign grain. Its impact on the manufacturers, combined with the benefits it supplied to the land-owning classes, caused “the people [to petition] for Parliamentary reform in order to remedy the evil” . However, their protests fell on deaf ears. MacKinnon subsequently mentions the passing of another bill, Peel’s Bill, three years after the Corn Laws. Peel’s Bill resumed the conversion of money to the gold standard, reversing the effects of the 1797 Bank Restriction Act which removed the requirement for banks to convert paper money into gold. The bill was met with outrage by radicals, as it favoured the interests of the landed classes, with reception in Scotland being equally negative since “the £1 note ha[d] been the currency in Scotland since 1695 when the Bank of Scotland was established” , implying that the passing of the Bill also symbolised the political hegemony of England over Scotland. By the winter of 1819 therefore, “wages of all kinds fell while… rent remained the same. The people began to think that any change might be for the better… it was this feeling that made many people fall in with the Radicals” . What MacKinnon openly conveys is the complete disdain for which the authorities, ruling classes and the Tories reserved for the radicals. As far as these groups were concerned, the radicals had no legitimate political claim or motive. Rather, “whenever and wherever they were spoken of by the Tories, they were represented as a clad of men who had no real cause of complaint, were dissatisfied with having to labour for their bread, and who wished to seize upon other people’s property and apply it to their own uses” . This sheer contempt, and the desire to quash all inklings of reformist inclination, is reflected in acts such as those conducted by the Magistrate of Paisley in late 1819, in which he ordered the imprisonment of a band of musicians after they played {something} at a reform meeting. Hatred towards the radical movement was clearly not restricted to the radicals themselves, but any affiliated bodies or individuals. MacKinnon then recalls his experiences with the 1820 insurrection. He notes that the “famous proclamations” were put up throughout the night of Saturday 1st of April and that “in the morning [of the Sunday] they were read by thousands” . Furthermore, although a selection of citizens had arms readily available, some of which “found their way to the Radicals”, MacKinnon himself had “no arms, nor money to buy them” although he does note that for many, this posed no obstacle, as they opted to simply make their own pikeheads. MacKinnon, alongside his friend James Robb, decides to journey to Paisley on Tuesday 4th of April, a town with a large weaver population that were greatly immersed in the 1820 Radical War. However, their escapades in Paisley were not entirely successful, nor eventful. After meeting with some acquaintances, they hear a “rush of people” towards them and, panicked, MacKinnon accidentally breaks a pane of glass in a window. This deeply concerns him as “he had no money to pay for it” , and becomes increasingly anxious to get home – which they both eventually do. The following days are more lively; although on the previous pages most of MacKinnon’s narrative is occupied by his ventures to Paisley, he does illustrate the extent of the British military presence in Glasgow, citing artillery, local yeomanry, sharpshooters within the city on Monday, with reports on Tuesday that a large body of British troops was to descend imminently onto Glasgow. Page 59 of his account sees MacKinnon obtain pikeheads that were “concealed in [his] shop” for himself, Robb and for another party of about 120 men, who were to join “another body of men on the banks of the Great Canal” , headed by a man named Craig (perhaps John Craig, who in reality was an undercover government agent), and guided by another named Crawfurd. MacKinnon records that concerns were raised within the party as to whether the detention of an absentee who was due to join up with the group was by “accident or design”. If it was by accident, MacKinnon notes, then this would have less serious consequences than if it was by design, as surely “they would be followed by a military force sufficient to overpower them” . A vote is taken as to whether they should proceed as a united group or return to Glasgow disbanded – “by a majority of one [it was decided] that they should return” . Resultantly, “the men then sunk their pikes in the canal till the heads held in the mud… and they returned to their homes” . The final development from the section of the letters that I read sees MacKinnon learning from Robb that on the following morning, “a [military party] accompanied by a civil force… went straight to the banks of the canal, where they drew a number of pikes out of the water” . This invokes suspicion within MacKinnon – he rightfully questions “how could the authorities go straight to the place where the pikes were, if they had not been told?” . He concludes that Crawfurd was the spy, noting that Craig had been apprehended by the police on Sauchiehall Street on trumped-up charges of drunkenness and ‘breaking a street lamp’ (it had actually been broken by another member of the party who had been careless with his pike), but if MacKinnon’s Craig is the same as John Craig, then it is likely that MacKinnon was incorrect. A Political History of Glasgow: The second facet of the MacKinnon Correspondence that was pertinent to my research interests was the narrative account authored by MacKinnon regarding Glasgow’s Political History. Much of his account is complementary to the letters he wrote to James (or vice-versa). For instance, he begins by discussing the fluctuating levels of employment experienced by the Glasgow weavers throughout the Napoleonic Wars, caused by the disruption and re-establishment of global trade routes, which were themselves contingent on military developments. MacKinnon subsequently maps the push for reform prior to 1815, which was spearheaded by the Glasgow weavers’ ultimately unsuccessful drive for “fixing a minimum wage of muslin weaving” . Two committees, one of manufacturers and of weavers, “were chosen to debate the question of wages before the Justices” , the delegates of which were named Kirman Finlay and Alexander Richmond. The weavers ultimately covenanted to strike, although there was no violent disturbance, and “everything was peaceable and quiet” – although, after the strike, “a number of the Tory manufactur[ers]… hinted to the government that there was a great number of weavers in the militia regiments, and that they might combine” to threaten the stability of the government . This in turn prompted the arrival of a “large military force” in Glasgow, as well as the removal of every Scottish militia regiment in England and Wales. Finlay and Richmond’s influence was more keenly felt after Napoleon’s defeat, as Finlay employed Richmond as a spy to “communicate any information as to any plots that might be forming against the government” . Richmond’s involvement in the exposure and trial of a dissenting committee is discussed in a separate article. MacKinnon also underscores the anger directed at what he labels the “mischievous” Corn Laws, stating that “the wages of cotton operatives during the [the winter of 1815] feel about 30 per cent” . Combined with poor harvests and a stark increase in the cost of living, MacKinnon remarks “is it any wonder that the people became discontented?” . The Scottish working-classes fared better in 1817 and 1818. Work “become more plentiful” and the harvest had evened out after deficiencies in 1815 and 1816. However, come 1819 “another dark cloud [arose] over Glasgow” with the introduction of Peel’s Bill, also referred to in MacKinnon’s letters to James. But “in order to reduce the number of notes in circulation, [Peel] refused to discount a great number of bills for merchants” . Consequently, “the merchants failed in scores”, which had knock-on effects for the manufacturers and in turn, the workers in the manufacturers’ employment . Therefore, shortly “thousands of unemployed workmen thronged the streets of Glasgow” , with no hope of relief supplied by a chance of an occupation in the army as there had been previously. Moreover, “the scarcity of money caused goods to fall in value” , causing financial ruin for the merchants and manufacturers. This turmoil was blamed on the government, and the “demagogues and the unemployed… petitioned for Parliamentary reform and extension of the suffrage, so [that they] might get better men to represent them and who would sympathise with them in their distress” . MacKinnon, rather poetically, illustrates the re-establishment of secret societies, observing that “drowning men will clutch at straws” . With the remark that the principles and objectives of these reformists, now called ‘Radicals’, “spread far and near” , MacKinnon’s account arrives at the eve of the 1st of April 1820 which saw the physical plastering of these Radical ends “in the towns and villages for twenty miles around” .

Although there were bursts of reformist action in early 19th century Scotland prior to the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars, such as the Glasgow weavers’ strike of 1812, Radical activity was largely muted from the beginning of the 19th century and only resumed after 1815. In 1816-1817 there were two distinctive reform movements in Scotland. The first was “a widespread series of public meetings where resolutions in favour of a radical reform of the house of commons were passed and petitions drawn up for submission to the Prince Regent”. The second was “a secret conspiracy centred on Glasgow which aimed at change effected by physical force” . In July 1815 Major John Cartwright, the English political reformer, visited Scotland. He travelled the country for thirteen weeks “encouraging people to sign petitions for a radical reform of the commons”. His tour was seemingly successful, with “at least six hundred of his forms of petition… [being] returned to him”. Although his influence waned once he returned to England, October 1816 saw “the first number of meetings in Scotland to press for radical reform”. The most prominent of such meetings was held at Thrusgrove, an estate in north Glasgow, in which the attendees decided that “the oppressive weight of the enormous burdens that have been entailed upon the country by a vile and corrupt faction” could only be remedied by petitioning for radical reform. However, the peaceful campaigning that both Cartwright and groups such as those found in Thrushgrove advocated and implemented was ultimately unsuccessful. Although in late 1816 Cartwright submitted some petitions he had acquired from his time in Scotland to both Viscount Sidmouth (the Home Secretary) and the Treasury “it was apparent… that members [of Parliament] were little inclined to pay attention to a movement that had no support from the landed interest or from the corporate bodies” . Minsters then became convinced that an escalation of Parliamentary powers to either “pass new laws or suspend existing ones” was necessary, since they believed that some reformist groups held different and more violent objectives than the ones expressed at Thrushgrove. Their fears were seemingly confirmed when, after a supposed attack on the Prince Regent’s coach in February 1817, reports were issued to the Commons which stated attempts had been made “to induce the working classes to [conduct]…. A total overthrow of all existing establishments and in a division of the landed and extinction of the funded property of the country” . Furthermore, “it was believed that a system of secret associations had been extended from England into Glasgow and some other populous towns of Scotland… whose object was the overthrow by force of the existing form of government” . In response, minsters suspended Habeus Corpus until July 1817 and passed the Seditious Meetings Act which was “designed to ensure that all reform clubs and societies would be utterly suppressed” . Throughout these developments from the last few months of 1816 to the new year of 1817, Alexander Richmond was employed by Kirkman Finlay to provide him with information regarding Radical activity. He made contact with a variety of reformist groups, ranging from peaceful protest associations borne out of Cartwright’s presence in Scotland to movements who desired the total overthrow of the political establishment. By the middle of January 1817, George Biggar replaced Richmond as the spy within the reformist ranks and reported back to Finlay that “a system of private organization cemented by oaths has actually been formed and a delegation is to be sent by the Central Committee to Lancashire” , confirming both the existence of secret Radical societies and their correspondence with their counterparts in England. Finlay then told Viscount Sidmouth of Biggar’s findings and these, combined with the worry that a potential rapid improvement in trade could induce violent Radical organisations to strike earlier than planned since “reformers knew that they received much of their support from those in economic distress and that support for political reform might evaporate if economic conditions improved” , provoked Sidmouth to order the arrests of the leading reformers in Scotland. By the 27th of February “twenty-six people were in custody” . Once the Radicals had been detained, the onus fell on the government to firstly verify the incriminating information that had been provided by Richmond and Biggar in order to prosecute and imprison the Radicals, and secondly convince the public that their actions were justified so as to not appear to be limiting the freedoms of the people without necessity. The first prisoner to admit involvement with a secret organisation was a spirit dealer named William Simpson, who said that approximately seven weeks previously a weaver named McDowall Peat “called on him and explained that he planned to form an association to compel parliament to grant the petitions for reform” . Simpson then endeavored “to form an association for the purpose of obtaining annual Parliaments and the elective franchise at the age of twenty-one for all the people of Great Britain and Ireland” . He furthermore affirmed that Peat instructed him to “do that by force if necessary” and also admitted “that there had been plans to raise funds to send delegates to Carlisle” . From Simpson’s testimony and other statements given by detained Radicals, the authorities were able to gain an awareness regarding the formation of both a select committee and a secret committee in early February 1817. The former’s role was to “alter the words of the oaths, the signs and the secret grip or handshake” and the latter’s business involved relaying information to the general committee as well as selecting and sending delegates to Radical groups outside of Glasgow (including reformers in England) . The next task facing the government was to persuade the public that their actions were justified . The lord advocate arranged for John Campbell, one of the leaders of the Radicals within Glasgow, to make a full public confession confirming everything that had been said by other arrested reformists, in exchange for a promise of protection. However, when Campbell was called to give evidence to the court, “he was asked if he had received any reward, or promise of a reward for coming forward to give his evidence, he said [he had]” . His answer “completely confounded the Crown lawyers… the lord advocate’s fine speech was thrown away” . Although Campbell “asserted that he had been promised a place in the excise” in exchange for his testimony, “it is more likely that Campbell was very cleverly sabotaging the crown's case” . If his statement that he had been promised a reward was true, “his evidence was inadmissible and doubts were cast on the methods employed by the crown to prepare a case” . If it was not true, Campbell would be guilty of perjury and, consequently, nothing else he might say could be accepted . Although the Crown had called other witnesses, they were largely relying on Campbell’s confession – as a result, “a verdict of not proven was returned” and the prisoners were released. Amusingly, one prisoner reportedly refused to leave until it was explained to him why he had been arrested in the first place, and was eventually forced out of the cell by soldiers with bayonets . The lord advocate’s failure had the unfortunate result of seemingly affirming the public suspicion that the government, through the use of spies, had been fabricating plots themselves, something that MacKenzie accused Richmond of doing. It was felt in Scotland that the methods employed by the authorities “must carry alarm home to every independent mind” . This concern that personal freedom was being endangered was consequently bolstered in 1817 and 1818 as numerous petitions were presented to Parliament by those who felt they had been unjustly imprisoned on counts of conspiracy that they believed had in fact been conjured up by the government .

In 1816-17 a series of events, linked to the Spa Fields Meetings in London, and in Nottingham, Lancashire and Yorkshire (respectively the Pentridge rising, the Manchester 'plot' to free the arrested 'blanketeers', and the aborted rising in Huddersfield), were all in part prompted by, encouraged, or infiltrated by government spies.  Most notoriously, Castles in London, Oliver (W. J. Richards) in the North, and Reynolds in Ireland.The case against the London 'conspirators', Dr Watson, Arthur Thistlewood, Thomas Preston, and John Hooper - for high treason relating to the Spa Fields demonstration on December 2 1816- collapsed after the evidence given by Castle was undermined by revelations about his past nefarious activities. The Manchester Blanketeers scheme - to march to London to protest against the exclusion of their petitions (only 13 of the 600 submitted had been deemed to meet accepted standards) - was forestalled by the arrest of the first marchers and their imprisonment without trial for the next eight or nine months. That further encouraged talk of a more general rising. On 9 June 1817, there was a gathering of several hundred workers near Huddersfield, which dispersed before military intervention. In Derbyshire, near Nottingham, a contingent marched on Notingham only to be overpowered by the military. Fourteen men were sentenced to transportation and Jeremiah Brandreth, Isaac Ludlam, and William Turner were hanged and beheaded - the defence having failed to call Castle to the stand. George Cruikshank's caircature, published on 1 July 1817, satirises the entrapment of poor and needy working men.Three Ministers sit at a council table along with three rough-looking agents or spies. On the extreme left sits Sidmouth and opposite is Thomas Reynolds, who was active in Ireland, indicated by a paper beside him: 'Reynolds Ireland'. The bag beside him is labelled 'Blood Money'. At the right sits Castlereagh, with a paper 'To Mr Reynolds'. To his right is George Canning, who says, "Don't you think my Lord that our friends, Castle & Oliver should be sent to Lisbon or somewhere as Consul Generals, or Envoys?" Castlereagh replies: "Can't you negotiate for some boroughs—" The two men have papers addressed respectively to 'Oliver Leeds' and 'Castle Spafields'; in the latter's hat is a bundle of 'Forged notes' . Papers in the green bag are labeled: 'An Oath to be Proposed to the distressed'; 'Plan for the Attack on the Regents Carraige' [see No. 12864]; 'Treasonable papers to be sliped into the pockets of some duped artisans'; 'Plans for a General Row'. On the table: 'Toast to be given in the Company of moderate men & then Swear they drank them' [Castle's evidence]; 'Every means to be taken to implicate Sr F. Burdett Ld Cochrane & —'. Beside Sidmouth lie: 'Instructions for Entrapg the poor & needy', and 'under santion [sic] of Government'. Beside Castlereagh areflags and favours labelled 'Tricolord Flags &c &c for Spa Fields', and a stocking labelled: 'A Waggon Load of Ammunition!!! Vide Mr Cannings Speech in ye House of Coms'. At a window on theright, behind Castlereagh, John Bull, exclaims: "Oh! Oh I have found out the Conspirators at last, poor Starving John is to be enslaved into Criminal acts & then the Projectors & perpetrators are brought forward as principal evidences! This is another Vaughan, Brock & Pelham business, and I suppose they are to be made Consuls too, the high road to Ld Castlereigh's particular favor—Canning travelled it." The print exemplifies the deep mistrust that existed between those agitating for reform and the government, who were suspected of fabricating evidence of conspiracy and sedition in the increasingly febrile atmosphere of British popular politics following the hardships faced by the British people at the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Suspicion of conspiracy is turned on its head and directed against a government that was seen as increasingly insouciant to the problems of the public. There was, nonetheless, some evidence of more insurrectionary attitudes in the winter of 1816-17, especially around the Spa Fields Meetings (qv).

The Six Acts were a response to growing unrest, exacerbated by Peterloo and the failure to obtain any redress for the radicals, which the government sought to close down. It had suspended habeas corpus and introduced legislation against seditious meetings in 1817 following the Spa Fields Riot of December 1816, what appeared to be a shot fired at the Prince Regent following the opening of Parliament in January 1817, and the Blanketeers March from Manchester in March 1817. But the former measure was thought to be ineffective and it was restored the following year. As unrest grew in 1819, and intensified following Peterloo, Lord Liverpool's government, with Lord Sidmouth as Home Secretary, recalled Parliament early (in November) and passed legislation (known as the Six Acts) to curb popular disorder (introduced into the House on 29 November, and receiving Royal assent on 30th December). The Acts made military training illegal; further limited rights to hold political meetings of more than fifty people; magistrates were given powers to undertake household searches without a warrant; newspaper duties were increased further and extended to cover all cheap publications; the laws against blasphemous and seditious libel were strengthened by adding a clause authorising banishment for seven years on a second conviction; and steps were taken to speed the process from indictment to trial and conviction for offenders. The Acts were not widely contested, because of internal divisions within parliament and the reform movement, and they passed into law - leading at least some of the reformers to conclude that they had no alternative to conspiracy available to them. In the following month or two the foundations for the Cato Street Conspiracy to blow up the Cabinet were laid, and then betrayed, leading to the execution of five of the conspirators in May 1820. George Cruickshank's two prints depict the shackling of the reformer's mind and body by the six acts - with the locked jaw being a trope used (by West/Fores) in a caricature from 1795 in A Lock's Jaw for John Bull - in which Pitt locks John Bull's mouth shut (a reference to the Gagging acts of November 1795). Cruckshank's image was also used in a simpler form in William Hone's Political Alphabet, under Q - 'Q stands for Question - How long shall this be a portrait of man destin'd to be free?' In the wake of the Six Acts several reform papers, including The Cap of Liberty and Medusa collapsed, but others sought new means to circumvent the laws. One such instance was William Hone's pamphlet, with his first use of George Cruikshank engravings, Man in the Moon, which satirised the Prince Regent's Speech on the early re-opening of Parliament and demonstrated that while prose might be prosecuted for sedition, parody and verse could be far more effective and was far more difficult to prosecute. The parody of the speech begins - My L__rds and G___tl__n, I grieve to say That poor Old Dad Is just as _bad As when I met you here the other day... and continued.... Reform, Reform, the swinish rabble cry- Meaning, of course, rebellion, blood, and riot - Audacious rascals! you, my Lords, and I, Know 'tis their duty to be starved in quiet: But they have grumbling habits, incompatible With the repose of our august community. In an unpredictable twist, the death of George III in January 1820, and the accession of George IV generated a new constitutional crisis with respect to the claims of George's estranged wife, Queen Caroline. The London radical movement was suddenly rejuvenated by the crisis and used the Queen's return as the basis for a range of meetings and addresses that evaded the Six Acts by being couched as loyal addresses to the sovereign's wife. The Queen Caroline affair was a curious final act in the fortunes of post-war London radicalism, which subsequently took a much more muted form, with popular support for George IV reviving in the 1820s.

The Black Dwarf was a London newspaper and comment sheet, published by T J Wooler from January 1817 until 1824. It was a major target for the government, which brought charges of libel against Wooler for pieces in the paper of 12 February and 2 April 1817. In both cases, Wooler sought to claim that the statements for which he was being prosecuted for libel were in fact true, and therefore not a libel; and the prosecution sought to insist that something could be true, but still be a libel. Understandably, juries were not wholly impressed. Wooler was acquitted by the jury on the second offence and the improprieties in the manner of the declaration of the verdict in the first case rendered it unsafe. He was prosecuted again for his part in a mass meeting held at Birmingham on 12 July 1819 (an important precursor to the Peterloo Meeting) and tried the following year, when he was sentenced to fifteen months in prison. Despite his imprisonment, Wooler managed to keep the paper in production, thanks in part to his fellow publisher Richard Carlile. The paper was a part of the resurgence of the post-war radicalism of 1816 to 1820, and to the government's attempts to crack down on popular protest. Wooler led the campaign against the use of Special Juries in London, and the Black Dwarf was framed with a black border in mourning for the death of trial by jury until the Special Jury List was reformed in 1817. Wooler depended heavily on the moral and financial support of veteran reformer Major John Cartwright, who had been advocating annual parliaments and universal manhood suffrage since the 1770s, but who became a more active campaigner in the last years of the war, initiating the spread of Hampden Clubs throughout the country in 1816. When Cartwright died in 1824, Wooler was unable to carry on publishing. The Trials of the Black Dwarf have been dramatized by the Loft Theatre Company, devised and directed by David Fletcher (see also Queen Caroline). A recording of the production is available above in an mp3 file..

There were more than seventy poems and songs published in the immediate aftermath of the massacre. Almost half of these were published in radical journals, with the rest comprising broadside ballads and a few from chapbooks. Despite many of them having 'song' in their title, only nineteen state a specific tune. Turning to poetry and song as a vehicle for political protest was nothing new in 1819; already in the 1790s the marriage of song and political expression was used by radicals as a crucial form of expression. Poems and songs have a longstanding tradition within English folk culture as a swiftly produced and widely disseminated method of information, commemoration, and protest. The broadside ballad with its diversity of subject-matter and accessibility of style was the cornerstone of folk culture from Tudor times until the mid-Victorian era, when the increase in newspapers led to its decline. The radical press in 1819 sought to replicate the immediacy and accessibility of the broadside as part of a wider cultural response to the events in Manchester as well as contributing in innovative ways to the English tradition of protest poetry. What is of note regarding the ballads and songs of Peterloo is the speed with which they were written and published as well as the variety of genres used by the largely unknown balladeers to convey the grief, rage, and horror felt by the majority of the English people for the murder and maiming of their compatriots. ‘Manchester Yeomanry Valour’ This song was published in two radical newspapers: the Manchester Observer on 18 September 1819 and Medusa on 30 October 1819, aimed at both a London and Manchester readership. To mark the 150th anniversary of Peterloo, the song appeared in the Stockport Advertiser on 14 August 1969. The unnamed poet begins by directly appealing to St Peter before turning his anger on the cowardly MYC who injured and killed the defenceless. No tune was given for the original version, although the strong rhythm and rhyme suggest it would have been sung. 'The Manchester Massacre, or Adieu to Slavery' The tune for this song is ‘Scots wha hae wi’ Wallace bled’, a popular tune for radical songs, including three in the Peterloo collection. In 1793, Robert Burns wrote his famous lyrics in which Robert the Bruce addresses his troops on the eve of the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314 to a traditional Scottish tune, 'Hey Tuttie Tatie’'. 'The Manchester Massacre' was published around 1820 in The Radical Reformers’ New Song Book, Being a Collection of Patriotic Songs, a chapbook published by John Marshall, a Newcastle radical and printer. 'It is Lovely to Die for Our Country' This poignant elegy equates the deaths of those at St Peter’s Field with soldiers on the battlefield and Christ on the cross. The title reminds the reader of Wilfred Owen’s 'Dulce et Decorum Est', written a century later amidst the horror of the First World War, with both poems evoking a bitterness at the waste of life. This elegy mourns the lack of honour and ceremony accorded to the victims but is confident that, spread by a 'holy flame', this death will inspire many. It was published in the White Hat in 1819, one of the most ephemeral of the radical journals which emerged in the aftermath of Peterloo.

On 16 August 1819, during the summer wakes holiday season, around 60,000 men, women, and children gathered together at St Peter’s Field in central Manchester. They marched from many outlying districts of Manchester, wearing their best clothes, carrying banners, and singing songs, including such patriotic staples as 'Rule Britannia' and 'God Save the King'. They came from Oldham and Bury, Stockport and Rochdale to hear the famous Henry 'Orator' Hunt speak on the need for electoral reform: universal male suffrage, annual elections, and a secret ballot. It was to become one of the most significant events in modern British history. Hunt took to the hustings at 2.00pm; twenty minutes later, eighteen were dead, including four women and a two-year-old child, and more than six hundred had been injured by the sabres and horses’ hooves of the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry Cavalry (MYC) and the Fifteenth Hussars. The Manchester Magistrates, fearful of unrest, had read the Riot Act out of an open window at the edge of the square and had subsequently given the order for the troops to arrest Hunt and the other organisers of the legal meeting. Hemmed in by buildings on all sides, there had been nowhere for the crowd to escape to and they became easy targets for a drunken yeomanry whose newly-sharpened sabres are a clear indication that they had been spoiling for a fight. As the historian E.P. Thompson so aptly notes, 'This was class war'. News of what was depicted as a massacre spread quickly throughout the country, due in part to the publication of a lengthy article in The Times on 19 August by John Tyas, the only journalist employed by a national paper present at St Peter’s Field and who was arrested alongside Hunt. In the article, he stressed the peaceful nature of the crowd, even when the MYC rode into their midst: 'Not a brick-bat was thrown at them — not a pistol was fired at them during this period — all was quiet and orderly'. Once arrests had been made, the MYC began to attack the banners and liberty caps carried by the marchers, 'cutting most indiscriminately to the right and the left in order to get at them'. Then the crowd began to fight back: 'From that moment the Manchester Yeomanry Cavalry lost all command of temper'. In an ironic 'nod' to the Battle of Waterloo, fought four years earlier in 1815, the journalist, James Wroe, named the event ‘Peter Loo’ on 21 August in the Manchester Observer. Despite government and royal support for the actions of the Manchester Magistrates, the reaction to the massacre was largely condemnatory and took the form not only of newspaper articles and letters, but also of cartoons, poetry and even ceramics, many of which appeared within days of the massacre. Established radical journals, such as Leigh Hunt’s Examiner and Thomas Wooler’s Black Dwarf, voiced their outrage in the pages of their journals and were briefly joined by new publications, including The White Hat and The Briton, all of which sprang out of the wave of protest surrounding Peterloo and which fell victim to repressive legislation at the end of the year. ‘The Peterloo Man’ As with many of the songs written about Peterloo, the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry Cavalry, who inflicted most of the deaths and injuries on an unarmed people, are depicted as cowardly, primarily due to their violence towards women and children whom they deliberately targeted. Published in the radical journal, Black Dwarf, on 6 October 1819, the tone of this poem is vitriolic and the comparison with the battle-field of Waterloo only serves to highlight the cowardly nature of the yeomen at Peterloo. The Meeting at Peterloo The Bodleian Library’s Broadside Ballads Collection contains two copies of this broadside ballad, neither of which states the printer. The use of colloquial language in the song lends authenticity to what seems to be an eye-witness account of events on the day and it begins by gathering an audience to listen to the song in a centuries-old ballad tradition. The fact that the chorus is not printed suggests the audience would have been familiar with it and it may have been a version of 'With Henry Hunt We’ll Go'. There were more than seventy poems and songs published in the immediate aftermath of the massacre. Almost half of these were published in radical journals with the rest comprising broadside ballads with a few from chapbooks. Despite many of them having 'song' in their title, only nineteen state a specific tune.

In the winter of 1819-1820, following Peterloo and the clear resolution of the Government to resist all reform, a strand of insurrectionist radicalism emerged that operated largely underground, although some of the leaders were those who had been in the break-away sections of the 2 December 1816 Spa Fields meeting that went to attack the Bank of England but were quickly dealt with. A range of plans were discussed, with the guards at the Bank being watched to judge the most favourable time for an assault; but the settled plan became to use a dinner of the Cabinet as the occasion for a bombing and an attack. As part of the preparations for the attack, it was agreed to prepare a statement for release when the group overthrew the government. Two versions of this remain. The first draft ran: 'Englishmen Justice is triumphant, and your Tyrants are destroyed, a glorious destiny awaits your patriotic endeavours a Provisional Government is appointed to succeed the Oligarchy which have for more than 100 years enslaved and borne you down. Obedience to the Decrees of the Prov. Government will insure to each Individual the full enjoyment of his property and Protection – and as a Guarantee for the Amelioration of the conditions of our Country it is decreed that every act passed by the Borough Mongering Usurpation shall from and after this date cease to be obeyed as such – but to afford an [239r] opportunity for the people to adopt a Government congenial to their feelings and the interest of their posterity it desired that measures will be adopted to form in one month from this date a convention of the presentative delegacy the right of voting in all males having attained the age of 21 years. Such of the Army who join the Ranks of their Country receive an addition or part advancement according to merit. Those who wish to return to their Families are called on to deposit their Arms for [240/] which they shall immediately be paid in the most liberal manner.' This draft then seems to have been further edited by Dr James Watson, who removed the last section respecting the military and made other changes. Thistlewood also solicited responses among the main participants, asking them to submit them in code on slips of paper, although he subsequently complained that he could not read what they had sent. A second draft read: 'Justice is at last triumphant, your Tyrants are destroyed A glorious destiny awaits your patriotic Energies - a Provisional Government is appointed to guard you from the Evils and Wrongs of a vile + wicked Oligarchy that has for more than Century enslaved + borne you down by the most partial [/244v] and oppressive manner. Obedience to the Decrees of the Prov. Government will ensure to each Individual protection of persons and property United Britains and Irishmen Civil and religious liberty is decreed. The acts of the Borough Mongering Usurpations shall from hence forward cease to have any effect. The People are called on to form that System of Government most congenial to their feelings and the best interest of Posterity.' The aim was to ensure that this was printed before the attack - but there are no printed versions in the papers of either the Home Office or the Treasury Solicitor. These declarations, if they were not in fact the product of the agent provocateur George Edwards, leave little doubt as to the group's intentions.

There were three Spa Fields Meetings in London in the winter of 1816-17: 15 November, 2 December 1816, and 10 February 1817. They represent a major change in the strategies of the reformers, as they faced increasing government intransigence. The path to reform, prior to this, was one in which Sir Francis Burdett and Major John Cartwright provided leadership to those hoping for reform through cooperation with Whigs in Parliament, and with a rather passive form of representation from the provinces. At the 15 November meeting, Henry Hunt seized the initiative and launched a new approach of mass meetings designed to exert moral pressure on parliament through the mass platform. They faced obstacles in the form of an elite and a press that was increasingly fearful of a mass uprising and could be easily persuaded of the treasonous intentions of those marshaling the crowds both in London and the North and West, and the existence of an insurrectionist wing among the reformers, led by Thistlewood, Watson, and others, which sought to rouse people to attack the institutions of power and finance in the City. Hunt successfully steered the 15 November meeting to agree to petition the Prince Regent to enlist his sympathies and support in seeking reform and the alleviation of distress. He called for a national campaign of mass meetings as soon as Parliament was recalled, but was outflanked by the Young Watson who set the next meeting for 2 December when they anticipated receiving an answer from the Prince Regent. At the 2 December meeting, while Hunt held the main crowd to the mass platform campaign, a break-away group, led by Thistlewood and his collaborators, split off from the meeting and headed off to attack a gun-shop to secure arms, and then the Tower, where they found troops firmly on the side of the government, despite their earlier efforts to lubricate their allegiance in local pubs. Hunt, meanwhile, effectively ridiculed the Prince Regent's one response, to donate £4,000 to the Spitalfield's Soup Kitchen, and effectively swung the people behind the mass platform as a means of securing reform. The third Spa Fields meeting was held on 10 February, while the parliamentary special committees were still sifting the evidence collected from the events of 2 December, at which Hunt called for universal suffrage, annual parliaments, and the secret ballot and consolidated his position as leader of the extra-parliamentary reform movement, setting him in opposition to both the moderates, led by Burdett, and the 'enragés' led by Thistlewood and Watson. One of the documents seized in December is shown here: it comes from the extreme wing and testifies to the radicals' contemplation of armed resistance to what they perceived as government oppression. It uses a question and answer strategy to discuss the key issues - the role of soldiers is given a good deal of attention. TS 11/ 203 873 746 Found at Old Watson’s Lodgings in Hyde Street by J Vickery 2 December 1816 Questions Answers Q. How long can a Nation endure oppression A. Till distress is universal, and parents and children see each other starving Q. When interested men have caused universal distress what is the probably consequence A. Vengeance Q. Can the arm of power prevent vengeance A. No!!! Men will not obey oppressors the laws of nature forbid it Q. Is it unjust to destroy oppression A. Oppression is unnatural and ought to be destroyed Q. What can justify oppression to Men in power A. Their insolence and injustice Q. When ought men to usurp power A. When rulers by obstinacy have ruined their country and the people are starving Q. How long ought soldiers to obey their commanders A. As long as the orders of Commanders are founded in justice Q. Can any conduct of commanders tolerate disobedience of orders A. When orders are given to support tyranny oppression and increase distress contrary to the will and interest of a nation Q. Ought soldiers to be the judges of their country’s wrongs A. When they (sic) command[s] are unjust and injustice ought never to be obeyed. Soldiers are men and have feelings in common with their Brethren Q. When Rulers are oppressors and have ruined a country is it right in soldiers to disobey commands A. Soldiers ought no (sic) to be mercenaries, they are a part of the people, they ought not to add to the miseries of their starving and industrious brethren – they are paid to cherish and protect them and not to destroy them Q. Are soldiers less benevolent and just than other men A. Soldiers have feeling in common with their countrymen – they take up arms to oppose enemies they have a right to be well paid for their dangers – brave spirits always commiserate [their] brethren Q. Ought soldiers ever to join their countrymen against oppressors A. When these rulers have enslaved themselves and their nation under foreign control The soldiers and people ought to have but one feeling.

This pamphlet by William Hone, after his success in securing acquittal for his parodies in 1817, targets the government and its behaviour over Peterloo, with a parody of the nursery rhyme This is the House that Jack Built. On the front cover is a caricature of the duke of Wellington, then Home Secretary, loading the scales with a range of weapons that the government had been using against those arguing and agitating for reform - ex-officio prosecutions, bills of indemnity (protecting those who suppress popular activity) - and Wellington's own sword. Nonetheless, the scales are outweighed by a single quill pen, symbolising the freedom of the press. Press liberty was a major theme for Hone, and was seen as essential to English liberty and to political activity outside parliament. In other respects, Hone was not especially an 'organiser'; he was a printer who conceived of protest and satire as the stock in trade of the free press against the tendency of government to autocracy and despotism. The rhyme starts with This is the House that Jack built, and then adds new lines and repeats the previous verses until the final image presides over the full litany (with a Cruikshank image for each 'This is...'): This is THE WEALTH that lay in the House that Jack Built These are THE VERMIN (a picture of lawyers, priests, servants and military) that plunder the Wealth, That lay in the House, That Jack built This is THE THING (picture of Hone's printing press) that in spite of new Acts, And Attempts to restrain it, by Soldiers and Tax, Will poison the Vermin, That plunder the Wealth, That lay in the House, That Jack built This is the PUBLIC INFORMER (the Attorney General) who Would put down the Thing, that, in spite of New Acts, And attempts to restrain it, by Soldiers and Tax, Will poison the Vermin, that plunder the Wealth, That lay in the House, that Jack built. These are THE REASONS OF LAWLESS POWER, (police, bailiffs and military) that back the public informer, who would put down the Thing, That in spite of new acts… etc This is THE MAN – (the Prince Regent) all shaven and shorn, All covered in Orders – and all forlorn, THE DANDY OF SIXTY, who bows with a grace, And has taste in collars, cuirasses, and lace Who to tricksters and fools, leaves the Stae, and its treasure, And when Britain’s in tears, sails about at his pleasure, Who spurned from his presence, the Friends of his youth, And now has not one, who will tell him the truth; who took to his counsels, in evil hour, The Friends to the Reasons of lawless Power, that back the Public Informer… These are THE PEOPLE all tatter’d and torn, Who curse the day, wherein they were born, On account of Taxation too great to be borne, And pray for relief, from night to morn: Who in vain, petition in every form, Who, peaceably meeting, to ask for Reform, Were sabred by Yeomanry Cavalry, who were thanked by the Man, all shaven and shorn This is THE DOCTOR (Sidmouth) of Circular fame, A Driv’ller, a Bigot, a Knave without shame: And that’s DERRY DOWN TRIANGLE (Castlereagh) by name, From the land of mis-rule, and half-hanging, and flame: And that is THE SPOUTER OF FROTH BY THE HOUR, (Canning) the worthless colleague of their infamous power: Who dubbed him ‘the Doctor’ whom now he calls ‘brother,’ And to get his Place, took a shot at the other, Who haunts their Bad House, a base living to earn, By playing Jack-pudding and Ruffian in turn, Who bullies, for those whom he bullied before: their Flash-man, their Bravo, a son of a ______________; The hate of the people, all tattered and torn….. This WORD (Reform) is the Watchword – the talisman word, That the WATERLOO-MAN’s (Wellington) to crush with his sword; But if shielded by NORFOLK and BEDFORD alliance, it will set both his sword, and him at defiance; If FITZWILLIAM and GROSVENOR, and ALBEMARLE aid it, And assist its best Champions, who then dare invade it? ‘Tis the terrible WORD OF FEAR, night and morn, To the Guilty Trio, all cover’d with scorn, First to the Doctor of Circular fame, A Driv’ller, a Bigot, a Knave without shame: And that’s DERRY DOWN TRIANGLE by name, From the land of mis-rule, and half-hanging, and flame: And that is THE SPOUTER OF FROTH BY THE HOUR, the worthless colleague of their infamous power: Who dubbed him ‘the Doctor’ whom now he calls ‘brother,’ And to get his Place, took a shot at the other, Who haunts their Bad House, a base living to earn, By playing Jack-pudding and Ruffian in turn, Who bullies, for those whom he bullied before: their Flash-man, their Bravo, a son of a ______________; The hate of the people, all tattered and torn…..Who curse the day, wherein they were born, On account of Taxation too great to be borne, And pray for relief, from night to morn: Who in vain, petition in every form, Who, peaceably meeting, to ask for Reform, Were sabred by Yeomanry Cavalry, who were thanked by the Man, all shaven and shorn, All covered in Orders – and all forlorn, THE DANDY OF SIXTY, who bows with a grace, And has taste in collars, cuirasses, and lace Who to tricksters and fools, leaves the State, and its treasure, And , when Britain’s in tears, sails about at his pleasure, Who spurned from his presence, the Friends of his youth, And now has not one, who will tell him the truth; who took to his counsels, in evil hour, The Friends to THE REASONS OF LAWLESS POWER, that back the public informer, who would put down the Thing, That in spite of new Acts and attempts to restrain it, by Soldiers and Tax, Will poison the Vermin, that plunder the Wealth, That lay in the House, that Jack built. These are THE VERMIN that plunder the Wealth, That lay in the House, That Jack built!

Joseph Görres’ 'Koblenzer Adresse' was a privately organised address, unlike those initiated by city councils at the time. Görres started collecting signatures on 18 October 1817 to present them to the Staatskanzler in time for King Wilhelm’s visit to the Rhinelands in the winter of 1817/18. The petition states that it joins the city petitions of Trier and Cologne to appeal to the King and hold him to account for his promise given upon signing the Treaties at the congress of Vienna in 1815. The demands are the restoration of estates and of the ancient German constitution. It directly calls for the realisation of Article 13 of the Bundesakte (German Federal Act), which granted the creation of a German constitution at Vienna. Another interesting aspect is how the participants are protrayed in this petition: 'sich aber nicht bloss als Buerger der Preußischen Monarchie sondern auch als Deutsch betrachten' ('consider themselves not just citizens of the Prussian Monarchy but as Germans'). This quite clearly shows the disparity between growing German nationalism fostered through overflowing patriotism in the Rhinelands and the Prussian government. A subsequent letter (LHK 402 171 p.21) is from March 1818 expressing the Prussian King Frederick William III's disapproval of the Rhineprovince's president von Ingersleben’s inactivity surrounding the petition. It was, namely, far from a normal plea to the King, to which every subject had a right, but rather a down-right prompt for action which was seen as unseemly behaviour. Görres' and his address initiative were subject to wide criticism, which some scholars suggests established a first spark of public sphere and debate in the Rhineland. Görres published a written account about the presentation of his address to

After the defeat of Napoleon, the Dutch state transformed into a monarchy under King William I. To celebrate this event, a contest for a national anthem was organised by the Dutch admiral Jan Hendrik van Kinsbergen. Two songs were awarded the first prize on 2 April 1817, but only one of them became known as the Dutch anthem: Wien Neêrlandsch bloed in de ad’ren vloeit (whose Dutch blood is running though the veins), written by the well-known patriot poet Hendrik Tollens. The song contains eight couplets of eight verses each, which celebrate the new Dutch king and the love of the Dutch people for their fatherland. The tone is very religious: God, the fatherland, and the House of Orange are presented as an unbreakable unit. The song represents the support and loyalty of the Dutch people to their new sovereign and their relief that the French occupation has finally come to an end. Over the course of time, the second verse has caused much commotion: ‘van vreemde smetten vrij’ (free from foreign defilement) originally refers to the liberation from the French, but in later times the verse was considered racist. In 1891, the song was drastically shortened and modernised (four stanzas were deleted, including the infamous second verse), but its popularity faded. In 1932, the government decided to change the national anthem to Wilhelmus van Nassouwe. This sixteenth-century song about William of Orange and the Dutch revolt against Spain is still the Dutch anthem.

In the age of revolutions, the eighteenth century pioneered a movement of female intellectuals. The movement was respected for its learned women and female authorship, and was led by figures Elizabeth Montagu and Elizabeth Verna. The Bluestockings salon as a literary institution, was an environment that enabled enlightened conversation amongst women. In the words of Hannah More in ‘Bas Blue- or conversation’ the exchange of tastes and education was meaningless without conversation.'  The literary salon became a quasi social project and a mean of entering the public sphere. However, by the start of the nineteenth century literary women faced increasing mockery and criticism. Depicting them as parading under the guise of learning, they were seen as encroaching on male spaces, and their hosting of salons and readings clubs became a major cause for concern and as far too revolutionary by the 1800s. Thomas Rowlandson’s 1815 caricature ‘The breaking up of the bluestockings club’ encapsulates the fear of female spaces, with the lack of male guardianship resulting in a descent into chaos. Its publication coincided with the announcement of the publication of Hannah More’s Essay on the Character and Practical Writings of St Paul (1815), and this may have instigated Rowlandson onto create the piece as a reactionary critique of female intellectuals. The male figure in the print epitomises the trope of a moralistic guide to the immoral women who reject their female duties. The representation signifies the fear that  gender boundaries will be transgressed and women will invade the physical, intellectual, but above all moral and political space of male intellectuals.

The occasion for the print was the emergence of a number of Female Reform Societies in several towns in the North and Midlands in the summer of 1819. These societies were certainly novel and nothing similar had been seen before. At the same time, as Paul Custer points out, their rhetoric –  replete with references to home, hearth, loom, cottage and children –  was not so distinctive. There were groups and meetings of ‘Female Reformers’ organised in Blackburn, Stockport, Manchester, and Leigh. In the latter case, the reformers held a meeting five days before Peterloo at which those on the platform took turns to don a cap of liberty. The reaction of elite observers was uniformly hostile, but the presence of women in Northern communities and their involvement in the industries hit hard by the end of the war meant that they were regarded as a natural component of the protest scene. For example, they appeared alongside Henry Hunt on the platform in Manchester in January 1819, and caps of liberty (included in the image here, though satirised by the inuendo associated with the pole on which it is displayed) became a common feature of meetings. J Lewis Mark’s 1819 satire ‘Much wanted a Reform among females!!!’, depicts female reformists as hyper-feminised and hyper-sexualised. It is demonstrative of the popular attitudes towards female emancipation and the undermining of their visibility in popular politics. Depicting both an elderly husband’s abusive attitude towards his wife, and a younger man’s sexual advances towards one of the women in the audience, it intends to undercut the aims of the reformers to use their ideas of reforms to aid both themselves and their husbands. By 1817 Parliament had passed the Habaeus Corpus Act to counter the rising tide of the radical working class movements. Those imprisoned were predominantly from industrialised towns in the Midlands and the North. The emergence of women as leaders in the radical working class movements between 1817 and 1818, as male leaders were imprisoned, is illustrative of their entry into the public sphere and popular politics.Demonstrating the intersections between class and gender that became apparent in the radical class working class movement, the 'political domesticity' amongst working class women’s activism, is apparent as they used their positions as wives and mothers to support the patriarchs of their family. In manoeuvring between the domestic sphere of their home and the public sphere in their political activism, they could appeal to the wider political field with far less scrutiny. NOnetheless, Marks attempts to subvert their claims throug none too subtle innuendo:   ‘Though we should be start [sic] naked, we could make the whole Army Stand!—It is our duty as Wives to assist our Husbands in every Push and Turn, by that means we shall Increase, and Multiply, in our under takings’. And, as in the elderly man abusing his wife in "Come home and get Dinner ready you Old Baggage I'll Reform you.", there is a consistent reduction of women to sexual objects and undermining of their political activism. The context of the print was based in a period of summer 1819, where there was an emergence of a number of Female Reform Societies in several towns in the North and Midlands.

By 1819, there was a growing dissatisfaction amongst female radicals towards the apathy of male reformers and their political advocacy. Building upon the political domesticity of 1817 and 1818, by 1819 there was a rise in female radical led movements. There was a greater demand for women’s inclusion in working class radical movements, and thus an increased visibility in the public sphere and popular politics. The growing collectivism of women's activism in 1819 is marked. In George Cruikshank’s 1819 ‘The Belle-alliance, or the female reformers of Blackburn!!!’ print, one of the females on the platforms claims "we swear to instil into the minds of our children, a deep rooted abhorrence of all civil or religious government like the present!!" represented a fear of female tyranny. In June 1819, The Blackburn Female Reforms announced a public statement that drew upon the legacy of the radical female reformers of 1817. In their claims of ‘the feelings of a mother, when she beholds her naked children and hears their inoffensive cries of hunger and approaching death’, they embodied the ideas of political domesticity. In rooting their political activism in their positions as mothers, they were attempting to navigate between emphasising their archetypal duties, but also protests against existing hierarchal structures. They were critiqued for their vocalised speech, which is quite literally apparent in the 'mass platform' they employed. Though they attempted to assert their submissiveness in the roles as wives and mothers, the politicisation of their campaigns ultimately continued to be attacked. In the 12th July 1819 edition of the Leeds intelligencer, The Blackburn Female Reformers were attacked following a mass reform meeting at Blackburn. The female reformers asked the chairman, Mr J.Knight to read their address. It contained a passage declaring 'the avowed determination, of instilling into the minds of their offspring a deep-rooted abhorrence of Tyranny, come in what shape it may; whether under the mask of civil or religious government ...' in a demand for universal suffrage. Cruikshank’s satire depicts them in a burlesque line-up towards the chairman, as they mount the stage, to present the cap of liberty, and an address to the meeting, “pledged themselves to instil into the of their children, a hatred of (what they are pleased to call) civil and religious tyranny!”. The fear of how women would be educating their children to challenge existing patriarchal structures garnered significant anxiety, as the future of the role of women in society came under speculation. What is more striking, however, is that the cartoon is reacting to an emerging phenomenon of women's political organisations. While there were women associated with the movement for the Reformation of Manners and in the Anti-Slavery campaigns, participation in these was largely restricted to well-off members of society. What was new to the late 1810s, was the emergence of more popular and working class movements among women.,

This image of Peterloo turns the event into a medal commemorating the brutality of the yeomanry's response to the crowd. Hone's comment on the left-hand side - 'Am I not a Brother and a Man' - uses a phrase consecrated by Wedgewood's medallion for the antislavery movement in the 1790s.

Josef Görres (1776, Koblenz - 1848, Munich) was a writer, teacher, philosopher, and theologian. He directly witnessed several political currents during his lifetime, always enthusiastically embracing them only to later discard and criticise them in his magniloquent, complex, polemical writings. Caught between the extremes of French revolutionary ideals, German unification, Prussian militarism, and Hapsburg restoration, he aimed to strike a balance between upholding rights, truth, and freedom (Fink-Lang, 2013: 7-9). A cunning polemicist, Görres polarised public opinion through several publications of various political orientations, always calling out arbitrary despotism, whether during the French occupation, the Congress of Vienna, or the Prussian rule of the Rhineland. His writings in the Rheinischer Merkur (1814-1816) and his pamphlet Teutschland und die Revolution (1819) made him one of the earliest and ardent champions of German unification and nationalism. Additionally, Athansasius (1838) is considered the foundation for political Catholicism during the Vormärz. A key figure to establish acceptance of the Prussians among the Rhinelanders, he rose to Director of Public Schooling in the Rhineland. However, when his hopes were disappointed by restorative measures of the Prussian King who failed to deliver a constitution as promised in article 13 of the Bundesakte (German Federal Act), he became openly subversive in his writing and his opinion. His controversial anti-Prussian tract Teutschland und die Revolution (1819) triggered his prosecution by the Prussians, forcing him to flee to France and later settle in Munich - never to return. The statue is situated on the left bank of the Rhine in Görres home-town Koblenz. Plans for such a commemorative statue existed since the 1840s, but only came to fruition during French military government in the 1920s, mostly due to Prussian political repression of such plans.