
Sign up to save your podcasts
Or


On 16 August 1819, troops charged the crowds in St Peter's Field - 18 people lost their lives and around 700 were injured. Within days, the press were referring to it as "The Peterloo Massacre" after the battle of Waterloo just four years earlier. The events shocked the nation and eventually led to widespread change. Katharine Viner meets descendants of those there that day, she looks at the background and build up, hears graphic accounts of the slaughter, death and injury and examines how the events would revolutionise what was meant by democracy.
By BBC World Service4.3
16071,607 ratings
On 16 August 1819, troops charged the crowds in St Peter's Field - 18 people lost their lives and around 700 were injured. Within days, the press were referring to it as "The Peterloo Massacre" after the battle of Waterloo just four years earlier. The events shocked the nation and eventually led to widespread change. Katharine Viner meets descendants of those there that day, she looks at the background and build up, hears graphic accounts of the slaughter, death and injury and examines how the events would revolutionise what was meant by democracy.

7,639 Listeners

375 Listeners

1,046 Listeners

5,520 Listeners

964 Listeners

584 Listeners

1,763 Listeners

1,049 Listeners

358 Listeners

583 Listeners

965 Listeners

407 Listeners

410 Listeners

731 Listeners

849 Listeners

366 Listeners

986 Listeners

3,177 Listeners

1,003 Listeners

720 Listeners

1,002 Listeners

386 Listeners