The march to Peterloo: politics and festivity in late Georgian England

In March 1820 Henry Hunt, Samuel Bamford and others were on trial at York assizes for conspiracy and sedition in connection with the Manchester reform meeting of Monday 16 August 1819 — the meeting which had ended in the ‘Peterloo massacre’. Bamford defended himself, and his line of defence at times puzzled the judge. Bamford’s star witness was James Dyson, a neighbour from Middleton. Dyson’s description of the march as a kind of festive village outing seemed impossible to reconcile with the picture of a threatening military-style descent on Manchester which the prosecution had presented.