606 Ch. 15 • Liberal Challenges To Restoration Europe

The Peterloo Massacre in Manchester, 1819.

without charging them with anything. The Combination Acts (1799-1800)

made strikes illegal while reinforcing existing laws against trade unions.

Ordinary people now demanded political reform. On August 16, 1819, a

crowd of some 60,000 men and women gathered near Manchester to demon­

strate for the right to form political organizations and to assemble freely.

Deputized local constables moved in to arrest the main speaker. Then sol­

diers gunned down protestors, many dressed in their Sunday best, killing

eleven and wounding hundreds of others. The ugly incident entered history

as “Peterloo,” a shameful victory not over Napoleon at Waterloo but over

Britain’s defenseless laboring poor. Parliament passed Six Acts that, reviving

the repressive legislation of the era of the French Revolution, included

suspending habeas corpus and imposing further restrictions on the press.

That year the government broke up the “Cato Street Conspiracy,” a plot by

radicals to assassinate members of the Cabinet as they attended a dinner in

London.

The late 1820s were also bleak years for the English poor. Crimes

increased in Britain, particularly against property, reflecting hard times. Arti­

sans and skilled workers demanded higher wages and organized more unions

within crafts—for example, those representing skilled engineering workers.

Parliament abolished the Combination Acts in 1824, making strikes legal.

Workers formed more “friendly societies,” which, in exchange for modest

fees, offered minimal assistance when a member became ill, or paid for bur­

ial upon death to avoid the indignity of a pauper’s grave. The friendly soci­

eties and other clubs of workingmen generated interest in reform, against a