Ebook: The Peterloo Massacre

'The universal significance of this historic event becomes ever more relevant in our own turbulent times.' Mike Leigh

'One of our nation's defining moments.' Stuart Maconie

The Peterloo Massacre is a revealing and compelling account of that event, one of the darkest days in Britain's social history.

On 16 August 1819, a strong force of yeomanry and regular cavalry charged into a crowd of more than 100,000 workers who had gathered on St Peter’s Field in Manchester for a meeting about Parliamentary reform. This violent, startling event became known as Peterloo, one of the darkest days in Britain’s social history.

The Peterloo Massacre provides a revealing narrative account of the events leading up to Peterloo, starkly describes the actions of that fateful day, and examines its aftermath. It offers a new perspective on the political and military activities of the time, and shows how the very nature of society was powerfully influenced by irreversible technological change: a pattern that, two-hundred years later, still has relevance in understanding the forces shaping our world today.

Robert Reid was born in 1933 in Yorkshire. He was awarded a state scholarship to Oxford University, where he read Chemistry. After taking part in post-graduate research in South Africa and Canada, he completed a PhD in Physical Chemistry at Cambridge University, and then joined the science department of BBC Television. He directed The Sky at Night, presented by Patrick Moore and, in the early 1960s, made the documentary The Building of the Bomb in which he interviewed Robert Oppenheimer. From 1967–1970 he was the editor of Horizon, and in 1970 was made Head of Science and Features at BBC Television. During this time he was responsible for the 13-part series The Ascent of Man presented by Jacob Bronowski. He later wrote the script for another memorable programme, The Voyage of Charles Darwin.

After leaving the BBC, Reid joined Sir Antony Jay, John Cleese and Michael Peacock at Video Arts, a production company specialising in training films for business and industry, where he was responsible for the science output of the company. Robert Reid was the author of several books on science-related subjects, including Tongues of Conscience: War and the Scientist’s Dilemma, written in 1969. His biography of Marie Curie, published in 1974, was adapted for television and has been translated into many languages. The Peterloo Massacre, originally published in 1989 to mark the 170th anniversary of Peterloo, was his last book. He died in 1990.