In March 1817 three working-class
Radicals in Manchester, John Johnson,
John Bagguley and Samuel Drummond decided to organise a protest march
as a method of drawing attention to the problems of unemployed spinners
and weavers in Lancashire. The plan was for the men to take a petition
to the Prince Regent. On the way to London
the men hoped to hold meetings and to gain the support of other textile
workers. It was believed that by the time they reached London there
would be over 100,000 marchers willing to tell the royal family about
the distress being caused by the growth of the factory system.
The leaders of the moderate reformers in Manchester,
Archibald Prentice, John
Shuttleworth and John Edward Taylor,
were opposed to the proposed march. John Knight,
Joseph Johnson, John Saxton and other
Radical leaders in Manchester had doubts
about the wisdom of this planned demonstration and decided not to
encourage their supporters to take part in the march.
On the long march to London the organisers
decided that each man should carry a blanket. As well as keeping them
warm at night, the blanket would indicate to the people who saw them
on the march that they were weavers. As a result of the men carrying
these blankets the demonstration became known as the March of the
Blanketeers. Spies employed by the Manchester
Magistrates sent in reports suggesting that the blanketeers might
resort to violence on the march. The Magistrates therefore decided
to make sure that the march to London did not take place.
Johnson, Bagguley and Drummond planned to start the march off with
a large meeting at St. Peter's Field in Manchester
on 10th March, 1817. It is estimated that about 10,000 people attended,
making it the largest meeting ever organised in Manchester. While
the leaders of the meeting were speaking to the crowd, the King's
Dragoon Guards were sent in by the Magistrates
to arrest the leaders and to disperse the meeting. Twenty-nine men,
including John Bagguley and Samuel Drummond, were taken into custody.
A large
number of the men were determined to march to London.
The blanketeers were followed by the cavalry. One group was attacked
a mile from the city centre. Others were apprehended at Macclesfield
and Ashbourne. The worst violence took place at Stockport where several
received sabre wounds and one man was shot dead. After the events
of 10th March, 1817, the Magistrates
decided that they needed their own military force that they could
use during social unrest. The Magistrates therefore decided to form
the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry Cavalry.
(1)
In his book Passages in the Life of a Radical, Samuel
Bamford explained how he was opposed to the Blanketeers March.
On the night of Sunday, the 9th of March, I was requested to attend
a meeting in the house of one of my neighbours, where a number of
friends wished to hear my opinion with reference to the Blanket Meeting.
I went to them and spoke freely in condemnation of the measure. I
endeavoured to show them that the authorities in Manchester were not
likely to permit their leaving the town in a body, with blankets and
petitions, as they proposed; that they could not subsist on the road;
that the cold and wet would kill numbers of them, who were already
enfeebled by hunger and other deprivations. That they need not expect
to be welcome wherever they went, especially in the rotten boroughs.
That many persons might join their ranks who were not reformers but
enemies of reform, hired perhaps to bring them and their cause into
disgrace; that if these persons began to plunder on the road, the
punishment and disgrace would be visited on the whole body; that the
would be denounced as robbers and rebels, and the military would be
brought to cut them down or take them prisoners. Whether it was in
consequence of what I said I cannot tell; but I was afterwards gratified
on hearing that no person from Middleton went as a Blanketeer.
The meeting took place; but I not being there, my brief description
must be taken as the account of others. The assemblage consisted almost
entirely of operatives, four or five thousand in number. Many of the
individuals were observed to have blankets, rugs, or large coats,
rolled up and tied, knapsack like, on their backs; some carried bundles
under their arms; some had papers, supposed to be petitions rolled
up; and some had stout walking sticks. The magistrates came upon the
field and read the Riot Act; the meeting was afterwards dispersed
by the military and special constables, and twenty-nine persons were
apprehended, amongst whom were two young men, named Bagguley and Drummond,
who had recently come into notice as speakers, and who being in favour
of extreme measures, were much listened to and applauded.
