The Secret of the Nagas

The Secret of the Nagas is the second book of Amish Tripathi, second book of Amishverse, and also the second book of Shiva Trilogy. The story takes place in the imaginary land of Meluha and narrates how the inhabitants of that land are saved from their wars by a nomad named Shiva. It begins from where its predecessor, The Immortals of Meluha, left off, with Shiva trying to save Sati from the invading Naga. Later Shiva takes his troop of soldiers and travels far east to the land of Branga, where he wishes to find a clue to reach the Naga people. Shiva also learns that Sati's first child is still alive, as well as her twin sister. His journey ultimately leads him to the Naga capital of Panchavati, where he finds a surprise waiting for him.

Tripathi started writing The Secret of the Nagas while the first part of the trilogy was being released. He relied on his knowledge of geography and history to expand the locations visited in the story. The book was released on 12 August 2011, and was published by Westland Press. Before its release, the author confessed that many revelations would be present in the book, including the true nature of many characters. Two theatrical trailers were created for showing in multiplex cinema halls, as Tripathi believed that the film-going audience also reads his books, and that would create publicity.

The Secret of the Nagas was in high demand before its release, with 80,000 copies pre-ordered. The book quickly reached the top of best-seller listings, selling 95,000 copies the first month, before going for a re-print. As of June 2015, over 2.5 million copies of the Shiva Trilogy have been sold at gross retail sales of over ₹60 crore (US\$7.5 million). Although the book was commercially successful, The Secret of the Nagas received mixed reviews from critics. While it received praise for its "impressive conception" and story development, it also received criticism for Tripathi's usage of non-literary language.

## Plot synopsis

Continuing from The Immortals of Meluha, Shiva, the fabled savior of the land of Meluha, rushes to save his wife Sati from a Naga who escapes, leaving behind coins with strange engravings. After consulting with Sati's father Daksha and Dilipa, the king of Ayodhya, they come to know that the coin belongs to King Chandraketu, the ruler of the land of Branga in Eastern India. Shiva and Sati travel to Kashi, where a community of Brangas inhabit, in order to get more information on the Nagas. They are accompanied by Shiva's general Parvateshwar, associates Nandi and Veerbhadra, Ayurvati the doctor, and Bhagirath and Anandamayi, the prince and princess of Ayodhya. At Kashi, Parvateshwar is mortally injured in a riot at the Branga community. Their leader Divodas gives Parvateshwar a healing herb which works. Shiva learns from Ayurvati that the herb is only available at Panchavati, the capital of the Nagas. Divodas explains that they get the herbs from the Nagas due to a plague infesting Branga. Shiva decides to travel to Branga and Divodas orders special ships to be made for the journey.

Meanwhile, Sati gives birth to Kartik, her son with Shiva. As he leaves for Branga, Sati stays back at Kashi to prevent a lion attack on the local villagers. They are helped by a group of Naga soldiers, led by a man and a woman, who assist them in killing the lions. The Naga woman reveals herself to be Kali, Sati's twin sister and the man as Ganesh, Sati's child from her first marriage believed to have died at birth. Both were denounced by Daksha since born with deformities. Kali had two extra functioning hands while Ganesh's face resembled that of an elephant's. An overwhelmed Sati brings back Kali and Ganesh to Kashi.

At Branga, Shiva meets the recluse bandit Parashuram, who can enlighten him about the Nagas and the medicine. After defeating Parashuram, Shiva learns that he is a Vasudev, the group of scholars who have been guiding him on his journey. Parashuram is also surprised to see Shiva as the fabled Neelkanth; in remorse for his actions, he severs his left hand. He gives the recipe of the medicine to the people of Branga and joins Shiva's entourage. At Kashi Shiva is introduced to Ganesh and Kali by Sati. Shiva recognizes Ganesh as the Naga who attacked Sati and as the supposed killer of his friend, the scientist Brahaspati. Enraged, he leaves Sati and takes up residence at the Branga locality. One day, while playing with Kartik at a local park, Ganesh saves them from a lion attack. Shiva forgives him and together with Sati, confronts Daksha, who confesses to murdering Sati's first husband and denouncing Kali and Ganesh. Daksha blames Shiva for causing distrust between him and Sati; he is asked to leave for Meluha.

Shiva travels to Panchavati under the guidance of Kali, who is the Naga queen and knows how to reach the capital through the treacherous Dandak Forest. On their journey, the entourage is attacked from the river side by a cache of ships containing the weapons of mass destruction known as Daivi Astra that was once forbidden by Lord Rudra, the legendary supreme ruler of India. After fleeing from the attack and safely reaching Panchavati, Shiva and Sati suspect Daksha to be behind this. Kali takes Shiva to a nearby school in the capital, where he finds Brahaspati, perfectly alive and teaching a class.

## Characters and locations

Tripathi believes that "Myths are nothing but jumbled memories of a true past. A past buried under mounds of earth and ignorance." The book has known characters from Hindu texts as well as those born from Tripathi's imagination, however the characters from the Hinduism do not inherit all of their classical traits.

### Characters

- Shiva – The main character in the story. He is a Tibetan immigrant to Meluha and the chief of the Guna tribe. On arriving in Meluha and consuming the Somras (a potion), his throat turns blue making him the Neelkanth of the Meluhan legend, which speaks of the appearance of Neelkanth as a destroyer of evil. The Meluhans end up believing that Shiva would be their saviour.
- Sati – A Meluhan princess, she is the daughter of King Daksha. Shiva falls in love with her but could not marry her initially because of a law that considers her to be a Vikarma, an untouchable; he later marries her going against the law. According to the Meluhans, Vikarmas are people who bear misfortunes in this life due to sins of their past births. Sati is a skilled swords-woman and is very brave since childhood.
- Kartik – Shiva's and Sati's son
- Nandi – A captain in the Meluhan army. A loyal devotee of Shiva, who is often considered for his opinion and suggestions by Shiva.
- Veer Bhadra – A captain of Shiva's army and his close childhood friend. He was later renamed as Veer Bhadra, a title earned by once defeating a tiger singlehandedly.
- Bŗihaspati – The chief Meluhan scientist who becomes Shiva's good friend. Though he does not believe the legend of the Neelkanth, he believes that Shiva is capable of taking Meluha to its new glory.
- Daksha – The King of the Meluhans, he is appreciative of every effort that Shiva does to save his country.
- Veerini – The Queen of the Meluhans, wife of Emperor Daksha.
- Bhagirath – The prince of Ayodhya, who is the target of an assassination plot.
- Anandamayi – The Princess of Ayodhya and the daughter of Emperor Dilipa. Passionate, mercurial and intelligent, Anandmayi makes for the perfect Chandravanshi.
- Parvateshvar – Head of Meluhan Army and a Suryavanshi, Parvateshvar is critical of Shiva's ways with the Meluhans, and is a dedicated man to Daksha. He eventually becomes an avid follower of Shiva as he realizes that Shiva could actually lead them to victory and finish Lord Ram's Unfinished Task.
- Ayurvati – The Chief of Medicine, Ayurvati is another intelligent and revered woman, who is capable of curing any disease. She is the first one to realize that Shiva is the "Neelkanth", their savior.
- Kali – Sati's twin sister who was separated from her after birth, due to their father denouncing her. Kali was born with two extra functioning appendages, hence she was ostracized from society and declared a Naga.
- Ganesh – Sati's first child who was declared dead by her father, as he was born with physical deformities. Ganesh was raised later by Kali, and they created the formidable Naga army.

### Races

- Suryavanshis – The Suryavanshis are followers of Shri Ram and the Solar Calendar and try to lead a life that is as ideal as possible. The Suryavanshis believe in Satya, Dharma, Maan—truth, duty and honor.
- Chandravanshis – The Chandravanshis are followers of the Lunar Calendar. Traditionally the Chandravanshis and Suryavanshis are enemies.
- Naga – A cursed race of people who have physical deformities. They are extremely skilled warriors.

### Kingdoms

- Meluha – The empire of the Suryavanshis, also known as the land of pure life. Meluha is based in the areas of the modern Indian provinces of Kashmir, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat and the whole of Pakistan. It also includes parts of eastern Afghanistan.
- Swadweep – The empire of the Chandravanshis, also known as the island of the individual. Swadweep comprises the modern Indian provinces of Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Sikkim, Assam, Meghalaya and all of the country of Bangladesh, besides most parts of Nepal and Bhutan.
- Brangaridai (Branga+hriday) – The heart of branga (literal meaning) or land of the Brangas, situated on the eastern part of India. Shiva travels there with his entourage in search of the recipe for a medicine and to know the truth about the Nagas.
- Dandak Forest – Located in the modern Indian province of Maharashtra and parts of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Orissa and Madhya Pradesh, Dandak is a dense and treacherous forest where the Nagas stay, at their capital Panchavati.

Characters and locations adapted as per the books from the series and from the official website.

## Development and release

Tripathi had initially decided to write a book on philosophy, but was dissuaded by his family members, so he wrote a book on Shiva, one of the Hindu gods. Tripathi's agent decided to publish the book himself. After its release in February 2010, The Immortals of Meluha went on to become a huge commercial success. It had to be reprinted a number of times to keep up with the demand.

While the first book was being released, Tripathi started work on the second part of the trilogy, then titled The Naga Secret. Tripathi wanted to start the story from exactly where he ended in the first book, with Sati's fate being revealed. He also wanted to expand the geography of the story, allowing the characters to travel far East of India and also far South to the land of the Nagas, an ancient empire that existed more than five thousand years ago and was filled with eternal wars and the legend of a blue-throated god who would save the world. In an interview with Mumbai Mirror in July 2011, he clarified that it was difficult for him to do research about the geographical situations of India in 4000 BC in just one year, so he relied on his own knowledge and that of his relatives. "I was an atheist till eight years ago, but I have always been surrounded by relatives with immense faith, so scriptures are something I have inadvertently grown up with and learned", he added. The mythological and the technical aspects included in the story also came from Tripathi's habit of reading storybooks on history and ancient technology; he was helped by his father, who is a scientist. Tripathi quit his job as a banker while writing the book, dedicating his whole time to the book.

Tripathi revealed in an interview with IBN Live that the story would continue from where it ended in the first book. The Secret of the Nagas was edited by Sharvani Pandit, who also edited the first book. Rashmi Pusalkar designed the book cover, which depicted Shiva holding a snake and looking towards the banks of the city of Kashi. The photo was shot by Chandan Kowli, with Sagar Pusalkar standing in as a model for Shiva. The snake was created in CGI with the make-up being done by Prakash Gor. Two trailers were created for promoting the book, one depicting Sati dancing and one showing Shiva drinking the Somras, thus turning his throat blue. The videos were conceptualized and marketed by Sangram Surve and Shalini Iyer of Think Why Not team, who also undertook the advertising of the book. The trailers are planned to be shown alongside films in multiplexes by the end of September or October 2011. Tripathi believed that this would "work as the audience that visits theaters is the same that reads my books." The book was released on 12 August 2011, at Landmark Bookstores in Mumbai. Actor Vivek Oberoi was present with Tripathi at the launch. The UK publication rights of the Shiva trilogy, including The Secret of the Nagas was purchased by Jo Fletcher Books, with the deal being made by Claire Roberts at Trident Media Group, acting on behalf of the author and the author's Indian agent, Anuj Bahri of Red Ink Literary Agency.

In 2013, a music album called Vayuputras, an original soundtrack based on the Shiva Trilogy books, was released. The album is an extension of The Immortals of Meluha and The Secret of the Nagas with special tracks inspired by important junctures like Shiva's dance and the war speech in the books. Artists like Sonu Nigam, Taufiq Qureshi, Palash Sen, Bickram Ghosh worked on the album. This was the first time ever that an original soundtrack was made for a book series.

## Critical reception

Aadisht Khanna from Mint praised Tripathi's portrayal of Shiva in the book, complimenting the fact that he was able to successfully deliver the humane side of his characters, and their emotions and motivations. He also pointed out that Tripathi's experimentation with Indian Scriptures, has been successful in transforming an otherwise mundane genre, "long overdue in popular literature, especially by an Indian author". However, he was disappointed in the weak dialogue and the grammatical errors scattered throughout the book, especially the inclusion of "glaringly out-of-place world" words, thus having too many anachronism in the book. Rito Paul from Daily News and Analysis shared Khanna's opinion, while saying that the book "is impressive in its conception. But it is executed poorly. "We're thrust into the narrative, mid-action, exactly from where the first book ended. And the breathless pace of the action hardly ever lets up... There are more twists and turns than in a Gordian knot, and at least two revelations of the 'Luke-I-am-your-father' variety... And it really rankles, because there is so much scope for flair, adventure and wonder in the world Tripathi has imagined... The Secrets is not a bad book. The plot holds your attention and the story races along, but the writing veers between the pedestrian and the ridiculous. Tripathi is an excellent story-teller. But he is a poor writer."

Dipayan Pal of Mumbai Boss was disappointed in the book and theorized a number of reasons for it. He felt that the solid plot and the unambiguous storytelling of The Immortals of Meluha was missing in The Secret of the Nagas, whose ending failed to live up the curiosity. Pal particularly criticized Tripathi's language, saying "It seems that while writing The Secret of the Nagas, much of Amish’s attention was upon language. There are obvious and woefully inept attempts at literary flair that make the novel a tiresome read. The book suffers from a rash of exclamation marks and unnecessary italics. Sentences have been sliced to create weak, dangling fragments ('Parashuram charged. Followed by his vicious horde'). Instead of simply talking, people bellow, scream, whisper and fall silent. They are flabbergasted, they pirouette in the middle of a fight, and use words like 'exponentially', 'gargantuan' and 'plethora' in their speech. The net result is text that is labored, trite and awkward." Kishwar Desai from Asian Age felt that in The Secret of the Nagas, the characterization of Shiva lost some of the fervor in it from the first book, and is cast more as a Bollywood hero, comparable to the likes of actor Salman Khan. Desai also noticed that there were too many characters in the book, most of them remaining unexplored. Likening the book with a computer game, the reviewer concluded that "one of the remarkable qualities of [the book] is that it is a very visual tale and less like a literary exercise." Some critics like Sandipan Deb of Outlook though favored the visual style more and felt that Tripathi stayed true to the fantasy genre.

> "Well-detailed world with its own geography, history and mythology, and he adds a quirky charm to his tale with dashes of modern science. And the second part is arguably the toughest to write, since it’s at the centre of the arc of the plot, where the trajectory could very easily flatten out. The writer has to keep the momentum of the first part going, while setting up all the pieces for the finale, scattering around a few clues to tantalise the reader enough to stay with the storyteller for the full journey.But Amish does not disappoint. Mysterious hints dropped in Immortals get explained, the scale widens by several orders of magnitude, and the nature of Shiva’s quest becomes more complex, even as its ultimate goal becomes much more fundamental."

## Commercial performance

The Secret of the Nagas was in high demand before its release. Of the 100,000 copies printed for it, 80,000 copies had already been pre-ordered, according to Nielsen BookScan. After release it quickly became a best-selling fiction, topping the list published by Hindustan Times. It went on to sell 95,000 copies, with a second print run of 50,000 more being ordered. Khanna attributed this success to the increasing interest in the series. He explained that Tripathi's portrayal of mythology in a different way had been long been popular with comics writers, but few Indian writers have used it yet—and none with the sort of success that Tripathi has achieved. Khanna drew a contrast between the retail price of The Secret of the Nagas and that of contemporary author Chetan Bhagat's novel Revolution 2020, explaining that while Tripathi's book was selling at the original price, Bhagat's novel was sold at a reduced price to attain sales. This view was shared by Deepanjana Paul of The First Post, who believed that "if readers like the writing, they aren't averse to paying more." The book sold over 175,000 copies, making it one of the best-selling fiction novels of 2010 and also of 2011. The Immortals of Meluha and The Secret of the Nagas, have crossed a print run of a million copies. These books have continued to top the bestseller lists of Nielsen BookScan, with the gross retail sales of ₹220 million (US\$2.8 million) within two years of publishing. As of June 2015 over 2.5 million copies of the Shiva Trilogy have been sold with gross retail sales of over ₹60 crore (US\$7.5 million).

## Adaptations

The books have been translated into a number of local languages like English (South Asia), Hindi, Tamil, Marathi, Gujarati, Assamese, English (UK), Telugu and Malayalam, with the author believing that publishing as a whole is gradually being embedded in the Indian business sensibilities. Further explaining his thoughts, Tripathi said "I genuinely believe those five years from today, we will have a situation when other languages will account for higher sales of books than in English. That is the big change happening in publishing—it is taking pride in its own culture than knowing other cultures like in television, where regional language channels have more TRPs." Other than the local versions, the books have also been released in the Amazon Kindle version, available in India and UK.

2011 novel by Amish Tripathi

Indus Valley civilisation in popular culture


Villa Park

Villa Park is a football stadium in Aston, Birmingham, with a seating capacity of 42,657. It has been the home of Premier League side Aston Villa since 1897. The ground is less than a mile from both Witton and Aston railway stations and has hosted sixteen England internationals at senior level, the first in 1899 and the most recent in 2005. Villa Park has hosted 55 FA Cup semi-finals, more than any other stadium, and it is the 10th largest in England.

In 1897, Aston Villa moved into the Aston Lower Grounds, a sports ground in a Victorian amusement park in the former grounds of Aston Hall, a Jacobean stately home. The stadium has gone through various stages of renovation and development, resulting in the current stand configuration of the Holte End, Trinity Road Stand, North Stand and Doug Ellis Stand.

Before 1914, a cycling track ran around the perimeter of the pitch where regular cycling meetings were hosted as well as athletic events. Aside from football-related uses, the stadium has seen various concerts staged along with other sporting events including boxing matches and international rugby league and rugby union matches. In 1999, the last final of the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup took place at Villa Park. Villa Park also hosted the 2012 FA Community Shield, as Wembley Stadium was in use for the final of the Olympic football tournament.

Aston Villa have plans to redevelop the North Stand: this would increase the capacity of Villa Park from 42,682 to 50,065. Such plans also include the construction of an accompanying commercial and entertainment venue dubbed "Villa Live". In December 2022, the plans were approved by Birmingham City Council.

## History

Villa Park, formerly part of Aston Lower Grounds, was not the first home of Aston Villa F.C. Their previous venue, Wellington Road, faced increasing problems including an uneven pitch, poor spectator facilities, a lack of access and exorbitant rents. As a result, in 1894 Villa's committee, led by Frederick Rinder began negotiations with the owners of the Aston Lower Grounds, "the finest sports ground in the district." Situated in the former grounds of Aston Hall, a Jacobean stately home, the Lower Grounds had seen varied uses over the years.

Originally the kitchen garden of Aston Hall's owner Sir Thomas Holte, after whom the Holte End stand was named, the Lower Grounds later became a Victorian amusement park with an aquarium and a great hall. The current pitch stands on the site of the Dovehouse Pool, an ornamental pond that was drained in 1889. In place of the pool, the owners of the Lower Grounds built a cycle track and sports ground that opened on 10 June 1889 for a combined cycling and athletics event before a crowd of 15,000. Negotiations continued for two years before the Villa committee reached agreement with the site's owner, Edgar Flower, to rent the site for £300 per annum on a 21-year lease with an option to buy it at any point during the term.

Much of the credit for the design of Villa Park must to go to Villa Chairman Frederick Rinder, who as a trained Surveyor, is said to have laid down every ‘level and line’ of the ground himself before construction began. The committee immediately engaged an architect who began preparing plans for the site, which included construction of a new 440 yards (400 metres) cement cycle track to replace the existing cinder one. The main stand was to be built to the east on the Witton Lane side, with the track and pitch fully enclosed by banking. Construction of the final phase of the stadium began in late 1896 after negotiations with contractors over the price. Several months behind schedule, the almost-complete stadium opened with a friendly against Blackburn Rovers on 17 April 1897, which ended as a 3–0 win, one week after Aston Villa had completed the League and FA Cup 'Double'. The process of fixing issues with the building work continued for several months. As built, the stadium could house 40,000 spectators, most of whom stood in the open on the banking.

After winning the league championship in 1899, Villa's record-breaking average crowd of 21,000 allowed the club to invest in a two-stage ground improvement programme. The first stage extended the terrace covering on the Trinity Road side at the cost of £887; the second cost £1,300 and involved re-laying all terracing around the track to remedy a design flaw that caused poor sightlines for the majority of the crowd. In 1911, Villa bought the freehold of the ground for £8,250, the office buildings in the old aquarium and car park area for £1,500 and the carriage drive and bowling green for £2,000. This was the first stage in plans drawn up by Villa director Frederick Rinder that saw the capacity of Villa Park increased to 104,000.

In June 1914, another phase of enhancements began at Villa Park to compete with improvements at other grounds around the country, including Everton's Goodison Park, where a new two-tiered stand had just been completed. The first stage of improvements saw the cycling track removed, new banking at the Holte Hotel End (Holte End), and a re-profiling of all the terracing to bring it closer to the newly squared-off pitch. Rinder turned to the renowned architect Archibald Leitch to design a new Villa Park. Their joint plans included large banked end stands at the Holte and Witton ends and the incorporation of the original Victorian Lower Grounds buildings, including the aquarium and the newly acquired bowling greens. The outbreak of the First World War severely hampered design and construction efforts.

As a result of inflation, 1919 quotes for the implementation of the pre-war construction plans came to £66,000, compared to the 1914 quote of £27,000. By March 1922 this price had reduced to £41,775, and the directors pushed ahead with the plans for the new Trinity Road Stand. Construction began in April 1922 with the stand partially opened in August. Construction continued throughout the 1922–1923 season, with the stand officially opened on 26 January 1924 by the then Duke of York, later King George VI. He commented to Rinder that he had "no idea that a ground so finely equipped in every way—and devoted to football—existed."

On completion the Trinity Road Stand was considered one of the grandest in Britain, complete with stained glass windows, Italian mosaics, Dutch gables in the style of Aston Hall and a sweeping staircase. The Oak Room in the Trinity Road stand was the first restaurant at a British football ground. Several commentators including Simon Inglis consider it to be Leitch's masterpiece; a Sunday Times reporter described it in 1960 as the "St Pancras of football." The final cost of the stand and associated 1922–1924 ground developments was calculated at £89,000, a sum that enraged the club's directors who ordered an investigation into cost and in 1925 forced Rinder's resignation.

Villa Park remained in much the same state for another 30 years, with no major developments until the late 1950s. During the 1930s the earth and timber terraces with wooden crash barriers were completely replaced by concrete terracing and metal barriers, a process first begun by Rinder. In 1936 he was voted back onto the board at the age of 78 after the club were relegated to the Second Division. Nearly 25 years after he had created his 1914 masterplan, Rinder resurrected it and looked to carry out the third phase of his developments. He died in December 1938 (Leitch had died in April), leaving his construction business to his son, Archibald Junior.

The complete redevelopment and extension of the Holte End began in early 1939, supervised by Archibald Junior. When the Second World War broke out in September 1939, all construction across the country stopped. Unusually, given the austerity measures in place at the time, Villa acquired a special permit to continue construction of the Holte End; Simon Inglis notes "How they achieved this is not recorded". Work on the ground was completed by April 1940, and the stand was immediately mothballed as Villa Park switched to its wartime role. The Trinity Road Stand became an air-raid shelter and ammunition store while the home dressing room became the temporary home of a rifle company from the 9th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment. German bombs caused £20,000 worth of damage to the Witton Lane Stand, which was remedied by 1954.

In the late 1950s, four projects were announced. The old Bowling Green pavilion on the Trinity Road became a medical centre, the basement of the aquarium building was converted into a gym, four large floodlight pylons were installed, and a training ground was purchased 500 yards (460 metres) from Villa Park. The floodlights were first used in November 1958 for a friendly match against the Scottish side Heart of Midlothian.

In mid-1962, £40,000 was spent on a roof for the Holte End, the first to provide cover for the ordinary terrace fans at Villa Park since 1922. The old barrel-shaped roof on the Witton Lane Stand, the only remaining feature of the 1897 Villa Park, was removed in the summer of 1963 and replaced with a plain sloping roof in the same style as the Holte End. Villa Park was chosen by FIFA to host three matches for the 1966 World Cup on the condition that the Witton Lane Stand became all-seater. The players' tunnel had to be covered with a cage while the pitch was widened by 3 yards (2.7 metres).

Regular ground developments and innovations began from 1969 under the direction of the new chairman, Doug Ellis, who set about redeveloping Villa Park for the modern era. Much of the stadium had fallen into disrepair and was in need of modernisation; Villa's attendances and financial situation had also declined as a result of losing their First Division status in 1967 and going down to the Third Division for the first time in 1970. Ellis updated the infrastructure, installed a new public address system, carried out plumbing work which included installing new toilets, resurfaced the terraces, and built a new ticket office. His tenure saw executive lounges replace the old offices in the Trinity Road Stand.

Redevelopment of the Witton End stand began in the summer of 1976, a year after Villa returned to the First Division after eight years away. The stand had not seen any major work since 1924, and its rear remained a mound of earth. Initial renovations saw the levelling of the earth and new concrete terraces constructed on the lower tier in preparation for the construction of an upper tier. Stage two began in February 1977 and was officially opened in late October. The stand's design and fittings were impressive for the time, including novelties such as an 'AV' logo spelled out in coloured seats and a double row of executive boxes.

As well as the new Witton End stand, renamed the North Stand, Villa Park went through further renovations throughout the ground. The cost of the work was £1.3 million. As a result, and as with the construction of the Trinity Road Stand fifty years earlier, Villa were again burdened with debt. An internal investigation found that £700,000 of the £1.3 million worth of bills were unaccounted for. A later report by accountants Deloitte Haskins & Sells found that the bills were inflated by only 10% but that there were "serious breaches of recommended codes of practice and poor site supervision".

In response to the Hillsborough disaster which resulted in 96 fatalities, the Taylor Report of January 1990 recommended that all major grounds be converted to become all-seater as a safety measure by August 1994. Within a few months of the Taylor Report being published, the first changes were made in line with the report. The North Stand saw the addition of 2,900 seats to the lower tier of the stand in place of terracing, the Holte End's roof was extended in preparation for more seats, the Trinity Road Stand had its roof replaced, and the Witton Lane Stand had more corporate boxes added. By that time, all four floodlight pylons had been removed to make way for boxes or in preparation for seating, and new floodlights were installed on new gantries on the Trinity and Witton stands.

In February 1992, the club's application to the council for permission to demolish the Holte Hotel was rejected. After several months of negotiations, Villa gained permission for a new stand to replace the Witton Lane Stand. The new design meant that the club had to realign Witton Lane and, as a condition of the planning permission, pay £600,000 to compulsory purchase the houses along Witton Lane and upgrade the road from a B to an A road, as well as moving its utilities. The stand was fully operational by January 1994 at the cost of £5 million with 4,686 seats, which brought Villa Park up to a capacity of 46,005. It was announced at the 70th birthday gala of chairman Doug Ellis that the stand was to be renamed the "Doug Ellis Stand", a move that caused some controversy among Villa fans with some still referring to it as the Witton Lane Stand. Nevertheless, during the 1993–94 season, the newly rebuilt Witton Lane Stand became the Doug Ellis Stand.

The Holte End was the only remaining stand that did not meet the Taylor Report requirements, and a structural survey revealed that putting seats onto the existing terracing would be uneconomical. Instead, the decision was taken to build a new stand consisting of two tiers, just four years after construction of the new roof. The demolition of the stand began on the last day of the 1993–94 season. Its replacement began to open in August 1994 with 3,000 seats in the lower tier occupied for the first seating-only game at Villa Park. By December it was fully operational and had a capacity of 13,501 seats, bringing the Villa Park capacity to 40,310. Upon completion, the Holte was the largest single end stand in Britain.

The next development at Villa Park was the Trinity Road Stand in 2000. It had stood since 1922 and seen several renovations and additions. The demolition of the old stand began after the last game of the 1999–2000 season, an event met with an element of sadness from observers such as Simon Inglis who stated that "the landscape of English football will never be the same." The new stand was larger than the old one, taking Villa's capacity from 39,399 to its present 42,682. It was officially opened in November 2001 by Prince Charles; his grandfather George VI had opened the old stand, 77 years earlier, when he was still the Duke of York.

## Structure and facilities

Villa Park has 42,682 seats, split between four stands. These four stands are the Holte End to the south, the Trinity Road Stand to the west, the Doug Ellis Stand opposite the Trinity Road Stand, and the North Stand behind the northern goal. All of the stands have two tiers except the Trinity Road Stand, which has three.

The Holte End is a large two-tiered stand at the south end of the stadium. Originally a large terraced banking with accommodation for more than 20,000 spectators, the current stand was constructed in 1994–1995 and consists of two tiers with no executive boxes. The two tiers are slightly curved in a parabola to provide good sightlines from all seats. Inside there are three levels of concourse and the Holte Suite, a large hospitality room for supporters. The roof is a variant of the "King Truss" system and the front third slopes slightly forward. Two large staircases, pediments, Dutch gables and a mosaic introduced in the 2007 season in the style of the old Trinity Road Stand make up the facade, itself inspired by Aston Hall. The Holte End is the most renowned stand at Villa Park amongst home and away team supporters. Traditionally Villa's most vocal and passionate supporters gather here, including members of Aston Villa hooligan firms.

Built in 2000, the main Trinity Road Stand is the most recently completed at Villa Park and houses the dressing rooms, club offices and director's boxes. The stand is composed of three tiers with a row of executive boxes between the second and third tiers. Although much larger than the other stands, the stand has roughly the same roof level as the other three sides. The players' tunnel and the technical area where the managers and substitutes sit during the match are in the middle of the stand at pitch level. The press and the directors' VIP area are situated in the centre of the middle tier. The upper tiers of the stand extend over Trinity Road, the street that cuts behind the ground. Trinity Road passes through a tunnel formed by the Trinity Road Stand.

The oldest stand at Villa Park is the North Stand, formerly known as the Witton End, completed in 1977. It is a two-tiered stand, with a double row of 39 executive boxes running between the two tiers. Upper-tier seats are claret with "AV" written in blue; the lower tier consists of sky blue seats. The North Stand was "the first major stand in Britain to use what is now broadly termed the 'goalpost' structure." The facade of the stand is a "textured concrete render" typical of the time.

Since the segregation of supporters in the 1970s, away fans had been situated in the lower tier of the North Stand. Former manager Martin O'Neill expressed his desire to have Villa fans seated in the North Stand to improve the atmosphere at Villa Park. For the start of the 2007–2008 season the club released cut-price season tickets for the lower tier of the stand. This meant moving the away fans to the northern end of the Doug Ellis Stand across both tiers and since then the North Stand has been fully occupied by Villa supporters with the most vocal and fervent being housed in the lower tier.

The Doug Ellis Stand, formerly known as the Witton Lane Stand, is a two-tiered stand with a row of executive boxes between the tiers. The roof was originally planned to be a goalpost structure, the same as the Holte End and North Stand, but the plans were changed to a simpler cantilever design. It saw slight refurbishment before the 1996 European Championships to join the corners with the lower tier of the North Stand, improve legroom and increase the curve of the terracing to improve sightlines. The main television camera viewpoint is on the half-way line in the Doug Ellis Stand.

In the south-west corner, between the Holte End and the Trinity Road Stand, there is a three-storey pavilion-like structure, which is used for corporate hospitality. There is a large television screen. On 28 November 2009, a bronze statue of former Villa chairman and Football League founder William McGregor was unveiled outside the stadium. Behind the North Stand is the "Villa Village" made up of club and ticket offices as well as a club shop. The club bought the buildings from British Telecom in the 1990s. Under current redevelopment plans, the "Villa Village" is set to be demolished, in favour of a significantly larger retail venue called "Villa Live".

## Future

Future redevelopment of Villa Park has been an ever-present topic, with previous owners of Aston Villa: notably Randy Lerner and Tony Xia, expressing support to increase capacity. However, no definitive redevelopment occurred in either case.

Under the current ownership of Nassef Sawiris and Wes Edens, there has been concrete support for a long-term redevelopment of Villa Park. In December 2021, CEO Christian Purslow announced that redevelopment plans were forecasted to take "two to ten years".

Preliminary plans to construct a new North Stand were announced in March 2022. Following a consultation process between June and September 2022, Aston Villa formally submitted plans to fully demolish and rebuild the North Stand, alongside developments to the Trinity Road Stand. The plans would see the construction of a new 13,074 capacity stand. Alongside minor seating adjustments to the Trinity Road Stand and Doug Ellis Stand, this would increase Villa Park's capacity to approximately 50,065. Alongside these featured plans to develop a large indoor entertainment and retail venue called "Villa Live", replacing the car park, academy building, and the current on-site retail store. This followed initial planning permission granted in 2019 to demolish the car park and academy building behind the North Stand. In December 2022, planning permission was granted by Birmingham City Council

Within the aforementioned planning documents, Aston Villa alluded to potential further redevelopment via 'configuration of the stands', including the Doug Ellis Stand and the Holte End, to increase Villa Park's capacity to between 52,000 and 53,000. This was referred to as 'Phase 2': with the North Stand redevelopment considered 'Phase 1'.

## Other sporting uses

Villa Park was the first English ground to stage international football in three centuries and has hosted matches in several international tournaments. Three 1966 World Cup matches were played at the ground and four matches during Euro '96. The ground has hosted England internationals, the first in 1899 and the most recent in 2005. Sixteen international matches have been hosted at the stadium in total.

Villa Park has been the venue for several Cup competitions. It has hosted 55 FA Cup semi-finals, more than any other stadium. The club hosted the League Cup Final in 1980–1981 when Liverpool beat West Ham 2–1 in a replay. In 1999, the stadium hosted the last final of the European Cup Winners' Cup in which Lazio beat Real Mallorca 2–1. During the construction of the new Wembley Stadium between 2001 and 2005, the FA Trophy Final was held at Villa Park. The 2012 Community Shield was held at Villa Park instead of Wembley due to Olympic Games at the stadium.

The venue has also hosted two first-class cricket matches. The first was the United North of England Eleven's final first-class match against a London United Eleven in June 1879. The second was tour match played between Australia and an England XI side in May 1884. The ground also hosted a 1897 Minor Counties Championship match between Staffordshire and Northamptonshire and was the home ground for Aston Unity in the Birmingham and District Premier League from 1889 to 1954.

Many athletics and cycle events took place at the ground before the First World War, and boxing has been hosted on several occasions. On 28 June 1948, Dick Turpin, brother of Randolph Turpin, became the first non-white boxer to win a British title in a fight against Vince Hawkins in front of 40,000 spectators after the British Boxing Board of Control lifted their ban on non-whites challenging for titles. On 21 June 1972 Danny McAlinden defeated Jack Bodell in a British and Empire Heavyweight title fight.

Great Britain secured the first ever rugby league test series at the ground when they defeated the touring Australian Kangaroos side 6–5 on 14 February 1909 in front of a crowd of 9,000. A second rugby league game followed three years later on New Year's Day 1912 when 4,000 people turned up to see Australia beat Great Britain 33–8. The stadium has seen several international rugby union tour matches. On 8 October 1924, a North Midlands XV lost 40–3 to the New Zealand side touring Europe and Canada at the time. The second game took place on 30 December 1953 when Midlands Counties played another New Zealand side on their 1953–1954 tour of United Kingdom, Ireland, France and North America. The Midlands side lost 18–3. On 26 August 1985, it played host to the first ever American football "Summerbowl," intended to be the English equivalent to the Super Bowl. The game was played between the London Ravens and the Streatham Olympians, and the low attendance of 8,000 meant that the Summerbowl was not repeated in subsequent years.

Villa Park was originally listed as one of the six stadiums that would hold Olympic football matches in the 2012 Summer Olympics. In 2009 it was announced that the organising committee for the games and the football club had decided that uncertainty around expansion plans meant that the club were "unable to commit fully to hosting matches".

Villa Park was chosen as the venue for two pool matches in the 2015 Rugby World Cup. The first was a Pool B match between South Africa and Samoa on 26 September 2015 with South Africa winning 46–6 with 39,526 in attendance. The second was a Pool A match between Australia and Uruguay the next day with Australia winning 65–3 in front of 39,605 spectators.

Birmingham is the host city of the 2022 Commonwealth Games. Though Villa Park was originally chosen to host the Rugby Sevens competition, the event will now be held at the Ricoh Arena. This is due to the Premier League season starting in July in order to accommodate the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar taking place in November and December, rather than June and July.

## Non-sporting uses

Villa Park has been a venue for musicians from multiple genres as well as preachers. The stadium has hosted several rock concerts, including Bruce Springsteen who played two concerts in June 1988 as part of his Tunnel of Love Tour, and again in June 2023 as part of his 2023 Tour, Bon Jovi in 2013 as part of the Because We Can: The Tour, and Pink in June 2023 during her Summer Carnival Tour. Duran Duran held a charity concert in 1983 to raise money for MENCAP. Other singers who have played at the ground include Belinda Carlisle, Rod Stewart and Robert Palmer. The American evangelist Billy Graham attracted 257,181 people to a series of prayer meetings held at the stadium in mid-1984. Archbishop Desmond Tutu held a religious gathering at the stadium in 1989.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, it was announced that midwives from Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust would host maternity clinics at the ground, for expectant parents anxious about going into hospitals.

On 2 February 2021, it was announced that Villa Park will be used as a regional COVID-19 vaccination centre by the NHS. The first patients were vaccinated at Villa Park on 4 February 2021. The vaccination centre has been set up in the Holte End stand and it is hoped to play a pivotal role in vaccinating people in the Birmingham area.

## Average league attendances

## Records

The highest attendance recorded at Villa Park was 76,588, on 2 March 1946 in an FA Cup 6th round tie against Derby County. The highest attendance in the all-seater era was 42,788 on 29 December 2009 in a Premier League game against Liverpool, but the overall record league attendance was 69,492 in a First Division match against Wolverhampton Wanderers on 27 December 1949. The highest average post-Second World War attendance at Villa Park was 47,168 in the 1948–1949 season; the lowest average post-war attendance was 15,237 in the 1985–1986 season.

## Transport

Villa Park is within a short distance of two mainline railway stations. Witton railway station is approximately 500 metres (0.3 miles) from Villa Park, and Aston railway station is approximately 1.5 kilometres (0.9 miles). Under former owner Randy Lerner, there have been discussions on changing the name of Witton Station to Villa Park as is the case with West Bromwich Albion's local railway station, The Hawthorns. Aston Villa's former CEO, Bruce Langham, has said that the West Midlands Passenger Transport Executive (Centro) are amenable to the idea as long as it is done at the expense of the club. No action has yet been taken.

## See also

- Development of stadiums in English football

Football stadium in Aston, Birmingham

Defunct velodromes in the United Kingdom

Football venues in Birmingham, West Midlands


Peterloo Massacre

The Peterloo Massacre took place at St Peter's Field, Manchester, Lancashire, England, on Monday 16 August 1819. Eighteen people died and 400–700 were injured when cavalry charged into a crowd of around 60,000 people who had gathered to demand the reform of parliamentary representation.

After the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, there was an acute economic slump, accompanied by chronic unemployment and harvest failure due to the Year Without a Summer, and worsened by the Corn Laws, which kept the price of bread high. At that time, only around 11 percent of adult males had the vote, very few of them in the industrial north of England, which was worst hit. Reformers identified parliamentary reform as the solution, and a mass campaign to petition parliament for manhood suffrage gained three-quarters of a million signatures in 1817 but was flatly rejected by the House of Commons. When a second slump occurred in early 1819, radical reformers sought to mobilise huge crowds to force the government to back down. The movement was particularly strong in the north-west, where the Manchester Patriotic Union organised a mass rally in August 1819, addressed by well-known radical orator Henry Hunt.

Shortly after the meeting began, local magistrates called on the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry to arrest Hunt and several others on the platform with him. The Yeomanry charged into the crowd, knocking down a woman and killing a child, and finally apprehended Hunt. Cheshire Magistrates' chairman William Hulton then summoned the 15th Hussars to disperse the crowd. They charged with sabres drawn, and contemporary accounts estimated that between nine and seventeen people were killed and 400 to 700 injured in the ensuing confusion. The event was first labelled the "Peterloo massacre" by the radical Manchester Observer newspaper in a bitterly ironic reference to the bloody Battle of Waterloo which had taken place four years earlier.

Historian Robert Poole has called the Peterloo Massacre "the bloodiest political event of the 19th century in English soil", and "a political earthquake in the northern powerhouse of the industrial revolution". The London and national papers shared the horror felt in the Manchester region, but Peterloo's immediate effect was to cause the government to pass the Six Acts, which were aimed at suppressing any meetings for the purpose of radical reform. It also led indirectly to the foundation of the Manchester Guardian newspaper. In a survey conducted by The Guardian (the modern iteration of the Manchester Guardian) in 2006, Peterloo came second to the Putney Debates as the event from radical British history that most deserved a proper monument or a memorial.

For some time, Peterloo was commemorated only by a blue plaque, criticised as being inadequate and referring only to the "dispersal by the military" of an assembly. In 2007, the city council replaced the blue plaque with a red plaque referring to "a peaceful rally" being "attacked by armed cavalry" and mentioning "15 deaths and over 600 injuries". In 2019, on the 200th anniversary of the massacre, Manchester City Council inaugurated a new Peterloo Memorial by the artist Jeremy Deller, featuring eleven concentric circles of local stone engraved with the names of the dead and the places from which the victims came.

## Background

### Suffrage

In 1819, Lancashire was represented by two county members of parliament (MPs) and a further twelve borough members sitting for the towns of Clitheroe, Newton, Wigan, Lancaster, Liverpool, and Preston, with a total of 17,000 voters in a county population of nearly a million. Thanks to deals by Whig and Tory parties to carve up the seats between them, most had not seen a contested election within living memory.

Nationally, the so-called rotten boroughs had a hugely disproportionate influence on the membership of the Parliament of the United Kingdom compared to the size of their populations: Old Sarum in Wiltshire, with one voter, elected two MPs, as did Dunwich in Suffolk, which by the early 19th century had almost completely disappeared into the sea. The major urban centres of Manchester, Salford, Bolton, Blackburn, Rochdale, Ashton-under-Lyne, Oldham and Stockport had no MPs of their own, and only a few hundred county voters. By comparison, more than half of all MPs were returned by a total of just 154 owners of rotten or closed boroughs. In 1816, Thomas Oldfield's The Representative History of Great Britain and Ireland; being a History of the House of Commons, and of the Counties, Cities, and Boroughs of the United Kingdom from the earliest Period claimed that of the 515 MPs for England and Wales 351 were returned by the patronage of 177 individuals and a further 16 by the direct patronage of the government: all 45 Scottish MPs owed their seats to patronage. These inequalities in political representation led to calls for reform.

### Economic conditions

After the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, a brief boom in textile manufacture was followed by periods of chronic economic depression, particularly among cotton textile weavers and spinners. The cotton textile trade was concentrated in Lancashire and the wool textile trade was concentrated over the border in West and North Yorkshire. Weavers who could have expected to earn 15 shillings for a six-day week in 1803, saw their wages cut to 5 shillings or even 4s 6d by 1818. The industrialists, who were cutting wages without offering relief, blamed market forces generated by the aftershocks of the Napoleonic Wars. Exacerbating matters were the Corn Laws, the first of which was passed in 1815, imposing a tariff on foreign grain in an effort to protect English grain producers. The cost of food rose as people were forced to buy the more expensive and lower quality British grain, and periods of famine and chronic unemployment ensued, increasing the desire for political reform both in Lancashire and in the country at large.

### Radical mass meetings in Manchester

In the winter of 1816–17 massed reform petitions were rejected by the House of Commons, the largest of them from Manchester with over 30,000 signatures. On 10 March 1817 a crowd of 5,000 gathered in St Peter's Fields to send some of their number to march to London to petition the Prince Regent to force parliament into reform; the so-called 'blanket march', after the blankets which the protesters carried with them to sleep in on the way. After the magistrates read the Riot Act, the crowd was dispersed without injury by the King's Dragoon Guards. The ringleaders were detained for several months without charge under the emergency powers then in force, which suspended habeas corpus, the right to be either charged or released. In September 1818 three former leading Blanketeers were again arrested for allegedly urging striking weavers in Stockport to demand their political rights, 'sword in hand', and were convicted of sedition and conspiracy at Chester Assizes in April 1819.

By the beginning of 1819, pressure generated by poor economic conditions was at its peak and had enhanced the appeal of political radicalism among the cotton loom weavers of south Lancashire. In January 1819, a crowd of about 10,000 gathered at St Peter's Fields to hear the radical orator Henry Hunt and called on the Prince Regent to choose ministers who would repeal the Corn Laws. The meeting, conducted in the presence of the cavalry, passed off without incident, apart from the collapse of the hustings.

A series of mass meetings in the Manchester region, Birmingham, and London over the next few months alarmed the government. "Your country [i.e. county] will not be tranquillised until blood shall have been shed, either by the law or the sword", the Home Secretary wrote to the Lancashire magistrates in March. Over the next few months the government worked to find a legal justification for the magistrates to send in troops to disperse a meeting when riot was expected but not actually begun. In July 1819, the magistrates wrote to Lord Sidmouth warning they thought a "general rising" was imminent, the "deep distress of the manufacturing classes" was being worked on by the "unbounded liberty of the press" and "the harangues of a few desperate demagogues" at weekly meetings. "Possessing no power to prevent the meetings" the magistrates admitted they were at a loss as to how to stem the doctrines being disseminated. The Home Office assured them privately that in "an extreme case a magistrate may feel it incumbent upon him to act even without evidence, and to rely on Parliament for an indemnity."

### August meeting

Against this background, a "great assembly" was organised by the Manchester Patriotic Union formed by radicals from the Manchester Observer. Johnson, the union's secretary, wrote to Henry Hunt asking him to chair a meeting in Manchester on 2 August 1819. Johnson wrote:

> Nothing but ruin and starvation stare one in the face [in the streets of Manchester and the surrounding towns], the state of this district is truly dreadful, and I believe nothing but the greatest exertions can prevent an insurrection. Oh, that you in London were prepared for it.

Unknown to Johnson and Hunt, the letter was intercepted by government spies and copied before being sent to its destination, confirming the government's belief that an armed rising was planned.

The mass public meeting planned for 2 August was delayed until 9 August. The Manchester Observer reported it was called "to take into consideration the most speedy and effectual mode of obtaining Radical reform in the Common House of Parliament" and "to consider the propriety of the 'Unrepresented Inhabitants of Manchester' electing a person to represent them in Parliament". The government's legal advice was that to elect a representative without a royal writ for an election was a criminal offence, and the magistrates decided to declare the meeting illegal.

On 3 August however the Home Office conveyed to the magistrates the view of the Attorney-General that it was not the intention to elect an MP that was illegal, but the execution of that intention. It advised against any attempt to forcibly prevent the 9 August meeting unless there was an actual riot:

> even if they should utter sedition or proceed to the election of a representative Lord Sidmouth is of opinion that it will be the wisest course to abstain from any endeavour to disperse the mob, unless they should proceed to acts of felony or riot. We have the strongest reason to believe that Hunt means to preside and to deprecate disorder.

The radicals' own legal advice however urged caution, and so the meeting was accordingly cancelled and rearranged for 16 August, with its declared aim solely "to consider the propriety of adopting the most LEGAL and EFFECTUAL means of obtaining a reform in the Common House of Parliament".

Samuel Bamford, a local radical who led the Middleton contingent, wrote that "It was deemed expedient that this meeting should be as morally effective as possible, and, that it should exhibit a spectacle such as had never before been witnessed in England." Instructions were given to the various committees forming the contingents that "Cleanliness, Sobriety, Order and Peace" and a "prohibition of all weapons of offence or defence" were to be observed throughout the demonstration. Each contingent was drilled and rehearsed in the fields of the towns around Manchester adding to the concerns of the authorities. A royal proclamation forbidding the practice of drilling had been posted in Manchester on 3 August but on 9 August an informant reported to Rochdale magistrates that at Tandle Hill the previous day, 700 men were "drilling in companies" and "going through the usual evolutions of a regiment" and an onlooker had said the men "were fit to contend with any regular troops, only they wanted arms". The magistrates were convinced that the situation was indeed an emergency which would justify pre-emptive action, as the Home Office had previously explained, and set about lining up dozens of local loyalist gentlemen to swear the necessary oaths that they believed the town to be in danger.

## Assembly

### Preparations

St Peter's Field was a piece of land alongside Mount Street which was being cleared to enable the last section of Peter Street to be constructed. Piles of timber lay at the end of the field nearest to the Friends Meeting House, but the remainder of the field was clear. Thomas Worrell, Manchester's Assistant Surveyor of Paving, arrived to inspect the field at 7:00 am. His job was to remove anything that might be used as a weapon, and he duly had "about a quarter of a load" of stones carted away.

Monday, 16 August 1819, was a hot summer's day, with a cloudless blue sky. The fine weather almost certainly increased the size of the crowd significantly; marching from the outer townships in the cold and rain would have been a much less attractive prospect.

The Manchester magistrates met at 9:00 am, to breakfast at the Star Inn on Deansgate and to consider what action they should take on Henry Hunt's arrival at the meeting. By 10:30 am they had come to no conclusions, and moved to a house on the southeastern corner of St Peter's Field, from where they planned to observe the meeting. They were concerned that it would end in a riot, or even a rebellion, and had arranged for a substantial number of regular troops and militia yeomanry to be deployed. The military presence comprised 600 men of the 15th Hussars; several hundred infantrymen; a Royal Horse Artillery unit with two six-pounder guns; 400 men of the Cheshire Yeomanry; 400 special constables; and 120 cavalry of the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry. The Manchester & Salford Yeomanry were relatively inexperienced militia recruited from among local shopkeepers and tradesmen, the most numerous of which were publicans. Recently mocked by the Manchester Observer as "generally speaking, the fawning dependents of the great, with a few fools and a greater proportion of coxcombs, who imagine they acquire considerable importance by wearing regimentals," they were subsequently variously described as "younger members of the Tory party in arms", and as "hot-headed young men, who had volunteered into that service from their intense hatred of Radicalism." Socialist writer Mark Krantz has described them as "the local business mafia on horseback". R J White described them as "exclusively cheesemongers, ironmongers and newly enriched manufacturers, (who) the people of Manchester ... thought ... a joke."

The British Army in the north was under the overall command of General Sir John Byng. When he had initially learned that the meeting was scheduled for 2 August he wrote to the Home Office stating that he hoped the Manchester magistrates would show firmness on the day:

> I will be prepared to go there, and will have in that neighbourhood, that is within an easy day's march, 8 squadron of cavalry, 18 companies of infantry and the guns. I am sure I can add to the Yeomanry if requisite. I hope therefore the civil authorities will not be deterred from doing their duty.

He then excused himself from attendance, however, as the meeting on the 9th clashed with the horse races at York, a fashionable event at which Byng had entries in two races. He wrote to the Home Office, saying that although he would still be prepared to be in command in Manchester on the day of the meeting if it was thought really necessary, he had absolute confidence in his deputy commander, Lieutenant Colonel Guy L'Estrange. The postponement to 16 August made it possible for Byng to attend after the races but he chose not to, having had enough of dealing with the Manchester magistrates. He had dealt firmly and bloodlessly with the blanketeers two years before; L'Estrange was to exhibit no such qualities of command.

### Meeting

The crowd that gathered in St Peter's Field arrived in disciplined and organised contingents. Contingents were sent from all around the region, the largest and "best dressed" of which was a group of 10,000 who had travelled from Oldham Green, comprising people from Oldham, Royton (which included a sizeable female section), Crompton, Lees, Saddleworth and Mossley. Other sizeable contingents marched from Middleton and Rochdale (6,000 strong) and Stockport (1,500–5,000 strong). Reports of the size of the crowd at the meeting vary substantially. Contemporaries estimated it from 30,000 to as many as 150,000; modern estimates have been 50,000–80,000. Recent work however has reduced these numbers. A reasonably reliable count of the numbers on the various marches indicates a total of around 20,000 who came in from outside Manchester, but the number who attended informally from Manchester and Salford is much harder to estimate. Bush argues from the casualty figures that two-thirds were from Manchester and Salford, suggesting a total crowd of 50,000, but Poole revises this to a half, bringing the total down to 40,000. Steele's estimate of the capacity of the ground suggests 30,000 which, if correct, lowers the attendance but raises the casualty rate.

The assembly was intended by its organisers to be a peaceful meeting; Henry Hunt had exhorted everyone attending to come "armed with no other weapon but that of a self-approving conscience", and many were wearing their "Sunday best" clothes. Samuel Bamford recounts the following incident, which occurred as the Middleton contingent reached the outskirts of Manchester:

> On the bank of an open field on our left I perceived a gentleman observing us attentively. He beckoned me, and I went to him. He was one of my late employers. He took my hand, and rather concernedly, but kindly, said he hoped no harm was intended by all those people who were coming in. I said "I would pledge my life for their entire peaceableness." I asked him to notice them, "did they look like persons wishing to outrage the law? were they not, on the contrary, evidently heads of decent working families? or members of such families?" "No, no," I said, "my dear sir, and old respected master, if any wrong or violence take place, they will be committed by men of a different stamp from these." He said he was very glad to hear me say so; he was happy he had seen me, and gratified by the manner in which I had expressed myself. I asked, did he think we should be interrupted at the meeting? he said he did not believe we should; "then," I replied, "all will be well"; and shaking hands, with mutual good wishes, I left him, and took my station as before.

Although William Robert Hay, chairman of the Salford Hundred Quarter Sessions, claimed that "The active part of the meeting may be said to have come in wholly from the country", others such as John Shuttleworth, a local cotton dealer, estimated that most were from Manchester, a view that would subsequently be supported by the casualty lists. Of the casualties whose residence was recorded, sixty-one per cent lived within a three-mile radius of the centre of Manchester. Some groups carried banners with texts like "No Corn Laws", "Annual Parliaments", "Universal suffrage" and "Vote By Ballot". The first female reform societies were established in the textile areas in 1819 and women from the Manchester Female Reform Society, dressed in white, accompanied Hunt to the platform. The society's president Mary Fildes rode in Hunt's carriage carrying its flag. The only banner known to have survived is in Middleton Public Library; it was carried by Thomas Redford, who was injured by a yeomanry sabre. Made of green silk embossed with gold lettering, one side of the banner is inscribed "Liberty and Fraternity" and the other "Unity and Strength." It is the world's oldest political banner.

At about noon, several hundred special constables were led onto the field. They formed two lines in the crowd a few yards apart, in an attempt to form a corridor through the crowd between the house where the magistrates were watching and the hustings, two wagons lashed together. Believing that this might be intended as the route by which the magistrates would later send their representatives to arrest the speakers, some members of the crowd pushed the wagons away from the constables, and pressed around the hustings to form a human barrier.

Hunt's carriage arrived at the meeting shortly after 1:00 pm, and he made his way to the hustings. Alongside Hunt on the speakers' stand were John Knight, a cotton manufacturer and reformer, Joseph Johnson, the organiser of the meeting, John Thacker Saxton, managing editor of the Manchester Observer, the publisher Richard Carlile, and George Swift, reformer and shoemaker. There were also a number of reporters, including John Tyas of The Times, John Smith of the Liverpool Mercury and Edward Baines Jr, the son of the editor of the Leeds Mercury. By this time St Peter's Field, an area of 14,000 sq yd (11,700 m<sup>2</sup>), was packed with tens of thousands of men, women and children. The crowd around the speakers was so dense that "their hats seemed to touch"; large groups of curious spectators gathered on the outskirts of the crowd.

## Cavalry charge

William Hulton, the chairman of the magistrates watching from the house on the edge of St Peter's Field, saw the enthusiastic reception that Hunt received on his arrival at the assembly, and it encouraged him to action. He issued an arrest warrant for Henry Hunt, Joseph Johnson, John Knight, and James Moorhouse. On being handed the warrant the Constable, Jonathan Andrews, offered his opinion that the press of the crowd surrounding the hustings would make military assistance necessary for its execution. Hulton then wrote two letters, one to Major Thomas Trafford, the commanding officer of the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry Cavalry, and the other to the overall military commander in Manchester, Lieutenant Colonel Guy L'Estrange. The contents of both notes were similar:

> Sir, as chairman of the select committee of magistrates, I request you to proceed immediately to no. 6 Mount Street, where the magistrates are assembled. They consider the Civil Power wholly inadequate to preserve the peace. I have the honour, & c. Wm. Hulton.

The notes were handed to two horsemen who were standing by. The Manchester and Salford Yeomanry were stationed just a short distance away in Portland Street, and so received their note first. They immediately drew their swords and galloped towards St Peter's Field. One trooper, in a frantic attempt to catch up, knocked down Ann Fildes in Cooper Street, causing the death of her son when he was thrown from her arms; two-year-old William Fildes was the first casualty of Peterloo.

Sixty cavalrymen of the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry, led by Captain Hugh Hornby Birley, a local factory owner, arrived at the house from where the magistrates were watching; some reports allege that they were drunk. Andrews, the Chief Constable, instructed Birley that he had an arrest warrant which he needed assistance to execute. Birley was asked to take his cavalry to the hustings to allow the speakers to be removed; it was by then about 1:40 pm.

The route towards the hustings between the special constables was narrow, and as the inexperienced horses were thrust further and further into the crowd they reared and plunged as people tried to get out of their way. The arrest warrant had been given to the Deputy Constable, Joseph Nadin, who followed behind the yeomanry. As the cavalry pushed towards the speakers' stand they became stuck in the crowd, and in panic started to hack about them with their sabres. On his arrival at the stand Nadin arrested Hunt, Johnson and a number of others including John Tyas, the reporter from The Times. Their mission to execute the arrest warrant having been achieved, the yeomanry set about destroying the banners and flags on the stand. According to Tyas, the yeomanry then attempted to reach flags in the crowd "cutting most indiscriminately to the right and to the left to get at them" – only then (said Tyas) were brickbats thrown at the military: "From this point the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry lost all command of temper". From his vantage point William Hulton perceived the unfolding events as an assault on the yeomanry, and on L'Estrange's arrival at 1:50 pm, at the head of his hussars, he ordered them into the field to disperse the crowd with the words: "Good God, Sir, don't you see they are attacking the Yeomanry; disperse the meeting!" The 15th Hussars formed themselves into a line stretching across the eastern end of St Peter's Field, and charged into the crowd. At about the same time the Cheshire Yeomanry charged from the southern edge of the field. At first the crowd had some difficulty in dispersing, as the main exit route into Peter Street was blocked by the 88th Regiment of Foot, standing with bayonets fixed. One officer of the 15th Hussars was heard trying to restrain the by now out of control Manchester and Salford Yeomanry, who were "cutting at every one they could reach": "For shame! For shame! Gentlemen: forbear, forbear! The people cannot get away!"

On the other hand, Lieutenant Jolliffe of the 15th Hussars said "It was then for the first time that I saw the Manchester troop of Yeomanry; they were scattered singly or in small groups over the greater part of the Field, literally hemmed up and powerless either to make an impression or to escape; in fact, they were in the power of those whom they were designed to overawe and it required only a glance to discover their helpless position, and the necessity of our being brought to their rescue" Further Jolliffe asserted that "... nine out of ten of the sabre wounds were caused by the Hussars ... however, the far greater amount of injuries were from the pressure of the routed multitude."

Within ten minutes the crowd had been dispersed, at the cost of 11 dead and more than 600 injured. Only the wounded, their helpers, and the dead were left behind; a woman living nearby said she saw "a very great deal of blood." For some time afterwards there was rioting in the streets, most seriously at New Cross, where troops fired on a crowd attacking a shop belonging to someone rumoured to have taken one of the women reformers' flags as a souvenir. Peace was not restored in Manchester until the next morning, and in Stockport and Macclesfield rioting continued on the 17th. There was also a major riot in Oldham that day, during which one person was shot and wounded.

## Victims

The exact number of those killed and injured at Peterloo has never been established with certainty, for there was no official count or inquiry and many injured people fled to safety without reporting their injuries or seeking treatment. The Manchester Relief Committee, a body set up to provide relief for the victims of Peterloo, gave the number of injured as 420, while Radical sources listed 500. The true number is difficult to estimate, as many of the wounded hid their injuries for fear of retribution by the authorities. Three of William Marsh's six children worked in the factory belonging to Captain Hugh Birley of the Manchester Yeomanry, and lost their jobs because their father had attended the meeting. James Lees was admitted to Manchester Infirmary with two severe sabre wounds to the head, but was refused treatment and sent home after refusing to agree with the surgeon's insistence that "he had had enough of Manchester meetings."

A particular feature of the meeting at Peterloo was the number of women present. Female reform societies had been formed in North West England during June and July 1819, the first in Britain. Many of the women were dressed distinctively in white, and some formed all-female contingents, carrying their own flags. Of the 654 recorded casualties, at least 168 were women, four of whom died either at St Peter's Field or later as a result of their wounds. It has been estimated that less than 12 per cent of the crowd was made up of women, suggesting that they were at significantly greater risk of injury than men by a factor of almost 3:1. Richard Carlile claimed that the women were especially targeted, a view apparently supported by the large number who suffered from wounds caused by weapons. A recently unearthed set of 70 victims' petitions in the parliamentary archives reveals some shocking tales of ferocity, including the accounts of the female reformers Mary Fildes, who carried the flag on the platform, and Elizabeth Gaunt, who suffered a miscarriage following ill-treatment during eleven days' detention without trial.

Eleven of the fatalities listed occurred on St Peter's Field. Others, such as John Lees of Oldham, died later of their wounds, and some like Joshua Whitworth were killed in the rioting that followed the crowd's dispersal from the field. Bush puts the fatalities at 18 and Poole supports this figure, albeit a slightly different 18 based on new information. It is these 18 whose names are carved on the 2019 memorial, including the unborn child of Elizabeth Gaunt.

## Reaction and aftermath

### Public

The Peterloo Massacre has been called one of the defining moments of its age. Many of those present at the massacre, including local masters, employers and owners, were horrified by the carnage. One of the casualties, Oldham cloth-worker and ex-soldier John Lees, who died from his wounds on 9 September, had been present at the Battle of Waterloo. Shortly before his death he said to a friend that he had never been in such danger as at Peterloo: "At Waterloo there was man to man but there it was downright murder." When news of the massacre began to spread, the population of Manchester and surrounding districts was horrified and outraged.

After the events at Peterloo, many commemorative items such as plates, jugs, handkerchiefs and medals were produced; they were carried by radical supporters and may also have been sold to raise money for the injured. The People's History Museum in Manchester has one of these Peterloo handkerchiefs on display. All the mementos carried the iconic image of Peterloo; cavalrymen with swords drawn riding down and slashing at defenceless civilians. The reverse of the Peterloo medal carried a Biblical text, derived from Psalm 37:14:

> The wicked have drawn out the sword, they have cast down the poor and needy and such as be of upright conversation.

Peterloo was the first public meeting at which journalists from important, distant newspapers were present and within a day or so of the event, accounts were published in London, Leeds and Liverpool. The London and national papers shared the horror felt in the Manchester region, and the feeling of indignation throughout the country became intense. James Wroe, editor of the Manchester Observer, was the first to describe the incident as the "Peterloo Massacre", coining his headline by creating the ironic portmanteau from St Peter's Field and the Battle of Waterloo that had taken place four years earlier. He also wrote pamphlets entitled "The Peterloo Massacre: A Faithful Narrative of the Events". Priced at 2d each, they sold out every print run for 14 weeks and had a large national circulation. Sir Francis Burdett, a reformist MP, was jailed for three months for publishing a seditious libel.

Percy Bysshe Shelley was in Italy and did not hear of the massacre until 5 September. His poem The Masque of Anarchy, subtitled Written on the Occasion of the Massacre at Manchester, was sent for publication in the radical periodical The Examiner, but because of restrictions on the radical press it was not published until 1832, ten years after the poet's death.

### Political

The immediate effect of Peterloo was a crackdown on reform. The government instructed the police and courts to go after the journalists, presses and publication of the Manchester Observer. Wroe was arrested and charged with producing a seditious publication. Found guilty he was sentenced to 12 months in prison and fined £100. Outstanding court cases against the Manchester Observer were rushed through the courts and a continual change of sub-editors was not sufficient defence against a series of police raids, often on the suspicion that someone was writing a radical article. The Manchester Observer closed in February 1820.

Hunt and eight others were tried at York Assizes on 16 March 1820, charged with sedition. After a two-week trial, five defendants were found guilty, on a single one of the seven charges. Hunt was sentenced to 30 months in Ilchester Gaol; Bamford, Johnson, and Healey were given one year each, and Knight was jailed for two years on a subsequent charge. A civil case on behalf of a weaver wounded at Peterloo was brought against four members of the Manchester Yeomanry, Captain Birley, Captain Withington, Trumpeter Meagher, and Private Oliver, at Lancaster Assizes, on 4 April 1822. All were acquitted, as the court ruled their actions had been justified to disperse an illegal gathering and that the murders were nothing more than self-defense.

The government declared its support for the actions taken by the magistrates and the army. The Manchester magistrates held a supposedly public meeting on 19 August, so that resolutions supporting the action they had taken three days before could be published. Cotton merchants Archibald Prentice (later editor of The Manchester Times) and Absalom Watkin (a later corn-law reformer), both members of the Little Circle, organised a petition of protest against the violence at St Peter's Field and the validity of the magistrates' meeting. Within a few days it had collected 4,800 signatures. Nevertheless, the Home Secretary, Lord Sidmouth, on 27 August conveyed to the magistrates the thanks of the Prince Regent for their action in the "preservation of the public peace." That public exoneration was met with fierce anger and criticism. During a debate at Hopkins Street Robert Wedderburn declared "The Prince is a fool with his Wonderful letters of thanks ... What is the Prince Regent or King to us, we want no King – he is no use to us." In an open letter, Richard Carlile said:

> Unless the Prince calls his ministers to account and relieved his people, he would surely be deposed and make them all REPUBLICANS, despite all adherence to ancient and established institutions.

For a few months following Peterloo it seemed to the authorities that the country was heading towards an armed rebellion. Encouraging them in that belief were two abortive uprisings, in Huddersfield and Burnley, the Yorkshire West Riding Revolt, during the autumn of 1820, and the discovery and foiling of the Cato Street conspiracy to blow up the cabinet that winter. By the end of the year, the government had introduced legislation, later known as the Six Acts, to suppress radical meetings and publications, and by the end of 1820 every significant working-class radical reformer was in jail; civil liberties had declined to an even lower level than they were before Peterloo. Historian Robert Reid has written that "it is not fanciful to compare the restricted freedoms of the British worker in the post-Peterloo period in the early nineteenth century with those of the black South African in the post-Sharpeville period of the late twentieth century."

The Peterloo Massacre also influenced the naming of the 1821 Cinderloo Uprising in the Coalbrookdale Coalfield of east Shropshire. The uprising saw 3,000 protesting workers confronted by the Shropshire Yeomanry, leading to the deaths of 3 crowd members.

One direct consequence of Peterloo was the foundation of the Manchester Guardian newspaper in 1821, by the Little Circle group of non-conformist Manchester businessmen headed by John Edward Taylor, a witness to the massacre. The prospectus announcing the new publication proclaimed that it would "zealously enforce the principles of civil and religious Liberty ... warmly advocate the cause of Reform ... endeavour to assist in the diffusion of just principles of Political Economy and ... support, without reference to the party from which they emanate, all serviceable measures."

Events such as the Pentrich rising, the March of the Blanketeers and the Spa Fields meeting, all serve to indicate the breadth, diversity and widespread geographical scale of the demand for economic and political reform at the time. Peterloo had no effect on the speed of reform, but in due course all but one of the reformers' demands, annual parliaments, were met. Following the Great Reform Act of 1832, the newly created Manchester parliamentary borough elected its first two MPs. Five candidates including William Cobbett stood, and the Whigs, Charles Poulett Thomson and Mark Philips, were elected. Manchester became a Municipal Borough in 1838, and the manorial rights were purchased by the borough council in 1846.

On the other hand, R. J. White has affirmed the true significance of Peterloo as marking the point of final conversion of provincial England to the struggle for enfranchisement of the working class. "The ship which had tacked and lain for so long among the shoals and shallows of Luddism, hunger-marching, strikes and sabotage, was coming to port"; "Henceforth, the people were to stand with ever greater fortitude behind that great movement, which, stage by stage throughout the nineteenth century, was to impose a new political order upon society"; "With Peterloo, and the departure of Regency England, parliamentary reform had come of age."

## Commemorations

The Skelmanthorpe Flag, believed to have been made in Skelmanthorpe, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, in 1819, was made to honour the victims of the Peterloo Massacre and was flown at mass meetings held in the area demanding the reform of Parliament. This was one of dozens of mass protest meetings held in 1819, until the Six Acts put an end to protests. Throughout the nineteenth century, the memory of Peterloo was a political rallying point for both radicals and liberals to attack the tories and demand further reforms of parliament. These came at the rate of one per generation in 1832, 1867, 1884, and 1918, when universal manhood suffrage and partial female suffrage was achieved.

The Free Trade Hall, home of the Anti-Corn Law League, was built partly as a "cenotaph raised on the shades of the victims" of Peterloo, but one which acknowledged only the reformers' demand for the repeal of the corn laws and not for the vote. At the centenary in 1919, just two years after the Russian revolution and the Bolshevik coup, trade unionists and communists alike saw Peterloo as a lesson that workers needed to fight back against capitalist violence. The Conservative majority on Manchester City Council in 1968-1969 declined to mark the 150th anniversary of Peterloo, but their Labour successors in 1972 placed a blue plaque high up on the wall of the Free Trade Hall, now the Radisson Hotel. This in turn was criticised for failing to recognise that anyone was killed or injured. In a 2006 survey conducted by The Guardian, Peterloo came second to St. Mary's Church, Putney, the venue for the Putney Debates, as the event from radical British history that most deserved a proper monument. The euphemism on the blue plaque was described by comedian and activist Mark Thomas as "an act of historical vandalism akin to Stalin airbrushing dissidents out of photographs". A Peterloo Memorial Campaign was set up to lobby for a 'Respectful, Informative and Permanent' (RIP) monument to an event that has been described as Manchester's Tiananmen Square.

In 2007, Manchester City Council replaced the original blue plaque with a red one, giving a fuller account of the events of 1819. It was unveiled on 10 December 2007 by the Lord Mayor of Manchester, Councillor Glynn Evans. Under the heading "St. Peter's Fields: The Peterloo Massacre", the present plaque reads, "On 16th August 1819 a peaceful rally of 60,000 pro-democracy reformers, men, women and children, was attacked by armed cavalry resulting in 15 deaths and over 600 injuries."

## Memorial

In 2019, shortly before the 200th anniversary of the massacre, Manchester City Council "quietly unveiled" a new memorial by the artist Jeremy Deller. It was inaugurated at a large public gathering on 16 August 2019, widely reported in the press, covered extensively on regional TV and radio, and marked by a special edition of the Manchester Evening News.

The 1.5-metre-high memorial features 11 concentric steps engraved, sculpted from polished local stone and carved with the names of the dead and the places from which the victims came. The material not visible from the ground is reproduced at ground level, and there is a floor plaque.
While this met the official standards for access, it was also interpreted by some as a 'speaking platform' made inaccessible by its stepped design. The city council has promised that it will be modified to rectify this. Some disability campaigners described the memorial as 'vile' and calling for it to be demolished, a stance which in turn caused offence by appearing to dismiss the experiences of the many disabled victims of Peterloo. It has in practice proved very difficult to design a wheelchair ramp that does not damage or block substantial parts of the inscriptions.

The memorial has meanwhile become widely appreciated and visited, and the Peterloo Memorial Campaign site states that it is 'Proud to have campaigned for a respectful, informative and permanent Peterloo Memorial at the heart of Manchester'.

## Representations in popular culture

In 1968, in celebration of its centenary, the Trades Union Congress commissioned British composer Sir Malcolm Arnold to write the Peterloo Overture. The organist Jonathan Scott recorded a solo work, 'Peterloo 1819', at the parish church in the radical village of Royton in 2017. Scott is a descendant of the wider family of the Peterloo radical Samuel Bamford from nearby Middleton. Several musical pieces in different genres from rap to oratorio were commissioned and performed in connection with the 2019 Peterloo bicentenary. Other musical commemorations include Harvey Kershaw MBE's folk revival song, which was recorded by the Oldham Tinkers (listen), "Ned Ludd Part 5" on British folk rock group Steeleye Span's 2006 album Bloody Men, and Rochdale rock band Tractor's suite of five songs written and recorded in 1973, later included on their 1992 release Worst Enemies. The long history of verse about Peterloo is covered in Alison Morgan's 2018 book Ballads and Songs of Peterloo. In 2019 a whole volume of essays was devoted to the commemoration of Peterloo, including an essay by Ian Haywood on 'The Sounds of Peterloo' and other contributions covering Hunt, Cobbett, Castlereagh, Bentham, Wordsworth, Shelley, Scotland, and Ireland.

The 2018 Mike Leigh film Peterloo is based on the events at Peterloo, and was widely acclaimed for its powerful rendition of events and its recreation of the period. The 1947 film Fame Is the Spur, based on the Howard Spring novel of the same name, depicts the rise of a politician inspired by his grandfather's account of the massacre. Recent novels about Peterloo include Carolyn O'Brien's The Song of Peterloo and Jeff Kaye's All the People. The most important fictional treatment remains Isabella Banks's 1876 novel, The Manchester Man, for its author lived in Manchester at the time and wove into her account numerous testimonies she picked up from people who were involved. It was also the subject of a graphic novel in 'verbatim' form, Peterloo: Witnesses to a Massacre, with the story told mainly through words written and spoken at the time. In 2016, Big Finish released a Doctor Who audio adventure based around the events of the Peterloo Massacre.

## See also

- History of Manchester
- Bristol riot of Queen's Square, 1831
- Cinderloo Uprising, 1821
- List of massacres in Great Britain

1819 killing by British troops in Manchester

19th-century military history of the United Kingdom

Massacres committed by the United Kingdom

Political scandals in the United Kingdom