Peterloo Massacre

British  

/ ˌpiːtəˈluː /

noun

1. an incident at St Peter's Fields, Manchester, in 1819 in which a radical meeting was broken up by a cavalry charge, resulting in about 500 injuries and 11 deaths

---

Etymology

Origin of Peterloo Massacre

C19: from St Peter's Fields + _Waterloo

Example Sentences

In a poem about this event — the infamous Peterloo Massacre — Percy Bysshe Shelley proclaimed that the downtrodden would soon “rise like Lions after slumber.”

From Washington Post • May 29, 2019

What happened at St Peter’s Fields would become known as the Peterloo Massacre – a name coined by a local journalist named James Wroe in punning reference to the Battle of Waterloo four years earlier.

From The Guardian • Jan. 4, 2018

Maxine Peake will be performing the poem close to the site of the Peterloo Massacre As globally-sourced as the programme of the Manchester International Festival is, there are elements born and bred in the city.

From BBC • Jul. 13, 2013

Other festival highlights include actress Maxine Peake in the play The Masque of Anarchy, inspired by the 1819 Peterloo Massacre in Manchester.

From BBC • Jul. 4, 2013

In July, she will perform Shelley's The Masque of Anarchy, a 91-stanza political epic written in response to the Peterloo Massacre, at the Manchester international festival.

From The Guardian • Mar. 24, 2013