HENRY “ORATOR” HUNT (1773-1835)
The Cato Street Conspiracy is unthinkable without four particular occasions between 1816 and 1819. Henry Hunt presides (or intends to preside) at them all.
The historical events, all public meetings or rallies, are emotive and sometimes chaotic. Involving tens of thousands of people, no single retelling can claim a complete picture. Three are explored in Turtle Soup for the King, all from the imagined point of view of participants.
The fourth meeting (the first, chronologically) is the least eventful - that is, there are no disruptions until Henry Hunt finds himself obliged - in fact and fiction -to invite the tavern radicals to a celebratory fish and chip supper with his gentlemen associates.
The most famous of the four meetings meeting is the fourth, when Henry Hunt is arrested on the order of town magistrates.
The subsequent attacks by inexperienced special constables and yeomanry, supported by professional soldiers are responsible for the deaths of 17 men, women and children and injuries - many life-changing - to hundreds more.
The so-called BATTLE OF PETERLOO led directly to the CATO STREET CONSPIRACY.
Henry Hunt by George Cruikshank, 1816. Courtesy British Museum ImagesTHE FOUR MEETINGS
Spa Fields, London, 15th November, 1816 Organised by the Spenceans; considered a success, but reports frighten the government.
Spa Fields , London, 2nd December, 1816 Organised by the Spenceans, with intervention by the authorities; leads to a riot and arrests.
Smithfield, London, 21st July, 1819 Organised by the Spenceans and others, with intervention by the authorities. Considered a success, but with dramatic developments.
St Peter’s Field, Manchester, 16th August, 1819 Organised by the Manchester Patriotic Union, with intervention by the authorities . Enters history as the Battle of Peterloo.
At the age of 24, Hunt inherits estates in Wiltshire and Somerset.
After meeting Thomas Hardy (founder of the London Corresponding Society) and other radicals in 1800, he becomes interested in politics.
By 1816, he is leading huge (“monster”) reform meetings in Birmingham, Blackburn, Stockport and Macclesfield.
Hunt is best known for the 1819 meeting at Manchester, known as the Battle of Peterloo, after which he is imprisoned and writes his diaries.
Having failed to enter Parliament for Westminster in 1818, Hunt eventually wins the seat for Preston in 1830, but loses it three years later
Having lost much of his fortune in pursuit of his political ambitions, Hunt dabbles in business until his death from a stroke in Hampshire.
Samuel Bamford, renowned weaver radical of Middleton, Lancashire offers a wonderful description of Henry Hunt.
Henry Hunt was gentlemanly in his manner and attire, six feet and better in height, and extremely well formed. He was dressed in a blue lapelled coat, light waistcoat and kerseys, and topped boots. He wore his own hair; it was in moderate quantity and a little grey. His lips were delicately thin and receding. His eyes were blue or light grey - not very clear nor quick, but rather heavy; except as I afterwards had opportunities for observing, when he was excited in speaking; at which times they seemed to distend and protrude; and if he worked himself furious, as he sometimes would, they became blood-streaked, and almost started from their sockets. His voice was bellowing; his face swollen and flushed; his griped hand beat as if it were to pulverise; and his whole manner gave token of a painful energy.
From the window of the Merlin’s Cave, Clerkenwell, Henry Hunt addresses the crowd at the first Spa Fields Meeting, 15th November, 1816 George Cruikshank, 1817. Courtesy British Museum Images.Thistlewood and his ally Dr Watson understand the power of Hunt’s addresses and present him with their ideas for his speech at Spa Field. Not for the final time, there are disagreements.
I found, in fact, that the whole affair was made up of Spencean principles, relating to the holding of all the land in the kingdom as one great farm belonging to the people, or something of that sort. I told them my ideas upon the subject, which were, that the first thing the people had to do, in order to recover their rights, was to obtain a Reform of the Commons' House of Parliament.
Henry Hunt, Memoirs 1812-1819
Although there are ideological differences, Henry Hunt acknowledges that if he wants to make progress in the capital, he needs the support of the tavern-radicals. His first rally at Spa Fields (a larger version of the green space currently outside the London Metropolitan Archive) is considered a success. Less than three weeks later, chaos disrupts the second rally, and the relationship between Hunt and Thistlewood is shaken.
Once we left Spa Field, I presumed that the Orator, Young Watson and Castles were in the throng ahead of me or behind. Yes, as we all moved forward, I became infected by the excitement, intoxicated with hope that we could succeed. Who, in similar circumstances, would not?
Thistlewood remembers the second Spa Field Rally, Turtle Soup for the King, 5th May, 1819
Smithfield Parliament. Hunt, dressed as an ass, addresses the crowd, 21st July, 1819. Charles Williams, 1819. Courtesy British Museum Images.Henry Hunt presides at a huge rally at Smithfield, at which Arthur Thistlewood is one of the organisers and speakers. Originally planned to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the storming of the Bastille, the date is postponed to accommodate the increasing number of enthusiasts in London and its fringes. A special guest has arrived from a town near Manchester.
Great military preparations were on this occasion made, under the pretence of quelling some tremendous riot, or some apprehended insurrection. The then Lord Mayor, John Atkins, was a corrupt and devoted tool of the Government, and he made himself particularly officious in this affair. Six thousand constables were sworn in the day before, and in the city all was hurry and bustle
Henry Hunt, Memoirs 1812-1819
Thousands of Londoners had made the journey to Smithfield; some for the politics, some for the excitement and most for a dose of each. Hope was reason enough for celebration, and at the very least, it was a day out, and the sun was shining bright. Beside the men, women and children on the ground, revellers filled almost every balcony and rooftop on the square, leaning out of windows, shouting, singing and waving flags .
Turtle Soup for the King, 21st July, 1819
The relationship between Hunt and Thistlewood is rocky. Both were farmer’s sons, born in the same year. While Hunt inherits the privileges of wealth, land-ownership and the fertile fields of the west country, Thistlewood grows up in the harsh, watery landscape of Lincolnshire, and knows only hard work and tenancy.
THE MANCHESTER MASSACRE or the BATTLE OF PETERLOO
The events in Manchester of 16th August, 1819 - the unprovoked murder by armed forces of at least 17 citizens - and the wounding of some 600 - are without parallel in British social history. The Cato Street Conspiracy is unthinkable without it. Until recently, both have been almost whitewashed out of history.
George Cruikshank, 1819. Courtesy British Museum ImagesTO MY LORD SIDMOUTH
Manchester, 16th August, 1819
My Lord,
The Riot Act was read and the mob was completely dispersed, but not without very serious and lamentable effects. One of the Manchester yeomanry was, after the parties was taken, struck by a brick-bat; he lost his power of his horse, and is supposed to have fractured his skull by a fall from his horse. A special constable of the name Ashworth has been killed and four women appear to have lost their lives by being pressed by the crowd. These, I believe, are the fatal effects of the meeting. A variety of instances of sabre wounds occurred but I hope none mortal. Several pistol shots were fired by the mob, but as to their effect, save in one instance, we have no account.
Rev CW Hay on behalf of the Manchester Magistrates
The letter is unlikely to pacify Home Secretary, Sidmouth, whose advice to the Manchester Magistrates has erred on the side of caution. However, it indicates either a disturbing absence of contact with reality or a desire to underplay the scale of the massacre.
Newspaper and other reports ensure that the events of 16th August, 1819 enter popular culture almost immediately. History delivers accounts of varying merit and bias, but it is not until the memorial events of 1819 that the true extent of Peterloo is properly explained.
It seems likely but it is not known whether - in history - any of London’s tavern radicals made it to Manchester, although Thistlewood, whose relationship with Hunt has cooled again, stays in London. In Turtle Soup for the King some of its characters provide an outsider’s view.
He would never waste another day in frivolity or idleness. His every hour would be committed to the service of honest British people, who were suffering because a greedy few preferred to commit murder than to contemplate sharing their advantages, and because another of their kind assumed command of the common man, but was blind to the depravity of which the tyrants among his own class were capable.
Turtle Soup for the King, 16th August, 1819
Recommended Reading
Professor Robert Poole: Peterloo The English Uprising. Oxford University Press, 2019
THE PETERLOO MEMORIAL ERECTED IN MANCHESTER, 1819Political cartoonist, Polyp, historian, Robert Poole and artist and writer Eva Schlunke; Peterloo, Witnesses to a Massacre, 1819. (also available in a free version for schools)
Dr Jacqueline Riding. Peterloo. The Story of the Manchester Massacre. Head of Zeus, 2019
Dr Katrina Navikas. Protest and the Politics of Space. Princeton University Press, 2015.
Dr Alison Morgan. Ballads and Songs of Peterloo. Manchester University Press, 2019.
For a scholarly accounts of the Cato Street Conspiracy, I am encouraged to recommend - though circumstance has prevented me from accessing it -
Editors Professor Jason McElligott and Martin Conboy. The Cato Street Conspiracy. Plotting, counter-intelligence and the revolutionary tradition in Britain and Ireland. Manchester University Press, December, 2019.
FILM
Advised by both Jacqueline Riding and Professor Robert Poole, Mike Leigh’s film Peterloo is well-grounded in fact, though, as in any structured art-work, there are short cuts and fictional elements.
On a personal note, with all the trepidation due to a hero, I watched the Q and A Premiere at my local cinema, while seeking a publisher for the completed novel. With a few exceptions - e.g. the Regent and Joseph Johnson - I was delighted that research had led our characterisation to similar conclusions.
The last words - or equivalent - should go to the Regent (soon to be King) and the wit of the merciless George Cruikshank, when His Royal Highness refuses to to accept petitions submitted by the majority poor of the nation he swears to serve.
George Cruickshank, 1819. Courtesy British Museum ImagesThe king might be out o touch, with his subjects, but he’s not the most bloodthirsty of British monarchs.
A NOTE OF THANKS - Through the eyes of the late Londoner, George Cruikshank (1792-1878), the unpalatable and obnoxious become ridiculous, the unthinkable accessible. He will later be an illustrator for the Grimm brothers and Charles Dickens, but for the years most connected to this project, he is the best possible companion and guide. I thank him.