Changes

The movie begins by giving background to the story. The Napoleonic wars had just ended. Rather than relief, for most English people this meant misery with oppressive conditions and no hope of improving their condition under the current laws. Former soldiers, textile workers, and others begin to organize protests and rallies against the government as the Corn Laws and other legislation that makes their lives worse are passed. Henry Hunt arrives in Manchester from London to speak to the protestors, where he was invited to join and lead the protests. He is depicted as a wealthy man who was nonetheless sympathetic to the plight of the working and poorer classes, wanting greater equality for the classes and greater representation. Despite this, he still has some arrogance to his character, being of a higher class than many of the people he speaks for and considering himself better positioned to represent them. Lord Sidmouth, who controls a network of government spies, sees sedition and the threat of violence to the country if the protestors are allowed to continue to agitate for greater reforms. His spies make the situation sound worse to him and he becomes more paranoid with events. Events lead to August 16, 1819, when dragoons and yeoman soldiers stationed nearby are brought to the gathering taking place as Hunt begin begins talking to the crowd. As they move in to arrest Hunt, they then try to disperse the crowd but the situation soon lost control as a panic sets in the crowd and soldiers move in. This eventually leads to pandemonium, with the soldiers then charging the crowd with their weapons and swords, with 18 people killed and many more injured. The government then begins a severe crackdown on reforms and suspends rights to gather, passing the Six Acts law that suppressed meetings seen as potentially radical. However, while the protest movement was largely suppressed, the events inspired locals to found the newspaper the <i>Manchester Guardian</i> in 1821, which becomes the <i>Guradian</i> of today. Protests eventually become non-violent in focus, with writing being the key vehicle of protest. Writers such as John Taylor and others begin to call for greater government reforms using the <i> Guardinan</i> as their key mouthpiece, making the paper ultimately become a key voice for later reforms and later protestors and activists who began to use the events and founding of the newspaper to eventually begin to convince the British government to reform and create a more inclusive democracy.<ref>For more on the founding <i>Guardian</i> and its connection to the Peterloo events, see: Read, D., 1973. <i>Peterloo: the “massacre” and its background</i>. Manchester U.P., Manchester. </ref>