APPENDIX No. III.
WHEN in Manchester last Autumn, at the house of a friend at Heaton Moor, I was introduced to a lady whose father had occupied premises as a tea-merchant at the New Cross end of Oldham Street, at the time of the Peterloo disturbance, and from her obtained the following particulars, which I have her sanction to put on record, and give in her own words:—
“On that memorable 16th of August, my father was from home, my mother ill in bed, when the household were startled by the entrance of soldiers with drawn swords, or sabres, which they swept under sofas or any place where fugitives might hide; the men were drunk. One little girl ran into the sick room saying the soldiers were murdering her sisters and brothers (the eldest of whom was a pupil of ‘Madame Broadbent’.) The mob outside unpaved Oldham Street in an incredibly short time to provide themselves with missiles wherewith to pelt their pursuers. The blinds were drawn down, and all the children kept from the windows lest any stones should be sent that way. The soldiers did not go upstairs. Four volleys were fired at New Cross one down each road.” And I may add that no one in Mr. W—— ’s house was sabred. What the alarm was to the young mother (a second wife, the mother of my informant), then in bed with her first baby, there is no telling. The fright to the children of the first marriage was ineffaceable. The eldest girl had seen the horrors in the street.
June, 1882.
I. B.
ABEL HEYWOOD & SON MANCHESTER
ABEL HEYWOOD & SON MANCHESTER
Transcriber’s Notes:—The original accentuation, spelling, punctuation and hyphenation has been retained, except for apparent printer’s errors.
Transcriber’s Notes:—
The original accentuation, spelling, punctuation and hyphenation has been retained, except for apparent printer’s errors.