Beer & Peterloo
Beer played an interesting part in Peterloo 200 years ago on Monday 16th August 1819.
The keynote speaker Henry Hunt had, ten years earlier, been the owner of a Bristol brewery. Flyers hostile to Hunt which circulated in Manchester in the days before Peterloo suggested that the beer was bad or adulterated. This was untrue. Below is an extract from Hunt’s memoirs on the brewery
The brewery was built upon the site of an old distillery, at the rising of a spring called Jacob’s Well, at the foot of Brandon Hill, and immediately below Belleview, at Clifton. The whole was soon completed under my own eye, and finished entirely on my own plan. I took advantage of the declivity of the hill, on the side of which the premises were situated, to have it so constructed that the whole process of brewing was conducted, from the grinding of the malt, which fell from the mill into the mash-tun, without any lifting or pumping; with the exception of pumping the water, called _liquor_ by brewers, first into the reservoir, which composed the roof of the building. By turning a cock, this liquor filled the steam boiler, from thence it flowed into the mash-tun; the wort had only once to be pumped, once from the under back into the boiler, from thence it emptied itself, by turning the cock, into the coolers; it then flowed into the working vats and riving casks, and from the stillions, which were immediately above the store casks into which it flowed, only by turning a cock. These store casks were mounted on stands or horses, high enough to set a butt upright, and fill it out of the lower cock; and then the butts and barrels were rolled to the door, and upon the drays, without one ounce of lifting from the commencement of the process to the end. This was a great saving of labour. I left the concern in the hands of my young friend, with every prospect of success, and I then returned to my farm at Chisenbury; having, as I was taught to believe, laid the foundation of a lucrative concern, from which I expected to derive a liberal interest for the money I had advanced, which was about eight thousand pounds, and at the same time afford a handsome income for my young friend. But such is the uncertainty and precarious state of all speculative concerns of this nature, and such the inconstancy of friendship, that, instead of ever receiving one shilling from this concern, I found it still continue to be a drain upon my purse. Bills were coming due, I was told, and they must be provided for, or the credit of the firm would be blasted. Duty, to a large amount, was to be paid every six weeks, and as often I was called upon to assist in making up the sum.
Henry Hunt’s Memoirs Volume 2
On the day itself many who attended Peterloo had considerable distances to march to get there in the days before coach and rail travel. Below is a brief passage from the Guardian (16th August) which notes how the contingent that Samuel Bamford led from Middleton stopped to refresh themselves at a taproom
When the Peterloo marchers reached Harpurhey, the halfway point to Manchester, they needed a rest. In his memoirs, Bamford recalled how “those who thought proper refreshed with a cup of prime ale from Sam Ogden’s tap”. Fighting for democracy was thirsty work.
But beer and brewing were on the other side too at Peterloo and below is a list of publicans who are known to have ridden with the Yeomanry at Peterloo. Whether, as Mike Leigh’s film Peterloo suggests, they had been drinking before the massacre seems difficult to discover (there may be something in the trials of protesters that followed) but it would perhaps not be entirely surprising.
Publicans at Peterloo
John Beeston, Windsor Castle (George Inn) Deansgate
William Bowker, Kings Head, Old Shambles
George Burgess late of Hen & Chickens, Deansgate
Jacob Chadderton, Wool Pack, Pendleton
Cope (first name missing) Liquor Vaults, Corner of Bridge St
Edward Hulms, Blue Cap, Salford
Lees (first name missing) Crown & Thistle, Half St
John Reid, Globe, Gartside St
