Crowd Size Estimates at Peterloo Massacre Analyzed

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1
An examination of the crowd size at the Peterloo Massacre
QRS Essay
Warwick University Student Number 0432982
‘Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number -
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you -
Ye are many - they are few.’
Shelley – The Mask of Anarchy1
When Shelley wrote The Mask of Anarchy in 1819, he captured the nation’s mood of
shock about the Peterloo Massacre on 16 August that year. Perhaps in the desire to
emphasise that shock, local and national newspapers quickly published estimated
crowd figures for the gathering. Reports reached the London Times on August 19 when
it reported that 80,000 people had been present2
. On the same day the Scottish
Caledonian Mercury claimed a figure of 70,0003
while the Derby Mercury asserted
that no less than 100,000 attended4
, a figure also claimed in a pamphlet by Mr Innes, a
Manchester printer.5
These figures have been largely unquestioned by historians, for
example: 60,000 (Read6
and Marlow7
), 60,000-100,000 (Thompson8
) and 50,000
(Bush9
). I propose to apply quantitative tests to see if these claims substantiated.
Coming just four years after Waterloo, the gathering marked the culmination of
‘the prolonged post war contest between governors and governed’.10
The employment
market was flooded with large numbers of demobilised troops and the 1818 harvest
1
Percy Shelley, ‘The Mask of Anarchy’, in Harold Bloom (Ed.), The Selected Poetry and Prose of Shelley,
(London, 1966), p. 232.
2
The Times, 19 Aug 1819.
3
Caledonian Mercury, 19 August 1819.
4
Derby Mercury, 19 August 1819.
5
The centenary of the massacre of British workers : Peterloo, Manchester, Monday, August 16th, 1819, from
Pamphlets in Warwick University Library, A portfolio of contemporary documents. Glyde, A., 1919. p. 12.
6
Donald Read, Peterloo – The Massacre and its Background, (Manchester, 1973), p. 139.
7
Joyce Marlow, The Peterloo Massacre, (London, 1970), p. 129.
8
E.P.Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class, (London, 1980), p. 748.
9
Michael Bush, The Casualties of Peterloo, (Lancaster, 2005), p 48.
10
R.J.White, Waterloo to Peterloo, (London, 1968), p. 16.

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2
was poor so corn was scarce and prices were high.11
Government procrastination over
electoral reform prompted a wave of protest led by men such as William Cobbett,
Major Cartwright and Henry Hunt. But when seasoned orator, Hunt took his campaign
to the industrial north it marked a coming-together of the local subsistence concerns of
factory workers with the more ideological aims of the national reform movement.
Magistrates were nervous after the foiled Blanketeers march and Pentrich rising,
and recent gatherings at St Peters Fields must have been uppermost in their minds
when they commissioned a regiment of local Yeomanry commanded by cotton mill
owners. The meeting, originally set for 9 August had to be re-scheduled when it was
declared illegal because of its stated aim of the ‘electing a Person to represent [the
Inhabitants of Manchester] in Parliament’.12
Redrafting to the less provocative:
‘considering the propriety of adopting the most legal and effectual means of obtaining
a reform’ meant magistrates allowed the meeting to go ahead on 16 August. Hunt
implored people to bring no weapons13
and local reform unions readied themselves
with disciplined drilling on the moors and, according to Middleton stalwart, Samuel
Bamford, the day began in a celebratory atmosphere of a seasonal Rushcart
procession.14
I won’t describe the day’s events in detail as they are well documented
elsewhere, suffice it to say that before the meeting got underway magistrates, fearing a
riot, ordered the yeomanry to arrest Hunt which they did with sabres drawn and, in the
process of dispersing the crowd, some 654 people were injured of which 18 died.15
Graphic accounts of injuries earned the event the title ‘Peter Loo’ in an ironic
juxtaposition of the patriotic glory of Waterloo against the bloody shame of 16 August.
11
White, Waterloo to Peterloo, p. 187
12
Read, Peterloo, pp. 113-117.
13
Thompson, Making, p. 752..
14
Robert Poole, ‘The March to Peterloo: Politics and Festivity in Late Georgian England’, Past & Present
192 (2006) p. 109.
15
Bush, Casualties, p 44.

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Quantitative data does exist for Peterloo in the form of three casualty lists. One
was compiled by reform lawyer Charles Pearson, a second by radical journalist James
Wroe and finally one by the Metropolitan and Central Relief Committee to enable fair
and proportionate dispensation of relief to those injured.16
These lists can’t answer the
crucial question of how many people were present in the square but they do help to
pinpoint the local towns of origin of the processions. This in turn helps to quantify the
population of the area from which the crowd was drawn and give an indication of the
gender balance within the crowd. There is one fact about Peterloo, however, which
helps to quantify the crowd and that is that the meeting took place in a public square
surrounded on all sides by buildings. As such it provides a measurable, finite area – a
perfect starting point. So I needed to measure the area of the square and then test
possible different crowd sizes at varying densities. With this data I produced a chart to
see how each claim stands up to scrutiny. This allowed me to discuss the implications
of my research not only for scholars of Peterloo but for other contentious gatherings.
But first a few words about methodology.
In the late 1960s, Professor Herbert Jacobs, of the University of California in
Berkeley, estimated crowd numbers of anti-Vietnam War demonstrators from his
office in a tower block overlooking a square which he divided into a grid. In Jacobs’
‘arms length’ system, a ‘loose’ crowd, one where each person is at arm’s length from
his neighbour’s body, occupies ten square feet per person. A ‘tight’ crowd fills 4.5
square feet per person, and a ‘packed’ crowd would squeeze into 2.5 square feet per
person.17
16
Bush, Casualties, pp. 6-8.
17
Time, 7 April 1967, <http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,843533,00.html> (16 January
2011).

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4
‘A view of St Peters Plain Manchester on the Memorable 16 August 1819 Representing
the Forcible Dispersion of the People by the Yeomanry Cavalry &c’
By T Whaite, advertised for sale in Manchester Observer 22 October 181918
Chartist meeting at Kennington Common 10 April 1848
Daguerreotype by William Kilburn19
18
19
William Kilburn, Daguerreotype 1848,
http://www.bl.uk/learning/histcitizen/21cc/struggle/chartists1/historicalsources/source6/kenningtoncommon.ht
ml (16 January 2011).

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5
To test Jacobs’ system, I sampled crowd density at another reform gathering.
Then I used present day satellite images of the streets around the former St Peter’s
Square to estimate the area occupied by the crowd. Next I combined these two pieces
of data to produce a chart showing the crowd densities implied by contemporary
reports and scholarly work. Finally I used the population data for the areas from which
the crowd was drawn to see how the various claims stand up to scrutiny.
Although the extensive range of contemporary prints of Peterloo make an
interesting primary source, they are not suitable for counting. To check density I used a
daguerreotype of a Chartist reform gathering which occurred 29 years later in London.
What is apparent from this image is the variation in density at different parts of the
gathering. There are gaps and tighter ‘huddles’. I applied a 10ft perspective grid over
the image in order to sample crowd density at different distances from the hustings and
found there to be an average of twenty people per square in the most dense areas
falling to around ten at the periphery. As each square covers an area of 100 square feet,
this gives a density of between five and ten square feet per person. I set the average
density at seven, which puts the Kennington crowd mid-way between Jacobs’ loose
and tight crowd.
Kennington Sample
(near hustings) 20 people per 100 sq ft grid square = 5 sq ft pp
(at periphery) 10 per square = 10 sq ft pp
= Average of 7 sq ft pp
But how confident can I be in applying the Kennington density to the Peterloo
crowd? Although, there is an element of speculation, the 29 years which separate the
two events is a short time in historical terms – only two years more than that which
separates today (2011) from the 1984 miners strike. Many Peterloo engravings
corroborate uneven crowd density so I decided to accept the density of seven people
per square feet.

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Map 1: Plan of Peterloo prepared for 1819 Enquiry.
Shaded area indicates crowd.20
Map 2: Satellite image of present day street plan.
Shading used to calculate area.21
20
21
St Peters Street, Manchester M2 <http://maps.google.co.uk> (16 January 2011).

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Windmill St
Bootle St
Mount
St
10 ft squares = 100 sq ft x 257 = 25,700 sq ft
Total Area = 155,700 sq ft (17,000 sq yds)
100 ft squares = 10,000 sq ft x 13 = 130,000 sq ft
Peter St
Fig 1: Crowd area calculation
0
30,000
60,000
90,000
120,000
150,000
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9
Jacobs’ DensityThresholds
Based on 165,000 sq ft area:
Packed Crowd 61,500
Tight Crowd 33,500
Loose Crowd 15,500
Fig 2: Crowd area calculation22
22
For claim sources see footnotes 2-9 of this essay p 1.

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Next I calculated the area occupied by the crowd. The square was bounded by
present day Mount Street, Windmill Street and Bootle Street /Peter Street forming a
uneven triangle which I assumed that the crowd completely filled (Map 1). To
calculate the area I compared a present day satellite image with the 1819 map and
divided it into 100ft and 10 ft squares to measure the area (Map 2). I calculated that
155,700 sq ft was available for occupation by the crowd (Fig 1). This enabled me to
project the possible crowd size at Jacobs’ three density thresholds as follows:
For 155,000 sq ft area:
Loose Crowd = 15,500 people
Tight Crowd = 33,500 people
Packed Crowd = 61,500 people (Fig 2)
From this it is immediately apparent that, while the most accepted crowd size of
60,000 was feasible, it would have been dangerously ‘packed’ and atypical of
demonstrations from any period, having more in common with crowds engaged in
crush conditions at the front of a modern rock festival. So I suggest that the larger
claims of 100,000 upwards cannot be substantiated. Indeed, using Jacobs’ ‘tight’
crowd density produces a figure of just 33,500. To go a stage further and project a
density of seven square feet per person as in the Kennington image, produces a figure
of under 20,000 which, while still denser than Jacob’s ‘arms length’ density, falls well
short of any of the accepted estimates.
Next I looked at population data to see if the larger claims were possible. The
crowd was drawn from reform groups as far afield as Bolton to the north West,
Rochdale to the east and Stockport to the south. Although there are no figures for 1819
there was a census in 1821 and from this the population of the region from which the
crowd was drawn can be set at around 534,000.23
However, as Bush states, half the
population was female and a further 39% were children which leaves a cohort of just
23
Bush, Casualties, p. 48.

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198,000 males over 15. While the casualty lists show that women and children were
present, Bush calculates that only one in eight were women.24
The Kennington image
also shows few women. Of the 198,000 possible males, many were old or infirm.
Others may have been Mill owners or clerical workers (unlikely to attend), tradesmen
(unable to attend) and some present in other capacities such as the Yeomanry. So, as
Malcolm and Walter Bee state in their 1989 local history essay, ‘an assembly of 60,000
becomes wholly untenable’.25
Bush is more comfortable with a figure of 50,000. I
would go further and conjecture that a figure of 35,000 based on Jacobs’ ‘tight’ density
may not be an unreasonable deduction. My reasoning is that, even allowing for a
crowd comprising 5,000 women and children (Bush’s 1 in 8), the remaining 30,000
males would represent 15% of the available male population of the area which is still a
staggering turnout considering everybody walked there and that 16 August was a
Monday and, as such, a working day.
So what are we to make of the disparity between the accepted figures and my
findings. One possibility I have to face is that I am just wrong. But even if I am, as
Michael Bush says, it is hard to justify a figure of more than 50,000.26
Perhaps the
figures have simply never been questioned. It is easy to see why contemporary reports
could claim high figures. It could have been in the interests of the rally organisers and
participants to claim high attendance to give credence to their cause. This perhaps
explains Hunt and Bamford’s extravagant claims. Paradoxically, it could also have
been in the interest of the magistrates and yeomanry to claim high numbers to justify
the use of excess force and the subsequent repression.27
It can also be seen that the
newspaper proprietors of the day might have been tempted to err on the higher side to
24
25
Malcolm and Walter Bee, ‘The Casualties of Peterloo’, Manchester Region History Review, 3 (1989), p. 47.
<http://www.mcrh.mmu.ac.uk/pubs/pdf/mrhr_03i_bee_bee.pdf> (16 January 2011).
26
27
Charles Tilly, Popular Contention in Great Britain 1758-1834, (Harvard, 2005), p. 254.

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add sensationalism to their reporting to boost sales. But how could historians such as
E.P. Thompson be so inaccurate? After all their work appears thorough in most other
respects. It may not have occurred to them to run area or density calculations but they
could have easily run the simple exercise I undertook which would have shown them
that a crowd of 100,000 would have represented over half of the males over 15 in the
area and as such is simply not tenable. Why didn’t they check? The answer is probably
mundane – perhaps they simply weren’t inclined or didn’t have the tools. Ultimately it
was easier to accept the figures rather than check them. Not with the intention to
deceive but perhaps they felt accepting the larger figure made their point more
strongly. Ultimately this is something we all do as historians so it is unfair to single out
a few – the lesson is for us all.
For any historical thesis to be useful it has to have some point. So what are the
implications of my research? It could be said that my proposed figure of 35,000
diminishes the significance of the event. On the contrary, I argue that a smaller total
figure represents a larger percentage of casualties. If only 35,000 were present then
654 casualties means that attendees had a 1 in 2000 chance of being injured, a truly
shocking statistic, particularly considering the reformers’ policy of non-violence.
But there are a few caveats. The fact that around 1/3 of casualties resulted from
crushing by the crowd or trampling by horse rather than from sabre or gunshot wounds
implies an element of a ‘Hillsborough Football’ type disaster in which injuries occur
when crowds are driven into a confined area.28
This goes against my argument for a
smaller crowd. Secondly I have assumed that the full extent of the crowd was
contained within the square at the moment of intervention. But at many gatherings the
whole crowd can’t fit within the designated area. Could a larger crowd have been
dispersed through the surrounding streets? And what of the timing? Although it is
28

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reported that many arrived hours early, it is also possible that some contingents were
still arriving when the atrocity took place potentially contributing to scale of the
disaster by blocking the exits to the square. After all it would have represented a five
hour march for some of the far-flung contingents such as the Saddleworth procession.
Finally, are we correct to assume that all the violence occurred in one burst? Perhaps a
running battle ensued into the evening? There is evidence that the violence was still
continuing sporadically as late 9pm.29
I can now evaluate my methodology. I would have preferred a more stringent
yardstick than Jacobs’ three density thresholds which seem somewhat arbitrary.
However the control exercise I undertook provided a useful check and is something
which could be applied to crowds in the modern era where photographic evidence is
available. The satellite imagery proved helpful for gaining an accurate area
measurement (which roughly corresponds with Bush’s figure of 14,000 square
yards).30
One of the most useful parts of the exercise, once I had ruled out the more
extravagant claims, was my cross-checking against population figures, a technique
used by the Bees and Bush but not, as far as I can tell by other historians.
But perhaps, as with any exercise, this essay has been more useful for the
questions it opens up rather than for any dramatic conclusions. It points the way
towards future research, perhaps widening it to include a range of gatherings. Charles
Tilly’s exhaustive Popular Contention in Great Britain 1758-1834 could provide a
model for this although Tilly wisely limits himself to quantifying the numbers of
gatherings which occurred in a given year/region rather than attempting to validate
numbers of participants.
In conclusion, I have shown that even a simple check against what is reasonable
should be enough to rule out extravagant claims. This case shows that ‘facts’ in
29
Marlow, Peterloo Massacre, p. 148.
30

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primary documents can’t be taken as read. While given time, some aspects of my
methodology could have been improved and my proposed figures are somewhat
speculative, this does not diminish the validity of the exercise. It shows perhaps a
salutary lesson for historians not to take reported crowd figures for granted and to
verify or at least test primary observations/claims, especially for widely reported major
events.
Postscript
When doing quantitative history, it is easy to forget the human side of an event.
Individual stories get lost in the numbers. The reports are full of narratives which bring
home the full impact of how the massacre touched the individual lives of the victims
and their dependants. I have selected just one:
Booth, William, Aged 45 and a Carder with three children.
Severe sabre-cut on the left side of his head to the skull, left knee hurt.
Two weeks disabled. Was knocked down and trampled on. Is now a
prisoner for debt.31
2724 words
31
The Report of the Metropolitan and Central Committee Appointed for the Relief of Manchester Sufferers,
(London 1820)

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Bibliography
Manuscript Sources
Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick:
MSS.334/5/MIS/5
The story of Peterloo by F.A. Bruton
MSS.78/5/14/54
CA Glyde, ‘The centenary of the massacre of British workers,
Peterloo, Manchester’.
MSS.348/3/64
‘Shelley’s Revolutionary Year’
University of Warwick Library
The centenary of the massacre of British workers : Peterloo, Manchester, Monday,
August 16th, 1819. A portfolio of contemporary documents. Glyde, A., 1919.
Newspapers
Caledonian Mercury, 19 August 1819.
Derby Mercury, 19 August 1819.
The Times, 19 Aug 1819.
Published Secondary Sources
Bee, Malcolm and Walter, ‘The Casualties of Peterloo’, Manchester Region History Review,
3 (1989), <http://www.mcrh.mmu.ac.uk/pubs/pdf/mrhr_03i_bee_bee.pdf> (16 January
2011).
Bush, Michael, The Casualties of Peterloo, (Lancaster, 2005).
Donald, Diana, The Power of Print, Graphic Images of Waterloo, Manchester Region
History Review, 3 (1989), http://www.mcrh.mmu.ac.uk/pubs/pdf/mrhr_03i_donald.pdf (16
January 2011).
Hudson, Pat, History by numbers : an introduction to quantitative approaches,
(London, 2000).
Marlow, Joyce, The Peterloo Massacre, (London, 1970).
Plotz, John, The Crowd – British Literature and Public Politics, (Berkeley, 2000).
Poole, Robert, ‘The March to Peterloo: Politics and Festivity in Late Georgian England’,
Past & Present 192 (2006)
Read, Donald , Peterloo – The Massacre and its Background, (Manchester, 1973).
Rogers, Nicholas, Crowds, Culture, and Politics in Georgian Britain, (New York, 1998).
Rudé, George, The Crowd in History 1730-1848, (London, 1981).

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Shelley, Percy, ‘The Mask of Anarchy’, in Harold Bloom (Ed.), The Selected Poetry and
Prose of Shelley, (London, 1966).
Stevenson, John, Popular Disturbances in England 1700-1832, (Essex, 1992).
Thompson, E.P., The Making of the English Working Class, (London, 1980).
Tilly, Charles, Popular Contention in Great Britain 1758-1834, (Harvard, 2005).
White, R.J., Waterloo to Peterloo, (London, 1968).
World Wide Web
Kilburn, William , Daguerreotype 1848,
http://www.bl.uk/learning/histcitizen/21cc/struggle/chartists1/historicalsources/source6/kenn
ingtoncommon.html (16 January 2011).
Time, 7 April 1967, <http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,843533,00.html>
(16 January 2011).

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