200th anniversary

The attack of 16th August 1819 by mounted Yeomanry and Hussars on a peaceful demonstration at St Peter’s Field in Manchester, outraged much of public opinion at the time, and continues to be a pivotal event in the story of Manchester and all the surrounding manufacturing towns. To commemorate the 200th anniversary a special service was held in Manchester Cathedral, addressing the complicity of local clerics in the events of the period.

At that service our broadsheet of the poem, Rants, Whisper and Cries by Andrew Rudd, the Cathedral’s Poet-in-Residence, was first published, and appears as the central poem in this booklet along with Shelley’s The Condition of England in 1819, the verse from the Skelmanthorpe Banner, and an introduction to explain the context.

The illustration, based on an 1819 image, and the lettering based on that from the banner, are by Manchester calligrapher Stephen Raw. Two hundred copies were printed, 150 of which are available sewn into stiff card, the balance bound as hardbacks. The type was hand set throughout in Verona, images printed from metal plates.