Alice Birch Petitioner

• Place: Middleton,Rochdale
• Role: Demonstrator,Injured,Petitioner

Deprived of the use of left arm for 5 months, describes unwarranted attack.

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Petition of Alice Birch, Hopwood in the parish of Middleton.

House of Commons, Votes and Proceedings, [15^th May 1821].

 

A petition of Alice, wife of David Jaques Birch, in Hopwood, in the parish of Middleton, was presented, and read; setting forth, that the petitioner humbly begs leave to state to the House, that at the meeting held in Manchester on the 16^th of August 1819, she received great bodily injury from a cruel and unprovoked attack by an armed force on a peaceable and defenseless multitude of men, women, and children; the petitioner further begs leave to state to the House, that she was deprived of the use of her left arm for the space of five months, from a cut by a sabre, and had her bonnet cut through in several places upon her head; the petitioner further states to the House, that she thinks she never must have the same use of her arm as before; the petitioner most humbly beseeches the House to cause an inquiry into this lawless and sanguinary attack; that the instigators and perpetrators may be brought to justice, and undergo that punishment which the wisdom of the House thinks meet; feeble as is her voice, insignificant as she knows her means to be, she nevertheless humbly begs to be permitted to prove, at the Bar of the House, all the above allegations contained in this her petition.

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