Alice Kearsley Petitioner

• Place: Bolton,Manchester
• Role: Injured,Petitioner

Seventy-two year old, believes Yeomanry were intoxicated, slashed at almost looses ear, took nine days to get medical attention.

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Petition of Alice Kearsley House of Commons,Votes and Proceedings, 15th May 1821. 

(No. 634.)

A Petition of Alice Kearsley, of Manchester, in the County of Lancaster, was presented, and read; setting forth, That the Petitioner, who is seventy-two years of age, was present at the Meeting held on St. Peter’s Plain, in Manchester, on the 16th August 1819; for the purpose of avoiding the pressure of the crowd,she took her station at a considerable distance from the hustings, from whence she could command a view of the whole assembly; the Meeting was quite peaceable and orderly; from her situation she had a full view of the Yeomanry Cavalry on their first entrance on the plain on which the Meeting was held, and she verily believes they were in a state of intoxication at the time; the charge made by the Cavalry on the Meeting was most furious, they rode down and cut at the people with their sabres in a most shocking and terrible manner; terrified and alarmed at the ferocious conduct of the Yeomanry,she was hastening from the dreadful scene of carnage, when the Petitioner was attacked by a Trumpeter belonging to the Manchester Yeomanry Cavalry, of the name of Meagher, who cut her down to the ground by a violent blow with a sabre,which inflicted a severe would across her shoulders; while she lay upon the ground,the said Meagher made a violent thrust at her, for the purpose, as she verily believes,and with the intention of depriving her of life, in which attempt he nearly cut off her ear, and inflicted a deep wound in her head;she lay in a state of insensibility (as she afterwards found) for about two hours; on recovering her senses she discovered that, in addition to the wounds she had received across her shoulders and upon her ear and her head, that her ancle of was shockingly crushed and dislocated by having been trampled upon, and it was with extreme difficulty that the Petitioner could crawl from the spot to procure assistance; she was nine days before she could be laid down upon a bed, and for a long time her life was despaired of; when she was sufficiently recovered to be removed, she made application to the Magistrates at Warrington, in the County of Lancaster, for a warrant to apprehend the said Meagher, which application was refused by them; being unable to obtain justice from the local authorities in this Country, the Petitioner most humbly prays,That the House will be pleased to cause such inquiry to be instituted into the transactions of the dreadful 16th August 1819 as shall bring the monsters who have perpetrated such acts to justice,by proving to the wicked destroyer that the blood of the innocent cannot be shed with impunity in this free Country.

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