David Dawson Petitioner

• Place: Oldham,Saddleworth
• Role: Demonstrator,Petitioner
• Occupation: Yeoman

David described how his son Edmund aged 16, was knocked unconscious by two blows to the head by Yeomanry Cavalry as he tried to escape. Edmund died from these injuries fifteen days later at Manchester Infirmary.

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Petition of David Dawson of Staines

House of Commons, Votes and Proceedings, 15 May 1821

 

A Petition of David Dawson, of Staines, in the township of Quick, in the Parish of Saddleworth, in the County of York, was presented, and read; setting forth, That on the 16^th of August, 1819, the son of the Petitioner, Edmund Dawson, a youth of 16 years of age, attended a public Meeting advertised to be holden at Manchester that day; that from the very peaceable habits of the son of the Petitioner he was fully satisfied of the innocence of the views of his son in attending the said Meeting; that the Petitioner is quite convinced that his son neither intended harm to others nor anticipated it to himself; neither did the Petitioner do so, otherwise he would not have suffered his son to have attended the said Meeting, who did so attend in the full, but , as it unfortunately happened, vain confidence that the Laws would protect him; that the son of the Petitioner arrived at the place of Meeting in Manchester about one o’clock at noon; that he had not been there long before the greatest agitation and confusion began to manifest itself in the Meeting, owing to the people assembled being attacked by a considerable number of Yeomanry Cavalry and Special Constables; that the son of the Petitioner then endeavoured to make his escape from such a scene of confusion and blood, when he was prevented from so doing by the Yeomanry Cavalry, one of whom struck him a severe blow on the head, which staggered him much, and which blow immediately followed by another that laid him completely senseless on the ground, from whence he was taken to the Manchester Infirmary, where he lingered 15 days, and then died of the wounds inflicted on him on the beforementioned 16^th of August; that the Petitioner needs hardly state to the House the grief and misery which this cruel and sudden privation has inflicted on him; that the Petitioner has been led to believe that under our constitution there is no wrong without a remedy; that the Petitioner feels in this case he had suffered a most grievous wrong, for which no remedy has been given; that as our Courts of Law refused to institute a judicial inquiry into the transactions at Manchester before alluded to, and as inquiry is, in the opinion of the Petitioner, the preliminary to justice being done, he intreats most humbly, but, at the same time, most earnestly, That the House will be pleased immediately to institute such an investigation into the transactions at Manchester on the 16^th August 1819, as may lead to complete justice being inflicted on the really guilty parties in those memorable, and to the Petitioner sorrowful transactions.

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