James Wolstencroft Petitioner

• Place: Oldham
• Role: Demonstrator,Injured,Petitioner
• Occupation: Weaver

Petition of James Wolstencroft of Oldham, knocked down by horses and sabred by Yeoman Cavalry.

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Petition of James Wolstencroft

House of Commons, Votes and Proceedings, 21 May 1821.

Transcribed by Mick McHugh

(N^o. 570.)

 

A Petition of James Wolstencroft, of Lees Hall, in the township of Oldham, in the County Palatine of Lancaster, Weaver, was presented, and read; setting forth, That the Petitioner attended a Meeting near St. Peter’s church in Manchester on the 16^th day of August 1819, and that the people were peaceable, and did not show any disposition to tumult at the time; that the Manchester Yeomanry Cavalry made a desperate and infuriated attack upon the assembled multitude, cutting and striking, as appeared to the Petitioner, all in their reach, regardless of the prayers and supplications of their unoffending victims; these shocking scenes induced the Petitioner to seek his safety in flight, but in attempting to make his escape the Petitioner was knocked down by the horses of the Yeomanry Cavalry, one of which Cavalry struck the Petitioner repeatedly with his sabre, and inflicted wound on the fore part of the head of the Petitioner, and another wound upon the Petitioner’s breast, notwithstanding the Petitioner (who is nearly 70 years of age) was crying for mercy all the time; the Petitioner therefore humbly prays, That the House will cause an inquiry to be made into the shocking and cruel transactions of that bloody day.

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