Major Cochrane Eyewitness Account

• Occupation: Hussar Officer

Extracts of letter published in the Manchester Observer by Major Cochrane.

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Manchester Observer 25 Dec. 1819. ‘A letter has been published by Major Cochrane, late of the 15th Huzzars, relative to what actually occurred at Manchester on the 16th of August. The following is an extract of the letter.

“After the arrival of the 15th Huzzars to assist in dispersing the Meeting (the Yeomanry having previously, and in their absence, advanced to the hustings), and when I was personally assisting in the accomplishment of that object, I perceived that the avenue leading from one of the corners of the field was interrupted by a party of the military who had surrounded a considerable body of the people. Knowing that it was the dispersal of [the] meeting that was desired, and not their destruction, a sense of duty, as well as of humanity, led me to interpose, and I shall ever rejoice in having done so, notwithstanding the misrepresentations and unmerited reflections to which I have in consequence been exposed.”

House of Commons debate on Prince Regent’s speech, 23 Nov. 1819.

Mr Bootle Wilbraham: ‘It had been asserted by an hon. member of that House at a public meeting in Norfolk, that a woman had been attacked and severely cut, and that she and others would have shared a worse fate, but for the interposition of a gallant officer. This statement continued in circulation for a fortnight, when there appeared a letter from the gallant officer, major Cochrane, denying the truth of the matter, and adding that no such circumstance had occurred. As to the bills which were thrown out, . . . never were bills found where a grand jury had acted with more strict impartiality.

Mr. Coke

observed, that it was he who had made the statement respecting the alleged attack on the woman, in which major Cochrane was said to have interfered. He had found afterwards that the whole was a mistake, and he would most willingly have given the contradiction to it, if it had not been made by major Cochrane.

24 Nov. continued: § Mr. Brougham

The hon. member for Norfolk (Mr. Coke) had said, that major Cochrane had interfered to prevent a woman and child from being sabred. Major Cochrane had pointed out some inaccuracy in this. Upon which much sarcasm was thrown out against the statement. But major Cochrane did not deny that a woman and a child had been sabred. This had never been denied and he pledged himself to prove it true if the House would give him leave. It was also true, that major Cochrane had interfered in another part of the field, to prevent the yeomen from attacking the mob who were attempting to escape.

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