Here’s a good idea – changing the name of Manchester’s main railway station from Manchester Piccadilly to Peterloo.
Last month was the anniversary of the Peterloo Massacre. This peaceful rally on 16 August 1819 radically transformed British politics and marked the beginning of the long march to universal suffrage.
To mark the occasion this year, actor Maxine Peake read out the names of the 15 people who lost their lives in the tragedy. But for the 200th anniversary, in 2019, we want that important day to be given the commemoration it deserves.
We want it to be remembered by having the word Peterloo on the lips of the millions of people who ask for train tickets across a counter each year or type out their request on a web page and say where they want to go. We want to see it on thousands and thousands of train timetables, and day after day night hear it boomed out across the station platforms, from Euston to York, Newcastle to Carlisle, Penzance to Inverness. Everywhere. How? By changing the name of Manchester’s main station from Piccadilly to Peterloo.
Go for it, I say!
We need the support of the Manchester city council, and indeed the councils of the towns around Greater Manchester which sent their people to the demonstration.
It will not cost the council a single penny, only a council resolution and a letter to Network Rail. We need the support of the trade unions, such as the RMT. We need the support of all railway users to get onto their MPs and councillors. We need the support of all the political parties acting together, no matter how divided on other issues, to remember the 100,000-plus men, women and children – ordinary working people from Manchester and Salford and all the surrounding towns – who converged in St Peter’s Fields, right near what is now the Central Library, to demand the vote and representation in parliament which was completely denied them.
The authorities turned the cavalry on them. Fiften were killed, over 600 injured. The shock waves took England by storm. It was the explosion that began the journey to universal suffrage, to this day our most important democratic instrument and right. Uproar and demonstrations followed across the whole country and inspired Shelley to write The Masque of Anarchy, the greatest political poem in the language, his denunciation of the aristocratic land-owning elite who had parliament in its pocket. From that moment no amount of suppression could hold back the tide demanding change. Thirteen years later in 1832, parliament was forced to bring in the Great Reform Act, which for the very first time gave parliamentary representation to the growing populations of the new industrial towns and cities such as Manchester which up to then had no parliamentary representation at all, and with it an extension of the right to vote.
Well worth commemorating, wouldn’t you say?
Anyone who wishes to join the campaign can contact John Browne on [email protected] or Michael Knowles on [email protected]
H/t Maureen
Jesus wept.
The stuff I don’t know about.
England in 1819
By Percy Bysshe Shelley
An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying King;
Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow
Through public scorn,—mud from a muddy spring;
Rulers who neither see nor feel nor know,
But leechlike to their fainting country cling
Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow.
A people starved and stabbed in th’ untilled field;
An army, whom liberticide and prey
Makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield;
Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay;
Religion Christless, Godless—a book sealed;
A senate, Time’s worst statute, unrepealed—
Are graves from which a glorious Phantom may
Burst, to illumine our tempestuous day.
I like the idea of celebrating this, but people should realise that unfortunately this extension of democracy was only for property owners. I’m pretty certain my male ancestors acquired the right to vote in 1918 when that requirement was removed. Some of my female ancestors had to wait another ten years (in 1918, they could only vote if over 30).
I just got home from there, too coincidental for me not to support the campaign. If someone can change the name of their station to just add Parkway in to improve the aesthetic, then surely this change can be achieved?
Meanwhile, I got the title wrong. Honestly. Of course I meant Peterloo, but I typed Piccadilly! Derp.
As nice as the idea is, saying it won’t cost the council anything is untrue – changing the signage and public information around the city will be very expensive.
The tram stop in St. Peter’s square is currently being redeveloped – and is possibly closer to the Peter’s Fields site. Renaming that would be a more cost effective gesture in a city with a large disadvantaged population at a time when public spending is being severely squeezed. Looking after the present day poor and deprived is a much more pressing priority, and a better tribute.
@Bernard, that is a really good idea. Hope the council comes up with that as a compromise solution and which which is therefore more likely to happen. Even just street furniture for Piccadilly (pedestrian and vehicle) will be a massive job.
I don’t mean to complain about legitimate hyperbole for a good cause, but Penzance and Inverness don’t have direct services to any manchester stations, so the word on people’s lips there will be … Manchester.
Long time reader here, first time commenter, and adopted Mancunian.
@6 – interesting idea, St Peter’s Square Metrolink is definitely a better candidate. Fewer signs (and no timetables) to update, and there’ll be all sorts of disruption related to the “second crossing” work anyway. Plus both old and new names have the common component of “Peter”.
Mind you , I’m not convinced we should be renaming existing things as opposed to new things. Unless the old name is genuinely problematic (e.g. Castrillo Matajudios in Spain) I think it’s needlessly disruptive in lots of little ways that are hard to predict. I remember someone wanted to re-name Albion Street to Sir Tony Wilson Way (right next the site of the old Hacienda, you see)… The only residents were small businesses, for whom the “small” matter of replacing all their business stationery and contacting all their customers would have been extremely costly.