Today we take them for granted.

The right to vote, workers' rights, trade unions, and newspapers that will speak up for the poor.

In no small part they all owe a debt to the ordinary people of the city and nearby villages and towns who sacrificed their lives 200 years ago today.

The bloodbath that happened in Manchester, the Peterloo massacre - as it became known - was, in the words of historian Robert Poole, the 'explosion that made it all possible'.

The killings occurred during a peaceful rally that was uniquely Mancunian, a landmark in the city's proud, rich, independent tradition of fighting for social justice.

And, despite attempts at smear and cover-up made by the authorities at the time, it has gone down in history as one of the most important milestones on Britain's long road to political reform, one that changed the course of history in this country.

Here, on the the bicentenary of the massacre, we examine the vital legacy of Peterloo - and pay tribute to the 18 men, women and children killed protesting for the right to have their voices heard.

It’s a lazy, late summer afternoon in Manchester and, in St Peter’s Square, a dad takes his daughter by the hands, twirling her around and off the ground, both of them laughing.

Nearby, a mum is trying to get her two young boys to stand still for a photo outside the library. Workers on their lunch breaks sit on benches, taking in the sun.

Trams coast in and out of the square, the tracks bending round the stone cross that marks the site of St Peter’s Church, one of the few remaining physical reminders of what happened here 200 years ago today.

On August 16, 1819, a cavalry made up of volunteer troops rode past the church and into St Peter’s Field, where up to 60,000 peaceful working people had met to demand representation in Parliament and the right to vote.

(Image: middleton guardian)

As the horseback militia galloped along Cooper Street, a two-year-old boy, William Fildes, was knocked from his mother’s arms and trampled to death.

He was the day’s first victim.

The cavalry, called the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry, then charged into St Peter’s Field and began slashing at the protesters with their sabres.

At least 17 more people were killed in the panic and chaos that followed, while more than 600 were injured.

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The authorities tried to cover-up what happened at St Peter’s Field and attempts were made to smear the Manchester protesters as a rabble of rebellious troublemakers.

But, in terms of public opinion, the Government never recovered from attacking a peaceful protest that included women and children.

The incident became known as the Peterloo massacre – an ironic reference to the Battle of Waterloo – and the blood spilled by our ancestors is credited with helping to pave the way for the democratic rights and civil liberties we all have today.

(Image: Joel Goodman)

This week, the Manchester Evening News met historian Robert Poole and two people descended from Peterloo protestors, Muriel Bird and Michael Gorman, on the site of the massacre – the area in front of what is now Manchester Central – to talk about what took place that day.

Standing here, 200 years on, Michael is visibly moved by the thought of what his ancestors saw and endured.

"I’m a Mancunian and I’ve walked these streets hundreds and hundreds of times," he says.

"But this is the first time I’ve been here and really thought about what happened on that day. It’s really chilling.

"It must have been carnage. Trying to think of it today, what would happen if you’re at a football match with 60,000 people and the police, or cavalry, are let loose, charge in and kill 18 people and maim or slash 600 more.

(Image: Daily Mirror)

"These people were just demonstrating for the right to vote, something we take very much for granted these days. And it happened in the middle of this city. It’s hard for it to sink in."

Times were hard in 1819. The Napoleonic Wars had ended four years earlier with victory for Britain but instead of heralding a new age of prosperity, it brought a period of economic depression. Unemployment was rife and the wages of textile workers were cut by half.

In an effort to protect the interests of landowners and farmers, the Government passed the Corn Laws, putting tariffs on imported grain. The effect was rising food costs and famine for the already-suffering population.

People were ready for change.

The textile industry had pushed huge numbers of people into and around Manchester but, despite the growing population, there was no MP to solely represent the area and voting was restricted to adult male landowners.

A reform movement captured the imaginations of a large number of ordinary people. They wanted proper representation in Parliament - two MPs for Manchester and one for Salford. And they wanted the vote.

(Image: Manchester Central Library)

A demonstration was organised for St Peter’s Field, Manchester, on August 16, 1819. It was a Monday, when handloom weavers would often take a day off after working all weekend.

Some 6,000 people came from Rochdale and Middleton; 200 women dressed in white came from Oldham; thousands more came in organised marches held from Stockport, Stalybridge, Bolton and Bury.

The meeting was to be addressed by charismatic speaker Henry Hunt, a pioneer of working-class radicalism who believed in universal suffrage and parliamentary reform.

On the morning of the demonstration, the men, women and children marched to St Peter’s Field from every corner of what we now know as Greater Manchester.

It was a sunny day and brass bands played as they walked, creating a festival atmosphere.

The marchers wanted to make it clear they were respectable, law-abiding citizens, so they wore their Sunday best and children danced at the front holding sprigs of laurel – the closest they could get to the olive branch of peace.

(Image: Manchester Central Library)

The protesters carried banners bearing slogans such as 'Universal Suffrage' and ‘Liberty and Fraternity’ – while woollen red liberty caps dangled from the top of the banner poles.

They were expecting a picnic and a good day out in Manchester. They were not expecting to be met with violence.

But this meeting was making the authorities nervous.

The French Revolution had taken place 30 years earlier and the liberty cap had become a symbol of those revolutionaries. The establishment was fearful of a violent uprising in England.

At that time in Manchester, 18 volunteer magistrates and a paid, full-time magistrate took charge of law and order in times of crisis.

They were landowners, retired businessmen and lawyers, not likely to be sympathetic to political reform.

Their chairman on the day of August 16, 1819, was 32-year-old William Hulton, a local landowner and inexperienced law enforcer.

That morning, the magistrates were worried, taking up residence in a house that overlooked St Peter’s Field. They had already signed up 400 volunteer special constables and 60 yeomanry troops from Manchester, while calling in 340 regular cavalry from the 15 Hussars, plus 400 more infantry, and two six-pounder cannons.

(Image: Manchester Central Library)

As the crowd of people grew, so did the magistrates’ concern. From a window, they read the Riot Act, ordering the protesters to disperse, although few are likely to have heard.

Shortly after 1pm, Henry Hunt took to the hustings to speak, a rapturous roar greeting his arrival.

The lines of special constables that led from the magistrates’ house to the hustings became blurred with the crowd.

The jittery magistrates had seen enough. Hulton ordered Manchester’s deputy constable, Joseph Nadin, to arrest Hunt, with support from the cavalry.

Hunt had barely spoken for a minute when the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry, led by Hugh Hornby Birley, approached the edge of the crowd. The yeomanry were fired up and apparently drunk.

Hunt ordered the crowd to give the horsemen a welcoming cheer but it was taken as a roar of aggression. The militia plunged into the crowd, attempting to escort Nadin to the hustings. As they lost order, they drew their sabres and started to slash a way through.

There was chaos on St Peter’s Field. Hunt was arrested. The protesters tried to escape but the sheer number of them made it almost impossible. In the melee, the yeomanry were slashing at the banners, incensed by the liberty caps, crying: “Have at their flags.”

The regular Hussars rode in after the yeomanry to disperse the crowd.

The protesters screamed in terror as they suffered horrendous wounds.

Around 200 were sabred – deep cuts to the head and arms, body parts nearly severed.

Seventy were battered by truncheons while almost 200 were trampled by horses. Some died on the spot while others would die in the days and weeks that followed.

The Sir Ralph Abercromby pub, which still stands, became a makeshift hospital.

People in the crowd tripped over each other in their desperate attempts to flee.

But when they reached the far edges of the field, they found the streets there partially blocked by infantry.

As a result, many were crushed against the wall of the Friends Meeting House, on the corner of Mount Street and Bootle Street, which is still there today – the only remaining structure that was on St Peter’s Field at the time of the massacre in 1819.

(Image: Joel Goodman)

"People were crushed, piled up against this wall, piles of people falling on the ground on top of each other," says Robert Poole, professor of history at UCLan, in Preston, and author of Peterloo: the English Uprising.

"The yeomanry in particular but also the regular Hussars came and attacked the people as they tried to escape. The people were helped up over the wall by those already sitting on top."

The Peterloo descendants Michael, a 63-year-old lecturer now of Wilmslow, Cheshire, and Muriel, 66, from Swinton, Salford, stand next to the wall as Robert describes what happened here 200 years ago.

Michael’s great great grandfather John Curran was shot in the leg on the evening of Peterloo, in the riots that followed, while his great great uncle Edward Curran was radicalised by what he saw during the massacre, going on to be instrumental in the Chartist working class movement that continued to press for political reform.

Muriel’s great great great grandmother Alice Warburton was also shot at on the day but was saved from serious injury by her bonnet.

(Image: Joel Goodman)

How does it feel to them, to be standing next this structure, a relic of the horrendous time?

"I’ve got goosebumps actually," says Michael, who is pictured dressed as his ancestor in the Red Saunders Peterloo photographic tableaux currently being exhibited at Central Library.

"I’m not very comfortable being here because you begin to realise the savagery of the thing. The ferocity."

"It’s really eye-opening," adds Muriel, who was inspired by her Peterloo links to go back to Manchester Metropolitan University in her sixties to get a degree in history.

In the immediate aftermath of massacre, the authorities tried to cover up what had happened.

They said the protesters had attacked first, with stones and sticks, and praised the yeomanry for their actions in protecting the respectable people of the town.

Indeed, when the horsemen’s captain Hugh Hornby Birley died over 20 years later, he was buried in the crypt of the prestigious St Peter’s Church, which remains under St Peter’s Square today.

And, the day after Peterloo, newspapers loyal to the Tory government described the protesters as a dissenting mob hell-bent on defiance and revolution.

The massacre couldn’t be covered up, however. There had been too many witnesses and it sparked national outrage.

Voices could be quelled, though. The Government brought in the Six Acts legislation, which suppressed radical meetings and publications.

In the short-term, civil liberties were clamped down on, but Peterloo was still a significant milestone on the long road to political reform.

(Image: Hulton Archive)

As we overlook artist Jeremy Deller’s new Peterloo memorial outside Manchester Central, Robert Poole explains how.

"The authorities never recovered from the propaganda disaster of attacking women," says Robert, who also co-authored the graphic novel Peterloo: Witnesses to a Massacre.

"In the short term they passed the Six Acts and it was effective. Repression works, in the short term.

"But next time the crisis came round, 1831/32, there was a Whig government in and they tried repeatedly to pass a very moderate reform bill but it was blocked in the House of Lords twice. Governments rose and fell. There was a massive battle of people against Parliament.

"And in the end, there were troops with sharpened swords standing by at the biggest reform meeting in Birmingham and they did not dare send them in because they could not risk another Peterloo. The House of Lords was advised, the ultra Tories backed down and the Great Reform Act passed.

"It was only a modest reform but a generation later there was another, and a generation later there was another, and a generation after that was 1918, we’ve got widened suffrage, and ten years later we have full suffrage.

"Britain is famous for its peaceful, stage-by-stage path to democracy, but Peterloo was the explosion that cleared the way and made it all possible."

Today, seeing people enjoying the last of the summer in St Peter’s Square, Manchester feels relaxed, a city at ease with itself.

But things aren’t perfect.

Activists from the Peterloo Memorial Campaign are using the 200-year anniversary commemoration weekend to launch a new ‘Six Acts’ democratic manifesto tomorrow (Saturday).

They are hoping to get six crowd-sourced legislative proposals aimed at ‘rebooting our flagging democratic institutions’.

But, today, we can be grateful for the sacrifice people made at Peterloo, for the things we do have.

The victims

William Fildes, aged two, of Kennedy Street, Manchester

Thomas John Ashworth, of the Bulls Head, Manchester

Martha Partington, 38, of King Street, Barton-upon-Irwell

John Ashton, 41, of Cowhill, Chadderton

Thomas Buckley, 62, of Baretrees, Chadderton

James Crompton, of Barton-upon-Irwell

Joseph Whitworth, 19, of Hyde

Edmund Dawson, 19, of Saddleworth

John Lees, 21, of Oldham

John Rhodes, 22, of Pitts, Hopwood, Middleton

Arthur O’Neill, 40, of Pidgeon Street, Ancoats

Mary Heyes, of Oxford Road, Manchester

William Bradshaw, 17, of Lily Hill, Whitefield

Samuel Hall, of Hulme

William Evans, of Owen Street, Hulme

Margaret Downes, of Manchester

Sarah Jones, of Silk Street, Salford

Unborn child of Elizabeth Gaunt

(Gaunt was female reformer from Manchester, who was arrested and beaten while sheltering in Henry Hunt’s carriage, and imprisoned without charge for 11 days without adequate medical care. She was pregnant at the time and suffered a miscarriage)

*Where no age or address is displayed it's unknown