FEATURE Our heritage
KILLED FOR PROTESTING
The unveiling of a headstone marking the 200th anniversary of the Chatterton Massacre outside Ramsbottom recently, brought together a large crowd. Following a colourful, musical procession, they listened solemnly to speeches, dedications and songs at the exact time and place of the tragedy in 1826. The names of the six people killed in the massacre were read aloud and a wreath was laid.
The event was organised by the Weavers’ Uprising Bicentennial Committee (WUBC), a charity established to remember the handloom weavers uprising across Lancashire on April 24 to 27 that year.
WUBC has also arranged talks, walks, exhibitions and launched a children’s education pack.
Unite members, along with other trade unionists and local people, paid tribute to a struggle aimed at
preserving a way of life based around the domestic workshop in an era when new machinery was reducing lives to abject poverty.
Refusing to show mercy, the authorities met this resistance with great brutality. Officially six people were killed but the exact figure is unknown and Colonel Kearney believed 10 were killed by troops under his command.
Others, imprisoned or deported to Australia, died in custody. Some of their descendants attended the event on April 26, 2026.
The massacre, which remained largely unknown until recent years, has been added by historians to an expanding record of documented incidents involving the killing of workers by the British State.
The handloom workers were starving. Strikes and petitions to get employers and Parliament to act by introducing a minimum wage to alleviate their suffering, were ignored.
Unite’s Brian Rylance
The tragic bicentenary of the Chatterton Weavers’ Massacre is marked
Inspired by a great sense of betrayal these independent artisans organised an uprising. ‘Captains’ agreed that to make their point peacefully only power looms should be destroyed. There should be no violence to persons.
Starting on Monday April 24, 1826, they destroyed 1,100 newly installed factory-based power looms around Chorley, Clitheroe, Bacup and Bury over four days. Accrington’s Grange Lane Factory was destroyed by a 1,000-strong crowd, some carrying crude pikes and sledgehammers.
The military were overwhelmed and additional troops were rushed from Manchester to Blackburn. Nevertheless, on the Tuesday, the authorities couldn’t keep pace with the insurgents. Men and women wrecked factories around Darwen and Helmshore.
Then came the events of Wednesday April 26. The Whitehead Brothers factory, near Haslingden was incapacitated.
‘‘ In their memory – the march for the massacred heroes
This event makes history real. You get a sense of continuity by speaking about someone in your own family who went through such hard times but bravely stood up to do something
Catherine Boyle, descendant of Simeon Wright
‘‘
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