All photos: Mark Harvey


n By Mark Charlton Metcalf WORKERS KILLED


James Whatacre (or Waddicar), aged 40, of Ramsbottom


Mary Simpson, handloom weaver, 23, of Haslingden


James Rothwell, handloom weaver, 22, of Haslingden


Richard Lund, blacksmith, 23, of Haslingden


James Lord, fulling miller, 26, of Rossendale


John Ashworth, handloom weaver, 27, of Haslingden


WORKERS ARRESTED


Of those arrested, 47 were subsequently sentenced for taking part.


Five miles away stood Messrs Aitken and Lord Chatterton’s factory of 46 power looms. Colonel Kearney, in charge of the 1st King’s Dragoon Guards, ordered his troops to Chatterton. They were met by a large crowd of 3,000 – many starving and exhausted.


What happened next is contentious. For generations it has been claimed that a local magistrate and employer, William Grant, read out the Riot Act. This Act authorised officials to read a proclamation ordering groups of 12 or more people to disperse. If the crowd did not leave within an hour, authorities could use force to disperse them.


However, recent research by Dr David Scott of the Open University and local historian Kate Hurst has revealed that no one interviewed afterwards stated there was any such reading and some categorically claimed Grant had remained silent.


According to Scott the subsequent shootings in which 400 to 600 bullets were fired over a 30-minute period into the crowd, by professional marksmen, makes Chatterton not a riot – but ‘a massacre.’


Although some in the crowd bravely fought back by showering their assailants with rocks, six named people were killed.


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Mary Hindle, was sentenced to death, along with 35 men and five women.


If people don’t learn their history…they lose sight of the need for solidarity and looking out for each other. We must try and instil this in the next generation


Brian Rylance, Unite member


They included two bystanders taking a break from their work. Others suffered terrible injuries.


Two hundred years later, among those present is Catherine Boyle. Simeon Wright is her four times great grandfather.


Catherine said, “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 and lost his life as a result.”


Unite member Brian Rylance is with the Bolton Diggers Group. He said, “If people don’t learn their history they don’t realise the significance of attacks now. They lose sight of the need for solidarity and looking out for each other. We must try and instil this in the next generation.”


41 uniteLANDWORKER Summer 2026


Her sentence and nine others was commuted to life transportation to Australia.


Leaving behind her husband and six-year-old daughter, Mary set sail on the convict ship Harmony in April 1827. She arrived five months later and took her own life in 1841.


Simeon Wright, a 37-year-old cotton spinner from Samlesbury Mill, was one of the leaders of the first day of the Rising. He was incarcerated in Lancaster Castle before being moved to the prison hulk Dolphin to await his transportation to Australia. He died before it set sail on March 1, 1827.


Oswaldtwistle’s James Chambers, aged 55, was a widowed farmer with three grandchildren. He had been a ‘captain’ of the Rising on the first and final day in Chorley. Chambers was charged with destroying machinery. He was sentenced to transportation and transferred to the Dolphin, where he was held with at least seven others involved in the uprising, including Wright.


James Chambers did not make it out of England, dying on May 7, 1827.


FIND OUT MORE


You can find out more by visiting weavers-uprising.org.uk


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