LANDWORKER MAGAZINE - SUMMER 2026
The tragic bicentenary of the Chatterton Weavers’ Massacre is marked
The unveiling of a headstone marking the 200th anniversary of the Chatterton Massacre outside Ramsbottom brought together a large crowd who following a colourful, musical procession listened solemnly to speeches, dedications and songs at the exact spot and time where the tragedy took place 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 registered 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 ten were killed by his troops.
There are also contemporary newspapers reports that 3 people were shot dead on 24 April 1826 in Blackburn.
Others, imprisoned and/or deported to Australia died in custody. Some of their relatives attended on April 26, 2026.
The massacre, which remained largely unknown until recent years, has been added by historians to an expanding record of undocumented incidents involving the killing of workers by the British state. (1)
The handloom - one of man’s oldest and simplest inventions - workers were starving. Strikes and petitions to get employers and Parliament to act by introducing a minimum wage to alleviate their sufferings remained unanswered.
Inspired by a great sense of betrayal these independent artisans, who spent several months planning their activities, organised an uprising.
‘Captains’ agreed that to make their point peacefully then only power looms should be destroyed. There should be no violence to persons.
Starting on Monday April 24, 1826, they succeeded in destroying 1,100 newly installed factory-based power looms around Chorley, Clitheroe, Bacup and Bury over 4 days when they knew the military would be heavily involved in the official birthday celebrations of King George IV in Manchester.
One month earlier the Shadsworth home of William Carr, Clerk to the County Justices, had all its windows broken. Only when a gun was fired at them did the unmasked crowd depart.
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 insurgents. Men and women wrecked factories around Darwen and Helmshore.
When 23 arrests were made the angry crowd, who had defied the reading of the Riot Act that gave troops power to open fire, was so large outside the New Inn, Haslingden that it was found prudent to release prisoners without charge.
Then came the events of Wednesday 26 April. The Whitehead Brothers factory near Haslingden was incapacitated.
Five miles away stood Messrs Aitken and Lord Chatterton’s factory of 46 power looms. Success and it was on to Bury and Manchester. 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.’
Others suffered terrible injuries. It was a miracle many more were not killed. Which may explain why, unlike on the other 3 days, so few people were arrested on the 26th. It meant their testimonies were never recorded.
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.”
Addressing the crowd, Ken Cridland from Blackpool Fylde and Wyre TUC brought the weavers’ struggles up to date. “Off the Blackpool coast is a gas rig. Unite is demanding there should be no ban without a plan. The change over from fossil fuels has to work for us all – not the way it was done when they brought the power looms that threw everyone out of work.”
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.”
Brian has clearly succeeded himself as one daughter is a UNISON branch chairperson and another is a UCU rep.
“The occasion has been fantastic. We must get it into classrooms.” Which is happening through a high-quality education pack, Rise Up! The Lancashire Weavers’ Rising and Chatterton Massacre that is aimed at key stage 2 children.
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
The six names were loudly read out on 26 April 2026 at the newly unveiled headstone. A wreath was laid.
OF those arrested, 47 were subsequently sentenced for taking part.
Mary Hindle, was sentenced to death, along with thirty-five men and five women.
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 but 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 3 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 England, dying on May 7, 1827.
