From Waterloo to Peterloo

The Oxford Handbook of British Romantic Prose is a full-length essay collection devoted entirely to British Romantic nonfiction prose. Concentrating on class and perceptions of the army, this chapter examines the transmission of violence between Waterloo (1815) and Peterloo (1819). Both events produced polarized views: from the celebratory congratulations of William Wordsworth and Robert Southey following Waterloo and Peterloo, to the violent misery of William Hazlitt and Robert Wedderburn after these events. Wordsworth, who became a dark tourist of the battle scenes, usually found inspiration in places inhabited by the dead, but at Peterloo may have found his younger, radical self challenged by a new sympathy for the government-sanctioned killing of peaceful protestors. The conflation of violence between Waterloo and Peterloo further established that people were not so much separated by national interests as by class. Using texts by Samuel Bamford, George Cruikshank, Hazlitt, William Hone, Southey, Wedderburn, and Wordsworth, this chapter examines links between Waterloo and Peterloo as Britain saw demands for representation suppressed.