Brave Cheshire Soldiers

The Cheshire Yeomanry’s role in Peterloo was highly controversial, but they had a very difficult role to play as an unofficial police force in the county. They were used by the authorities against their fellow countrymen, breaking up riots and civil unrest, but when they joined as volunteers, it was to defend their country if Napoleon invaded.

Many yeomanry cavalry fought very bravely in the Napoleonic wars, including Captain Barra, who commanded the Stockport Troop. He served with the 16th Lancers in Spain and Portugal. Many members of the Cheshire Yeomanry were Waterloo veterans, such as William Tomkinson (1790-1872) of Dorfold Hall, a Lt. Colonel in the 16th Light Dragoons. Tomkinson was badly hurt in 1809 during Wellington’s crossing of the Douro. Major Clement Swetenham (1787-1852) of Somerford Booths saw action in the Peninsular Wars and Waterloo. Another war veteran was Richard Egerton (youngest brother of Sir John Grey Egerton of Oulton). Sir Stapleton Cotton served under Sir Arthur Wellesley (later the 1st Duke of Wellington) at the battle of Talavera (1809), and his equestrian statue guards the entrance to Chester Castle.

The 22nd (Cheshire) Regiment saw a great deal of action abroad at this time. (The 22nd Regiment was first raised at Chester in 1689. The regiment served in the American War of Independence (1775) and saw action at Bunkers Hill. It was renamed the ‘Cheshire’ by George III in 1782). The Regiment, after a tour in Ireland in 1790, served in the West Indies, South Africa, India, and Mauritius in 1810. One of the bravest of its brave soldiers was the legendary Lt. John Shipp (c.1784-1834). He led three ‘Forlorn Hopes’ at the siege of Bhurtpore in 1805. The siege failed, but two decades later, Sir Stapleton Cotton (now Lord Combermere) succeeded in breaching the walls of this stubborn fort.
Image: Lt John Shipp of the Cheshire Regiment. Engraving by unknown artist, Memoirs of the Military Career of John Shipp, (T. Fisher Unwin, 1890.) Author’s collection.

The Cheshire Luddites

The spring of 1812 was a time of huge industrial unrest in north west England. Families were starving; food prices had risen to unprecedented levels, and wages had fallen. Wheat had reached the famine price of 152s 3d per quarter, and potatoes (the staple food of the working classes) were three times their usual price. Starving handloom weavers blamed the introduction of steam-powered looms for depressing the cost of their labour.
The workers decided on direct action. In February 1812, arsonists attacked Peter Marsland’s steam loom factory at Stockport, and unsuccessfully torched William Radcliffe’s steam loom factory in March. Manufacturers weren’t even safe in their own homes. In early April, Peter Marsland’s house windows were broken, and the homes of mill owners William Radcliffe and Mr Hindley were also attacked. Macclesfield, too, saw riots by angry cotton workers in the same month. The Cheshire Yeomanry had a full-time job keeping public order. You can find out more about the riots and the rioters’ fate in Regency Cheshire.

Image: Harrison’s Improved Powerloom, exhibited by Harrison’s of Blackburn at the Great Exhibition. Illustrated London News, 23 August 1851.