ABSTRACT
Peterloo exposed weaknesses in popular constitutionalism: massive popular indignation did nothing to prevent the exoneration of those responsible for eleven deaths and hundreds of injuries. Since the early eighteenth century, prosecution of workers' combinations under the common law of conspiracy had been available to those who chose to employ it. The original repeal of the Combination Act had coincided with a period of economic prosperity which was in itself propitious for the formation of trade societies. A rash of offensive strikes and a disturbing level of violence, apparently arising from the activities of unions, led to the formation of the 1825 Select Committee on Combination Laws. Trade unions were scarcely a recent evolution. However, only in the 1820s does it become possible to conceptualize trade unionism as a 'movement'. The Gorgon reflected the range of positions on trade unionism among reformers, but it also revealed the working-out of trade unionist theory and inter-trade awareness during the Lancashire strikes.
