The Peterloo Group was a group of poets,

artists An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating the work of art. The most common usage (in both everyday speech and academic discourse) refers to a practitioner in the visual arts o ...

and

writers A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles, genres and techniques to communicate ideas, to inspire feelings and emotions, or to entertain. Writers may develop different forms of writing such as novels, short stori ...

Manchester Manchester () is a city and the metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It had an estimated population of in . Greater Manchester is the third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.92&nbs ...

during the latter part of the 1950s. It had three founder members;

Robin Skelton Robin Skelton (12 October 1925 – 22 August 1997) was a British-Canadian academic, writer, poet, and anthologist. Biography Born in Easington, East Riding of Yorkshire, Easington, Yorkshire, Skelton was educated at the University of Leeds an ...

, poet and professor of English at

Manchester University The University of Manchester is a public university, public research university in Manchester, England. The main campus is south of Manchester city centre, Manchester City Centre on Wilmslow Road, Oxford Road. The University of Manchester is c ...

, Tony Connor, poet and Michael Neville Seward Snow, painter. Their objective was to bring together the isolated people who were writing and working in the visual arts within the region, and to provide a forum for discussion and exhibition of their work.

Historical background

The first meeting was held in May 1957 in a hired room above the Town Hall Hotel, a Victorian gothic public house in Tib Lane adjacent to

Albert Square Walford is a fictional borough of East London in the BBC soap opera ''EastEnders''. It is the primary setting for the soap. ''EastEnders'' is filmed at Borehamwood in Hertfordshire, towards the north-west of London. Much of the location work i ...

, - and close to

St Peter's Square St. Peter's Square (, ) is a large plaza located directly in front of St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City, the papal enclave in Rome, directly west of the neighborhood (rione) of Borgo. Both the square and the basilica are named after Saint ...

where in 1819 the infamous

Peterloo Massacre The Peterloo Massacre took place at St Peter's Field, Manchester, Lancashire, England, on Monday 16 August 1819. Eighteen people died and 400–700 were injured when the cavalry of the Yeomen charged into a crowd of around 60,000 people who ...

had taken place, and from which the group took its name. The first discussion was on the subject of ‘The Social Position of the Arts Today’. Meetings continued on a monthly basis with writers and artists talking about their work and inviting discussion. Amongst the poets leading meetings, were Tony Connor, Michael Dixon, David Dunn,

Michael Holroyd Sir Michael de Courcy Fraser Holroyd (born 27 August 1935) is an English biographer. Early life and education Holroyd was born in London, the son of Basil de Courcy Fraser Holroyd (a descendant of Sir George Sowley Holroyd, Justice of the King ...

, John Knight, Jack Marriott, John McDonald, Robin Skelton, Margaret Snow, Noel Varney and Bernadette Wiseman. Several exhibitions of painting and sculpture were organized showing members work; the lounge of the nearby Library Theatre being a popular exhibition space. Exhibitors included Michael Snow, Tony Connor, Donald McKenna, Noel Varney and

Laurence Whitfield Laurence Whitfield (born 1938 in Manchester) is an English artist. He was a member of The Peterloo Group, and studied at Manchester Regional College of Art, now known as Manchester College of Arts and Technology (MANCAT). Career Laurence Whi ...

alongside works by the specially invited guests;

L. S. Lowry Laurence Stephen Lowry ( ; 1 November 1887 – 23 February 1976) was an English artist. His drawings and paintings mainly depict Pendlebury, Greater Manchester (where he lived and worked for more than 40 years) as well as Salford and its ...

and Cliff Holden. By 1959 the group had gained considerable status in art ‘scene’ of Manchester, enhanced even more so with the co-operation of the University Extra-Mural Department and enabling the arrangement of events such as a public lecture by Sir Geoffrey Keynes on the work of

William Blake William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake has become a seminal figure in the history of the Romantic poetry, poetry and visual art of the Roma ...

. This co-operation, along with the support of the Vice Chancellor of the University, led to meetings between the group and interested parties from the City of Manchester and cleared the way for the formation of the Manchester Institute of Contemporary Arts (‘MICA’), and, with several members moving away from the City, the dissolution of the group in 1960.

References

*Ambit magazine, Edition # 10, 1961. {{DEFAULTSORT:Peterloo Group Culture in Manchester English artist groups and collectives Arts organizations established in 1957