Today is the 250th birthday of Henry Hunt, the Radical orator arrested in 1819 at the Manchester rally now known as Peterloo. He was tried for Conspiracy to Excite Terror and Rioting (in reality, it was the soldiers who rioted) and jailed for 30 months, but served as Preston's MP from 1830 to 1832. While in Parliament, he was ridiculed by fellow MPs for presenting a petition for women to be given the vote.
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Henry "Orator" Hunt, the principal speaker at the Manchester rally now known as Peterloo, died on 13 or 15 February 1835, aged 61. After Peterloo, he was tried and jailed for sedition for two years, but he later served as MP for Preston (which had an unusually broad electorate) from 1830 to 1832, when he was unseated by collusion between the Tories and Whigs. He had protested against the Reform Act of 1832 as not going far enough.
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