Some comments on; THE YEOMAN’S SONG From: Jim Dixon Date: 09 Sep 18 - 08:28 AM

The Yeoman's Song takes the side of the authorities desperately resisting the demands of the radicals and the masses for political change.

The Manchester and Salford Yeomanry cavalry was a short-lived yeomanry regiment formed in response to social unrest in northern England in 1817. The volunteer regiment became notorious for its involvement in the 1819 Peterloo Massacre. On 16 August 1819, Major Trafford and Lieutenant Colonel Guy L'Estrange, the overall military commander in Manchester, were sent notes by the chairman of the Lancashire and Cheshire Magistrates, local coalowner William Hulton, urging them to dispatch troops to a public meeting on voting reform being addressed by the orator Henry Hunt. "Sir, as chairman of the select committee of magistrates, I request you to proceed immediately to no. 6 Mount Street, where the magistrates are assembled. They consider the Civil Power wholly inadequate to preserve the peace. I have the honour, & c. Wm. Hulton."

The notes were handed to two horsemen standing by. The Manchester and Salford Yeomanry were stationed just a short distance away in Portland Street, and so received their note first. Trafford dispatched 116 officers and men of the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry who immediately drew their swords and galloped towards St Peter's Field. One trooper, in a frantic attempt to catch up, knocked down a woman in Cooper Street, causing the death of her child when he was thrown from her arms; two-year-old William Fildes was the first casualty of Peterloo. From Wikipedia

Verse 4. Shall Cobler Preston[1] mend our cause
Or Watson[2] purge the nation?
Shall Brewer Hunt[3] pollute the laws
With noxious fermentation?

1. [Preston] Probably the author of this book. I have failed to find a concise article about him.
Thomas Preston (1774–1850) was born in London. Preston was apprenticed first to a silversmith and then to a shoemaker. Following Pitt's repressive legislation after the outbreak of the French Revolution, Preston went to Chatham to avoid imprisonment.

As the secretary of the Spenceans, it was he who called the famous meeting at Spa Fields to petition the Prince Regent for relief. James Watson and Arthur Thistlewood played the leading role in organising this meeting. Preston organised support among the unemployed silk-weavers of Spitalfields. At the second Spa Fields meeting on 2 December 1816, Thistlewood, Preston, and Watson's son tried to start an armed rising and led a section of the crowd into the City, where they were soon dispersed. Preston was among those arrested and one of the four charged with high treason, but the acquittal of Watson after the unmasking of an agent provocateur, John Castle, led to the dropping of the charges against the rest.

Watson, Thistlewood, and Preston led a London group of ultra-radicals and revolutionaries. Late in 1819 they were the leaders of what became known as the Cato Street conspiracy to assassinate members of the government. Preston avoided prosecution when the attempt failed in February 1820. http://www.historyhome.co.uk/peel/marjie.htm

2. Probably James Watson
James Watson (21 September 1799 – 29 November 1874) was an English radical publisher, activist and Chartist. In February 1823 Watson was charged with selling a copy of Elihu Palmer's Principles of Nature to a police agent and was sent to Coldbath Fields Prison for a year. In 1832 Watson was arrested, but escaped imprisonment, for organising a procession and a feast on the day the government had ordained a "general fast" on account of the cholera epidemic. In June 1837 Watson was on the committee appointed to draw up the bills embodying the Chartist demands. From Wikipedia

3. Probably Henry Hunt
Henry Hunt ran a brewery at Jacob’s Wells in Bristol, the Clifton Genuine Beer Brewery, from at least 1807 to 1809. Hunt described his subsequent clash with the Excise over Wood’s colouring in his memoirs, written while he was in jail in 1820 for “sedition” after the events at St Peter’s Field. http://zythophile.co.uk/2018/11/22/the-porter-brewer-and-the-peterloo-massacre/

After his rousing speeches at the mass meetings held in Spa Fields in London in 1816, Henry Hunt became known as the "Orator", a nickname attributed to Robert Southey. In 1830 he became a Member of Parliament for Preston, defeating the future British Prime Minister Edward Smith-Stanley (14th Earl of Derby). Preston was unusual - and perhaps unique - at that time in giving the vote to all adult male residents. After his victory, Hunt and an estimated crowd of 16,000 people marched to Manchester and held a meeting at the site of the Peterloo Massacre. In 1832 he presented the first petition in support of women's suffrage to Parliament. From Wikipedia and Spartacus Educational

They were dangerous times! James Watson and Henry Hunt were both imprisoned for their radical activities. Remarkably, Thomas Preston appears to have escaped imprisonment, despite his role in armed uprisings.