This is the text of a broadside I found in historian Eddie Frow's library back in the sixties
I have included the note that was added by Tish Stubbs and Sam Richards when they included it in 'The English Folksinger.

THE MEETING AT PETERLOO
1. Come lend an ear of pity while I my tale do tell.
It happened at Manchester a place you know right well.
For to redress our wants and woes reformers took their ways,
A lawful meeting being called upon a certain day.

2. The sixteenth day of August eighteen hundred and nineteen
There many thousand people on every road were seen
From Stockport, Oldham, Ashton and from other places too,
It was the largest meeting that reformers ever knew.

3. Brave Hunt he was appointed that day to take the chair.
At one-o-clock he did arrive, our shouts did rend the air.
Some females fair in white and green close by the hustings stood
And little did we all expect to see such scenes of blood.

4. Scarcely had Hunt begun to speak: Be firm, he said, my friends.
But little still did we expect what was to be the end
For around us all so hard and cruel regardless of our woes
Our enemies surrounded us on the plains of Peterloo.

5. The soldiers came unto the ground and thousands tumbled down
And many armless females lay bleeding on the ground.
No time for flight was gave to us, still every road we fled.
There were such heaps were trampled down, some wounded and some dead.

6. Brave Hunt was then arrested and several others too.
They marched us to the New Bailey, believe me it is true
And numbers there was wounded and many there was slain
Which makes the friends of those dear souls so loudly to complain.

7. Oh God above look down on those for Thou art just and true
And those that can no mercy show thy vengeance is their due.
Now quit this hateful mournful scene, look forward with this hope
That every murderer in this land may swing upon a rope.

8. But soon reform shall spread around for sand with the tide won't stay.
May all the filth that's in the land right soon be washed away.
And may sweet harmony from hence in this our land be found
May we with plenty all be blessed in all the country round.

The Meeting at Peterloo (p. 161) A Manchester broadside, set to a traditional tune - a Cornish version of "The Loyal Lover' from the Gardiner manuscript.
This broadside describes the notorious massacre at St Peter's Field, Manchester, 16th August, 1819. Hunt, mentioned in several verses, was the main leader at this gathering of radicals and reformers, and in their book 77 The British Labour Movement, 1770-1920, A. L Morton and G. Tate give a grim picture of what took place: 'On August 16th 1819, contingents with bands and banners, and including many women, marched to the meeting ground in perfect order but with a discipline more terrifying to the authorities than any disorder could have been. As Hunt was beginning to speak, a troop of Hussars and the Manchester Yeomanry were launched at the closely packed crowd. The soldiers seem merely to have obeyed their orders mechanically; it was the upper-class yeomanry who showed a positive enthusiasm for hacking and trampling the unarmed people. Very soon eleven were dead and some four hundred wounded.'

"I don't know the song, but the story of the massacre appears to have more than one version, one being that many people died, and another that a couple of people were slightly injured when the soldiers fired over their heads after the reading of the riot act, but the news story was distorted to gain sympathy for the rioters.
It would be an interesting one to research. Bron.

I missed this first time round - I've heard of holocaust deniers, but this is is nonsense.
The facts of the massacre are well established and fully accepted, except by a few nutters.
There is an excellent account of the events in Joyce Marlow's 'The Peterloo Massacre, published by Rapp and Whiting in 1969.
Jim Carroll