Excerpts from Books and Wikipedia
"Similar meetings had ended violently so the magistrates sent the Yeomanry to arrest Hunt, but they got into trouble, so cavalry caring sabers were sent to rescue them. In the fighting, eleven people were killed and more than 400 wounded. This was the climax of four years' discontent in Britain, after the Napoleonic wars, which brought economic depression, high unemployment, and low wages. . . . Hunt was imprisoned for two years and the government restricted public meetings. . . . The massacre boosted the cause of radical reform for many decades." [Furtado: 1001 Days] The massacre took place at St. Peter's Fields in Manchester. "Parliament passed Six Acts that, reviving the repressive legislation of the era of the French Revolution, banned demonstrations, suspended the writ of habeas corpus, and placed restrictions on the press." [Merriman: Modern Europe, p. 630]