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St. Peter's Church
 St. Peter's Church was
built by James Wyat in 1788. It stood where
St. Peter's Square is today until 1907 when, like a
number of city centre churches, it closed because of
dropping city centre population numbers and church
attendances.
   A stone cross was
erected in St. Peter's Square to mark the location
of the church.
     As you can see from the
Adshead Map extract below, shown with the permission
of Chetham's Library, the square was very different
in the days when the church dominated it.
Below the map is a photograph of the square after
the church was demolished and the commemorative
cross, by Temple Moore, was erected. The cross
was unveiled in 1908.
  Not far from St.
Peter's Church was St. Peter's Field, where the Free
Trade Hall was constructed. It was on that
field that thousands of people gathered on August
16th, 1819 to listen to speakers in favour of
Parliamentary Reform. The local magistrates
ordered mounted cavalry to disperse the crowd, an
action which resulted in the deaths of 15 people and
left more than 400 people injured. The crowd
was composed of men and women many of them textile
workers some who had walked long distances to get to
Manchester from the surrounding mill towns.
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