Hunt, Henry

Related Category: British and Irish History: Biographies

1773–1835, English radical politician. A powerful orator, popular with the laboring classes, Hunt was quarrelsome and stubborn but a sincere proponent of electoral and other reforms. He took part with Arthur Thistlewood in the Spa Fields meeting (1816) and gained his chief notice by presiding at the meeting in Manchester that ended in the Peterloo massacre (1819). He was imprisoned for two years, after a trial of doubtful legality. Hunt sat in Parliament (1830–32) but exerted little influence.