The Peterloo Weaver

By Margaret Blake

When Adam Ayesthorpe found the girl on his door step he had no idea how much influence she would have upon his family life.

She had come from St Peter’s Field after the Manchester Yeomanry had viciously broken up a peaceful political meeting. The incident came to be known as Peterloo but the girl remembered nothing of it, not even her given name.

They named her Sarah. Sarah who was adored by one man, desired by another and respected by a third but detested by the only man she had ever loved.

Manchester was changing rapidly from pleasant country town to one of bustling industrialisation, a town taking upon itself a new style, a fresh social order of Merchants and Manufacturers.

Sarah moved easily through the emerging society becoming a respectable wife and mother and though forced into marriage with the severe and unhappy Josiah Ayesthorpe it is some long time before she discovers the reason for his hatred of her.

Secure at last in her identity, discovering the tragic reason for her loss of memory and finding her family, she finds within herself sufficient courage to make the ultimate sacrifice . . .