 The meeting on 9 August was postponed after magistrates banned it to discourage the radicals but Hunt and his followers were determined to assemble and a meeting was organised for 16 August , with its declared aim solely " to consider the propriety of adopting the most LEGAL and EFFECTUAL means of obtaining a reform in the Common House of Parliament " . The press had mocked earlier meetings of working men because of their ragged , dirty appearance and disorganised conduct , but the organisers were determined that those attending the St Peter 's Field meeting would be neatly turned out and march to the event in good order . Samuel Bamford , a local radical who led the Middleton contingent , wrote that " It was deemed expedient that this meeting should be as morally effective as possible , and , that it should exhibit a spectacle such as had never before been witnessed in England . " Instructions were given to the various committees forming the contingents that " Cleanliness , Sobriety , Order and Peace " and a " prohibition of all weapons of offence or defence " were to be observed throughout the demonstration . Each contingent was drilled and rehearsed in the fields of the townships around Manchester adding to the concerns of the authorities . A royal proclamation forbidding the practice of drilling had been posted in Manchester on 3 August but on 9 August an informant reported to Rochdale magistrates that at Tandle Hill the previous day , 700 men were " drilling in companies " and " going through the usual evolutions of a regiment " and an onlooker had said the men " were fit to contend with any regular troops , only they wanted arms " 
