 Peterloo was the first public meeting at which journalists from important , distant newspapers were present and within a day or so of the event , accounts were published in London , Leeds and Liverpool . The London and national papers shared the horror felt in the Manchester region , and the feeling of indignation throughout the country became intense . James Wroe , editor of the Manchester Observer was the first to describe the incident at the " Peterloo Massacre " , coining his headline by combining St Peter 's Field with the Battle of Waterloo that had taken place four years earlier . He also wrote pamphlets entitled " The Peterloo Massacre : A Faithful Narrative of the Events " . Priced at 2d each , they sold out every print run for 14 weeks and had a large national circulation . Sir Francis Burdett , a reformist MP , was jailed for three months for publishing a seditious libel . 
