 Events such as the Pentridge Rising , the March of the Blanketeers and the Spa Fields meeting , all serve to indicate the breadth , diversity and widespread geographical scale of the demand for economic and political reform at the time . Peterloo had no effect on the speed of reform , but in due course all but one of the reformers ' demands , annual parliaments , were met . Following the Great Reform Act of 1832 , the newly created Manchester parliamentary borough elected its first two MPs . Five candidates including William Cobbett stood , and the Whigs , Charles Poulett Thomson and Mark Philips , were elected . Manchester became a Municipal Borough in 1837 , and what remained of the manorial rights were purchased by the borough council . 
