James Wroe

James Wroe (1788–1844), was the only editor of the radical reformist newspaper the Manchester Observer, the journalist who named the incident known as the Peterloo massacre, and the writer of pamphlets as a result that brought about the Reform Act 1832.

Manchester Observer

In 1818, Wroe, John Knight, Joseph Johnson and John Saxton formed the Manchester Observer. With Wroe as its editor, it pioneered radicalist popularist articles, and within twelve months was selling 4,000 copies per week to its local audience. and a total of fifteen charges of seditious libel were brought against Wroe, his wife and his two brothers. Publication of the Observer was temporarily suspended in February 1820, when Wroe relinquished ownership of the publication, but resumed under the last proprietor of the Observer, Thomas John Evans.

At trial, Wroe was found guilty on two specimen charges, while all the other charges against him, his wife, and his brothers were allowed to lie undetermined, provided the publication of libels ceased. On one charge he was sentenced to six months imprisonment and fined £100; on the other he was given a further six months and bound over to keep the peace for two years, to give a surety of £200, and to find two other sureties of £50 each. The specimen charges related not to anything in the Observer, but to articles in Sherwin's Weekly Political Register, which Wroe had sold. The sentences were said to have been reduced because of the distressed state of the Wroes. By then, the Manchester Observer had ceased publication, its final editorial recommending its readers to read the recently founded Manchester Guardian.

Later life Wroe became a bookseller in Great Ancoats Street, where he sold radical books and newspapers. He served on the police committee of Manchester (the predecessor of the town council) and was active in vestry politics: in 1834 he was presented with a piece of silver plate for his unceasing efforts on behalf of rate-payers. His politics remained Radical; in the political crisis of 1834 he held the Whigs and the Tories to be equally bad (the Manchester Times retorting that the Tories had driven him out of business and imprisoned him for a year; the worst that Wroe could say of the Whigs was that they had not been sufficiently solicitous for his wife whilst he was imprisoned).

In 1837, Wroe objected to the Manchester, South Junction and Altrincham Railway crossing the town by a viaduct passing close to Castlefield, which was a venue for public meetings: if there was a tyrannical government and the people of Manchester held a public meeting, "all that the military would have to do was to put their cannon on top of the railway and fire on the people." Wroe was prominent in the opposition to the incorporation of Manchester, and in 1838 he was chosen as one of Manchester's delegates to the first Chartist National Convention, but he does not appear to have attended it.

Wroe died in August 1844, his widow being "left in very embarrassed pecuniary circumstances of distress".