Sir Charles Napier 003

Sir Charles Napier public house in what was formerly the YMCA building, and opened in 1968 following demolition of the original pub located next door.rnThe pub was named after a well-known military man who enjoyed an illustrious career serving the British Empire. During the campaign for universal (manhood) suffrage of 1839, Government stationed 6,000 troops in the North of England under Napier’s command. Unlike the perpetrators of the Peterloo massacre in 1819, Napier was sympathetic to the ‘Chartist’ cause and did his best to minimise violence while obeying his orders. He privately blamed ‘Tory injustice and Whig imbecility’ for the desperate state in which people in the industrial North found themselves. rn