Hugh Hornby Birley

[1][dubious – discuss] In 1814 he commenced the building of the Cambridge Street Cotton Mill in Chorlton-on-Medlock.

He was a local magistrate and one of the commanders of the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry responsible for the Peterloo Massacre at St Peter's Field in 1819.

[2] He assisted the Swiss inventor-engineer Johann Georg Bodmer by making space available to him at his Chorlton Mills and was instrumental in founding the Royal Victoria Gallery of Practical Science in 1839.

[3] He was associated with the Royal Manchester Institution[4] and a moving force in the establishment of Owens College.

[6] Hugh Hornby Birley died in 1845 and was buried in the family vault in St Peter's Church, Manchester.

Birley is chiefly remembered for his role in the Peterloo Massacre of 1819 (engraving by Richard Carlile )
Birley is buried in the family vault under St Peter's Church , which now lies beneath St Peter’s Square, marked by a stone cross