Thirteen years after the Peterloo Massacre in 1819, the mill owner that led the murderous Yeomanry, Hugh Hornby Birley, the most hated man in Manchester, still casts a dark shadow over the impoverished area. His workers include the nine-year-old Mary Burns, whose family relies on her wages to survive. She will mature into a radical Chartist, fighting to change her world. James Hull is sent into the midst of the deprivation as a missionary...