Every generation, it seems, experiences events in the news which have an emotional impact on them and prompt them to find out more about the lives of the individuals involved and their society. This local murder case from 1818 has gone down in local folk history, not just for the tragedy of the murder itself, but for the effect it had on our legal system.
Mary Ashford, a 20-year-old general servant and housekeeper from North Birmingham, was tragically raped and murdered on her way home from an evening out at the Tyburn pub on Whit Sunday, 1817. Her body was found in a shallow pool alongside what is now Penns Lane in Sutton Coldfield. Abraham Thornton was charged with her murder, and a trial ensued at Warwick Crown Court. Thornton was acquitted on the grounds of insufficient evidence.
Mary’s brother, William Ashford, appealed and Thornton was re-arrested. In such circumstances, Thornton could claim to ‘trial by combat’ under a law still in force from the Middle Ages. Ashford refused. This was the last time in British legal history that trial by combat was invoked, and the statute was removed in 1819 as a result of this case.
Mary’s grave can still be seen in the churchyard of Holy Trinity Church, Sutton Coldfield, often with fresh flowers upon it.
The Library has access to a range of resources which allow you to investigate such details from various angles. For the Mary Ashford case, here are some examples:
Law Reports
Barnewell & Alderson’s King’s Bench Reports for Easter Term in the 58th year of the reign of King George III, p.405-461. Available in Google Books.
Westlaw has the same report as published in English Reports vol.106, p.149. Westlaw has links to later cases which have cited the Ashford case, as well as to a related topic overview on ‘duelling’.
Newspaper reports
The British Library Newspapers database can be used to find newspaper reports from the time, some of which have journalist reports from the original trial at Warwick Assizes (eg. Leicester Journal of 15 Aug 1817) with verbatim reports of what was said, with a certain emphasis on the sensational and salacious, as was the style at the time.
Cross-searching in Gale Primary Sources will find references in a range of other archives as well. Searches can be limited precisely by date.
The National Archives Discovery website has a whole series of guides to going about different kinds of archival research.
Contemporary commentary
Our Cadbury Research Library contains several printed items of contemporary commentary including: