Mary Ashford: Murder, Acquittal and Trial by Battle

In 1817, twenty-year-old Mary Ashford was found dead after attending a dance near Birmingham. Abraham Thornton was tried and acquitted of her murder, but the case was far from over. What followed was an extraordinary legal battle involving an ancient appeal of murder, a demand for trial by combat, and a law England had somehow never abolished.Check out our Patreon at patreon.com/historicaltruecrime Source MaterialsNaomi Clifford, The Murder of Mary Ashford: The Crime That Changed English Legal History (2018)John Cooper, A Report of the Proceedings Against Abraham Thornton at Warwick Summer Assizes, 1817, for the Murder of Mary Ashford; and Subsequently in the Court of King’s Bench (1818)John Fairburn, The Affecting Case of Mary Ashford (1817)John Fairburn, Thornton’s Second Trial: The Whole Proceedings of the Extraordinary Trial of Abraham Thornton, for the Murder of Mary Ashford (c. 1818)Edward Holroyd, Observations upon the Case of Abraham Thornton, Who Was Tried at Warwick, for the Murder of Mary Ashford: Shewing the Danger of Pressing Presumptive Evidence Too Far (1819)Ashford v. Thornton (1818), 1 Barnewall & Alderson 405; 106 English Reports 149Robert Megarry, A New Miscellany-at-Law: Yet Another Diversion for Lawyers (2005)Michael Lobban, “The Glorious Uncertainty of the Law: Life at the Bar, 1810–1830”59 Geo. III c. 46 (1819)