~Ash, John, M.D.~--Born in 1723, was an eminent physician who practised
in Birmingham for some years, but afterwards removed to London. He
devoted much attention to the analysis of mineral waters, delivered the
Harveian oration in 1790, and was president of a club which numbered
among its members some of the most learned and eminent men of the time.
Died in 1798.

~Ashford, Mary.~--Sensational trials for murder have of late years been
numerous enough, indeed, though few of them have had much local
interest, if we except that of the poisoner Palmer. The death of the
unfortunate Mary Ashford, however, with the peculiar circumstance
attending the trial of the supposed murderer, and the latter's appeal to
the right then existing under an old English law of a criminal's claim
to a "Trial of Battel," invested the case with an interest which even at
this date can hardly be said to have ceased. Few people can be found to
give credence to the possibility of the innocence of Abraham Thornton,
yet a careful perusal of a history of the world-known but last "Wager of
Battel" case, as written by the late Mr. Toulmin Smith, must lead to the
belief that the poor fellow was as much sinned against as sinning, local
prejudices and indignant misrepresentations notwithstanding. So far from
the appeal to the "Wager of Battel" being the desperate remedy of a
convicted felon to escape the doom justly imposed upon him for such
heinous offence as the murder of an innocent girl, it was simply the
attempt of a clever attorney to remove the stigma attached to an
unfortunate and much-maligned client. The dead body of Mary Ashford was
found in a pit of water in Sutton Coldfield, on the 27th of May, 1817,
she having been seen alive on the morning of the same day. Circumstances
instantly, and most naturally, fastened suspicion of foul play upon
Abraham Thornton. He was tried at Warwick, at the Autumn Assizes of the