Page:Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham.djvu/23

Rh the works of David Cox, which were given by the late Mr. Joseph Nettlefold.—The School of Art, which is being built in Edmund Street, close to the Art Gallery, is so intimately connected therewith that it may well be noticed with it. The ground, about 1,000 square yards, has been given by Mr. Cregoe Colmore, the cost of election being paid out of £10,000 given by Miss Ryland, and £10,000 contributed by Messrs. Tangye. The latter firm have also given £5,000 towards the Art Gallery; Mr. Joseph Chamberlain has contributed liberally in paintings and in cash; other friends have subscribed about £8,000; Mr. Nettlefold's gift was valued at £14,000, and altogether not less thenthan [sic] £40,000 has been presented to the town in connection with the Art Gallery, in addition to the whole cost of the School of Art.

Art Union.— The first Ballot for pictures to be chosen from the Annual Exhibition of Local Artists took place in 1835, the Rev. Hugh Hutton having the honour of originating it. The tickets were 21s, each, subscribers receiving an engraving.

Ash, John., M.D.—Born in 1723, was an eminent physician who practised in Birmingham tor 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" ease, 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 same year, and acquitted. The trial was a very remarkable one Facts were proved with unusual clearness and precision, which put it beyond the bounds of physical possibility that he could have murdered Mary Ashford. Those facts hinged on the time shown by several different clocks, compared with the standard time kept at Birmingham, but the public feeling on the matter was intense. An engraving of the scene of the alleged murder, with a stimulating letter-press description, was published at the time, and the general sense undoubtedly was, that the perpetrator of a very foul murder had escaped his just doom. Hoping to do away with this impression, a well-known local lawyer bethought himself of the long-forgotten "Appeal of Murder," trusting that by a second acquittal Thornton's innocence would be acknowledged by all.