Mary Ann Ashford - for poisoning her husband.

45 year old Mary Ann Ashford became the last woman to be hanged in public in the county of Devon. She was executed in front of the County Gaol at Exeter before a crowd estimated at between 15 and 20,000 at 8.00 a.m. on Wednesday the 28th of March 1866 for the murder by arsenic poisoning of her husband of 20 years, 45 year old William at their home at Honiton Clyst in Devon on the 4th of November 1865.

According to The Sheffield and Rotherham Independent of March 29th 1866, the motive for the crime was “that she might indulge a guilty passion for one of his workmen”. This man was 23 year old William Pratt with whom Mary Ann had been having an affair with for at least two years. William Ashford was a cordwainer (shoemaker) by trade and had an estate valued at £120, Mary Ann being the sole beneficiary of his will. She was hoping to use this money to set up home with Pratt.

The village constable, William Butt lived next door to the Ashford’s and he and his wife were close friends of theirs. On the 3rd of November Mrs. Butt took some tea up to William Ashford and noticed some gritty blue substance in the tea cup. Finding this suspicious, she removed some and wrapped it in a piece of paper. She also noticed the same substance in his medicine. William Ashford went into convulsions in the early hours of the 4th and died a little later that morning. Mrs. Butt informed her husband of the blue powder and he arrested Mary Ann. She tried to throw the remaining powder onto the fire but spilt some on her dress. The spillage was analysed and found to be Hunter’s Vermin Powder which contained arsenic and strychnine.

Mary Ann was tried at Exeter before Mr. Justice Byles at the Devon Lent Assizes on the 16th and 17th of March 1866. Despite the best efforts of her barrister, Mr. Coleridge, the jury only needed a few minutes to reach their verdict.

She was sentenced to death and returned to Exeter prison to await execution. A few days before she was due to hang she had attempted suicide by strangling herself with her pocket handkerchief, while the death watch matron had fallen asleep. Mary Ann’s heavy breathing sounds woke the woman who was able to prevent the suicide.

It was reported that the prison chaplain, the Rev. Mr. J. Hellings, had made considerable efforts to elicit a confession from Mary Ann, but she would only say she was guilty and not go into any further details.

William Calcraft arrived in Exeter on the afternoon of the 27th. The gallows was set up over the gatehouse. Mary Ann was so weak that she had to be carried to it by three turnkeys (warders) who held her on the trap while Calcraft made the usual preparations. When the bolt was drawn, Mary Ann struggled. Depending upon which newspaper account you believe, Calcraft had to pull on her legs to end her sufferings which was reported by the Exeter Flying Post and The Western Morning News. Alternatively The Western Daily Press and the Exeter and Plymouth Gazette rebutted that story and stated that “she struggled once or twice and then life appeared to be extinct”. The hanging reportedly took three minutes to carry out.

In any event questions were raised by the well known abolitionist, Mr. William Ewart the MP for Dumfries, to the Secretary of State for the Home Department, (the Home Secretary now) regarding the conduct of this execution and the continuance of public hangings. He was partially responsible for the ending of public executions just over two years later although this would be the last public execution in the county of Devon.

Back to Contents Page