On Saturday, 26 April 1817, Thomas Littlewood departed with his wife for their shop in Salford. In a chest of drawers within their bedchamber, he left behind a considerable sum: approximately one hundred and sixty pounds, consisting of banknotes and nineteen guineas, together with a few odd coins. The drawer was not locked. At Pendleton, in the house fronting the Manchester road, there remained Mrs Marsden, a woman of some seventy-five years, and Hannah Partington, a servant girl aged about twenty. That evening, when the Littlewoods returned, both women were dead and the money had vanished.
The dwelling stood behind an iron gate, approached by a gravelled walk. A low kitchen window looked out upon the path; the pump stood in the yard at the further extremity. An adjoining plot of land, known as the Three-nooked Field, commanded the approaches. At the trial, the prosecution described these premises with minute precision, for the movements observed that day were said to place several men about the house. The disposition of the grounds might well illuminate the testimony, yet of itself it could not designate those who had crossed the threshold.
According to the counsel for the Crown, four men had conferred at a Manchester public house on the eve of the deed: James Ashcroft the elder, his son James, David Ashcroft, brother to the elder, and William Holden. On the following day, they were allegedly seen walking near the house, now together, now apart. The prosecution placed Holden in the kitchen between one and two o’clock. Towards three, witnesses asserted they saw young James, David, and Holden leave by the gate, bearing bundles. Later, young James was said to have displayed notes and gold upon a pitch-and-toss ground. The prosecutor connected these scenes with the monies Littlewood claimed to have left in his drawer.
Upon entering the kitchen, Littlewood found the two women motionless. Mrs Marsden was seated in her accustomed armchair, her head fallen forward towards her knees. Hannah lay under the dresser, her legs drawn up towards her head. Blood covered the kitchen. A fire-poker was bent and besmeared; in the women’s bedchamber, the cleaver usually hanging in the kitchen bore traces of blood. Mr Olier, the surgeon, discovered upon Mrs Marsden a fracture of the forehead driven into the very brain, an injury which, in his judgment, might have been inflicted with the poker. Hannah’s skull was crushed, her head and neck bore multiple wounds, and one of her ears had been severed.
Harriet Towel had repaired to the Littlewoods’ house towards half past four to see Hannah. The kitchen shutters were nearly closed. She caught sight of the old woman slumped in her chair and observed blood upon the dresser, yet she withdrew without giving the alarm. She returned towards seven o'clock; Mrs Marsden was still in the selfsame posture. This time, Towel raised the neighbourhood. Littlewood, having returned from his shop, confirmed that both women were dead and that the banknotes, the guineas, the half-guinea, the seven-shilling piece, alongside shirts, handkerchiefs, and shawls, had been carried off. The stolen goods, he observed, might have been contained in two or three small bundles.
Mary Hallows furnished the prosecution with a material identification. She had passed through the yard to draw water at the pump between one and two o’clock. Peering through the kitchen window, she had seen Mrs Marsden sitting by the fire and a man with his face turned toward the casement. Hannah was in the yard; the two women had exchanged words. Hallows declared she had recognised Holden on the following Monday, when upwards of ten men were brought before her in Littlewood’s parlour. She professed to entertain no manner of doubt. Even before she had spoken, Holden had told her she was mistaken; her gaze was already fixed upon him. Her deposition established what she affirmed she had seen; the jury had yet to weigh its certainty.
Other neighbours placed men near the gate. Mary Longworth stated she had seen David Ashcroft outside with a green bundle under his arm, three hours after the midday meal. Ely Dyson saw several men quitting the house with bundles, though his recognition of Holden was less assured: he indicated that he had no perfect knowledge of him. Elizabeth Williams saw David at the Black Horse towards half past four with two other men; these latter departed first. These observations did not entirely accord as to the number of men nor the precise hour, yet they brought several of the accused into the vicinity of Pendleton and Manchester during the course of that afternoon.
On 27 April, the constables apprehended David and young James, and subsequently James the father and Holden. They found upon the young man a one-pound note, five shillings, and a seven-shilling piece. David carried seven and a half guineas and five one-pound notes; Holden, two notes, a guinea, and silver. Neither the paper nor the gold bore any distinctive mark whereby it might be traced to Littlewood’s drawer. The seven-shilling piece resembled one of those declared stolen, yet nothing in the proceedings enabled it to be identified as the identical coin. The prosecutor acknowledged, moreover, that no stain of blood had been discovered upon the garments of the accused.
Another deposition entangled the elder Ashcroft in the affair. William Collins, confined in the same lock-up, related that one evening the old man had described to him the contrivance of the robbery. In this version, James the father, his son, David, and Holden had agreed upon the murder and the theft; he himself was to remain in a field near Weston’s factory to watch the window and warn the others should anyone approach. Collins further reported that the men had hesitated, had walked past the house several times, and that Holden had stopped at a barber’s shop. This was a confession reported by a fellow prisoner, not an admission taken down by a clerk of the peace. The Crown prosecutor presented Collins as a man committed for a capital offence who had subsequently been pronounced entirely innocent. This voucher of credibility came, therefore, solely from the prosecution.
The four prisoners denied all participation. The elder Ashcroft protested that he had never known the two women; David said he had heard nothing of the crime until the moment of his arrest. Young James declared he had seen them only after their demise. Holden likewise maintained his innocence. A witness for the defence, Adam Halwell, indirectly impugned Collins: he testified that the latter had told him the prisoners were innocent, as far as he could learn. Robert Deaken related having seen young James a few days before the murders with a pocket-book full of notes and eight or nine guineas, while he was engaged in gaming. This testimony contested the presumption that the money displayed on the evening of the crime necessarily derived from Littlewood’s drawer. Other witnesses placed the three Ashcrofts upon the road to Pendleton or Holden in Manchester, without, however, accounting for all the observations of the prosecution.
At the Lancaster Assizes, opened for this trial on 5 September, the learned judge summed up the evidence for upwards of an hour and a half. David Ashcroft requested that two men be called to contradict Hallows; the judge consented, and directed counsel to be called in. After conferring with his advocate, David abandoned this course and threw himself upon the country. The jury returned after an absence of two minutes: James Ashcroft the elder, David, young James, and Holden were found guilty; John Robinson, likewise arraigned, was acquitted. Borrow records thereafter that the judge deemed the evidence overwhelming. Such a gloss from the chronicler cannot supersede the detailed body of testimony, wherein coexisted identifications of varying certainty, unmarked currency, and an alleged prison confession.
Upon the delivery of the verdict, young James’s wife, who was in court, uttered a shriek as he implored the judge to have mercy on his wife and children. The sentence of death was then pronounced. The father raised a white bundle above his head and gave glory to God. All four convicts continued to proclaim their innocence. On 8 September, they were conducted to the scaffold. Holden told the assembled crowd that he was dying an innocent man; David prayed that the real murderers might one day be brought to light. Father and son embraced before the condemned men joined with the chaplain in reciting the Lord’s Prayer. They then began to sing a hymn; the singing was cut short by the falling of the drop.
The chronicle appends after their death a character of the elder Ashcroft, formerly a Methodist, attributing to him an exalted belief in his own spiritual perfection. It relates that he had once thrust his arm into the fire to demonstrate his faith, suffering grievous burns thereby. This anecdote belongs to the moral portraiture drawn by the compiler; it resolves neither his actual share in the crime nor the truth of the four dying protestations of innocence. The affair concludes with the verdict and the execution, whilst the record transmitted by Borrow leaves to the reader the selfsame contradictory matter that was laid before the jury.