Catalogue description Prisoner name: Henry Cordery, age 56. Court and Date of Trial: Berkshire Assizes, 1840....

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Details of HO 18/28/29
Reference: HO 18/28/29
Description:

Prisoner name: Henry Cordery, age 56.

Court and Date of Trial: Berkshire Assizes, 1840.

Crime: Feloniously and maliciously shooting with intent to maim and disable.

Initial sentence: Transportation for life.

Outcome: 'Let the law take its course'.

Petitions and letters: Petition of mayors and inhabitants of Reading and neighbourhood, and the Corporation of Reading, with a Declaration of Anna Corderoy, the prisoner's wife and a witness statement from Eliza Davis, a neighbour, all submitted on the basis that he intended only to frighten his wife, not to injure her, that the wife had recovered her health and after a 36 year marriage and 12 children had forgiven him. The trial judge, John Gurney, does not recommend remission of sentence: there had been evidence of many arguments about his association with another woman and neither he nor the jury believed the shooting was an accident. The wife moreover suffered serious injury, the bullet having destroyed an eye. A 2nd application by the wife, for his detention in England is refused.

Date: 1840
Held by: The National Archives, Kew
Former reference in its original department: 28/29
Legal status: Public Record(s)
Closure status: Open Document, Open Description

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