Three men were implicated in the crime - James Garside , Joseph Mosley and William Mosley . The judge and jury decided that Garside had pulled the trigger , despite it being his information which had originally led to the arrests ; it was ruled that he had been hoping to blame his accomplices . William Mosley 's account of the murder ran as follows : ' A short space afterwards there came a man down the footpath towards the clap gate . The man was in the footpath leading from Mr. Ashton 's . Garside got up , and met him in the field before he got through the gate , and pointed the piece at him . He gave way . Garside fired . When Mr. Ashton gave way he only went a little out of the way . Garside met him , and he went back . He had got through the clap gate when he fired , and was going along the road to the mill . The man who was shot fell across the road , with his head towards the right hand side , opposite to where I was . We immediately ran away , and I made the best of my way across the fields to the second canal bridge . ' As a centre of capitalism , Manchester was frequently the scene of labour riots and calls for greater political recognition by the city 's working and non-titled classes - resulting in events such as the Peterloo Massacre of August 1819 . The year prior to Ashon 's death also saw major uprisings and rebellions against the bourgeoisie in the July Revolution of France , which stimulated radical and Chartist progression in England . William Mosley recounted that when he asked Garside which of the Ashtons he had shot , the response was ' it did n't matter which it was ; it was one of them . '
Peterloo Massacre
Peterloo Massacre
Assassination of Thomas Ashton