Prisoner name(s): Robert Taylor. Prisoner occupation: Clergyman of Midhurst, Chichester,...

Prisoner name(s): Robert Taylor.

Prisoner occupation: Clergyman of Midhurst, Chichester, [Sussex], founder of the Areopagus Society, collegiate of Saint John's College, Cambridge, [Cambridgeshire] and member of the Royal College of Surgeons.

Court and date of trial: Court of King's Bench on the 6 February 1828.

Crime: Spoken blasphemy.

Initial sentence: 12 months imprisonment in Oakham Gaol, Rutland. The prisoner must provide a £500 security for his good behaviour for five years. Two other persons must each provide a £250 security each for his good behaviour for 5 years.

Annotated (Outcome): Nil.

Petitioner(s): Five petitions from Robert Taylor (prisoner).

Richard Carlile of 62 Fleet Street, London.

Grounds for clemency (Petition Details): The prisoner is a man of high character and sound learning; the prisoner was charged with the imaginary crime of uttering blasphemous religious opinions in the course of 100 public orations for the Areopagus Society upon the evidence of a common, ignorant and illiterate parish beadle; the trial judge and jury were incompetent, the jury were incapable of understanding the prisoner's learned argument; the five indictments brought against the prisoner have been an attempt to secure his ruin; the prisoner's requirement to provide £1000 after one year's imprisonment should be withdrawn; the prisoner's offence did not justify the one year's imprisonment that he has already endured.

Other papers: Letter from Thomas Kaye Bonney magistrate of Normanton near Stamford, [Lincolnshire];

Copy of The Lion printed by Richard Carlile on the 19 December 1828. One of the prisoner's petitions has been published in the paper.