Prisoner name: John Pritchard the younger, aged 19 years. Court and Date of Trial:...

Prisoner name: John Pritchard the younger, aged 19 years.

Court and Date of Trial: Shropshire Lent Assizes, Shrewsbury, March 1849.

Crime: Wounding with intent to do grievous bodily harm to John Podmore.

Initial sentence: Ten years transportation. Held in Millbank Prison [London].

Gaoler's Report: 'Character good'.

Outcome: 'Conditional pardon, [sentence reduced to] two years imprisonment, 20 December 1849'.

Petitions and letters: Petition from John Podmore (prosecutor) undersigned by the trial judge; bundle of four affidavits and a cover sheet in support, including one from Mary Pritchard (wife); judge's report and favourable recommendation on the case and transmitting the petitions to the Home Office; annotated cover sheet to the report; petition from John Pritchard the younger (the prisoner); petition from 20 inhabitants of Shiffnal, Shropshire or its environs (known to the prisoner); letter from the Lord Mayor of London transmitting the latter wrongly-directed petition to the Home Office; grounds for clemency cited as the jury opining that the indictment should have been for common assault only, prisoner had no quarrel with the prosecutor, first offence, the sentence is disproportionate to the offence, his youth, no permanent injury inflicted on the prosecutor who has fully recovered.