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This page should not be speedily deleted because the murder of Rev. Parker vividly illustrates the tension in early 19th c. rural society over the subject of tithes reform, something easy to underestimate. For a local magistrate to conspire with substantial farmers to murder the village parson is about as extreme an example of social tension as you can get.
The second interesting feature is the importance attached to due process at Worcester Assizes in 1830. It was clear to everybody in the court, from The Times reporter to the judge Lord Littledale, that the three men on trial were guilty of one murder and probably complicit in a second. It was still felt to be more important to follow legal principle, even if in this particular case justice suffered because of it.
I think these two aspects make the Oddingley murders intrinsically more significant than other 19th c. English crimes which have pages on wikipedia, such as the Ratcliff Highway murders, Camden Town murder, and Marie Manning (murderer) – none of which seem to me to have any wider social or legal significance.
