The Shrigley abduction was an 1826 British case of a forced marriage by Edward Gibbon Wakefield to the 15-year-old heiress Ellen Turner of Pott Shrigley. The couple were married in Gretna Green, Scotland, and had travelled to Calais, France, by the time authorities were notified by Turner's father and intervened. The marriage was annulled by Parliament, and Turner was legally married two years later, at the age of 17, to a wealthy neighbour of her class. Edward Gibbon Wakefield and his brother William, who had aided him, were each convicted at trial and sentenced to three years in prison.
thumb|right|Wakefield's abduction of Ellen Turner in The Chronicles of Newgate
Background
thumb|Ellen Turner by Henry Wyatt
Ellen Turner was the daughter and only child of William Turner, a wealthy resident of Pott Shrigley, Cheshire, who owned calico printing and spinning mills. At the time of the abduction, Turner was a High Sheriff of Cheshire and lived in Shrigley Hall, near Macclesfield. Fifteen-year-old Ellen came to the attention of Edward Gibbon Wakefield in 1826. He conspired with his brother William Wakefield to marry her for her inheritance.
Edward Gibbon Wakefield was 30 years old; he had been a King's Messenger (a diplomatic courier) as a teenager, and later became a diplomat. At the age of 20, he had eloped to Scotland with a 17-year-old heiress, Eliza Pattle. Her mother accepted the marriage and settled £70,000 on the young couple. Eliza died four years later in 1820 after giving birth to her third child. Wakefield had political ambitions and wanted more money. He tried to break his father-in-law's will and was suspected of perjury and forgery.
Wakefield appeared to have based his plan to marry Ellen Turner on the expectation that her parents would respond as Mrs Pattle had.
False summons
On 7 March 1826, Wakefield sent his servant Edward Thevenot with a carriage to Liverpool, where Ellen was a pupil at a boarding school. Thevenot presented a message to the Misses Daulby, the mistresses of the school. (The Misses Daulby were the daughters of Daniel Daulby, a well-known Liverpool collector and author of The Collected Works of Rembrandt (1796)). The message stated that Mrs Turner had become paralysed and wished to see her daughter immediately. The Misses Daulby were initially suspicious of the fact that Ellen did not recognise Thevenot but eventually let him take her away. and William in Lancaster Castle. Frances Wakefield was released. The marriage was later annulled by Act of Parliament on 14 June 1827.
Aftermath
thumb|Edward Gibbon Wakefield by Benjamin Holl
After his release, Edward Wakefield became active in prison reform. He became involved in colonial affairs, and had roles in the development of South Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. William Wakefield became an early leader in the colonisation of New Zealand.
William Turner was elected Member of Parliament for Blackburn as a Whig in 1832, serving until 1841. At the age of 17, Ellen Turner married Thomas Legh, a wealthy neighbour.