[1] He was presented by a relative to the rectory of Hungerton, in Leicestershire, in 1754, and in 1759 to that of Twyford in the same county; he held both benefices in conjunction until 1767, when he resigned the former, and in 1769 he gave up the latter on his election to the presidency or vice-mastership of St John's College.
About 1775, when he became a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, he appears to have resigned his official connection with Cambridge, where he supported academic reform too vigorously to obtain further preferment.
At the same time he accepted the college living of Barrow, Suffolk, to which John Ross, the bishop of Exeter, an intimate friend and patron of Ashby, added the rectory of Stansfield in 1780.
He was intimate for some years with the poet Thomas Gray, and portions of his voluminous correspondence with Bishop Percy, Richard Gough, John Nichols, William Herbert, and the Rev.
He was a regular contributor to the Gentleman's Magazine; he added notes to Nichols's Literary Anecdotes under the initials of T. F. (Dr. Taylor's Friend); he greatly aided Nichols in his History of Leicestershire, to which he contributed an elaborate essay on the Roman Milliary at Leicester;[3] and he gave material assistance to Daines Barrington, when preparing his Observations on the Statutes.