One of the sources of inspiration for this ninth book of non-fiction by multi-award winning historian and biographer Charlotte Gray was an obscure novel entitled Master and Maid: The Charles Massey Murder, by Frank Jones. For Gray, the story of the 1915 Toronto murder trial of the British- born servant Carrie Davies, who shot in cold blood her master, Charles “Bert” Massey of the eminent Massey family, was exactly what she was looking for.
In her preface, Gray notes how she wanted to write about someone unknown who hadn’t had a voice in the history of Canada. But the eighteen-year-old Davies, Gray discovered, had been a celebrity as well as the infamous subject of a war between the Toronto newspapers of the time, the Evening Telegram and the Toronto Daily Star.
Gray uses the horrific newspaper headlines of the events of the First World War as a tragic backdrop to the sensational murder trial that riveted people in Toronto and beyond. And she recreates the dynamic city that was “suffering from a chronic shortage of domestic servants.”
Enter Carrie Davies, who emigrated from Britain through the sponsorship of her sister, Maud, and brother-in-law, Ed Fairchild, a bricklayer whose services were in demand in the growing city.
Davies’ first position, a fateful one, was with the well-to-do Charles and Rhoda Massey on Walmer Road. The conditions for a turn-of-the-century maid in Toronto were so difficult that Gray says Davies was better off in the Don Jail, where she was taken the night of the murder.
Gray vividly recounts how the Massey name had become illustrious due to Charles’ grandfather, Hart Massey, who made his fortune with agricultural machinery and was one of the industrialists who “helped lay the foundations of the Dominion’s wealth.”
In 1915, Charles was thirty-four, married, and father to a fourteen-year-old son. Bert worked as a car salesman for Studebaker and was known as a bit of a flashy playboy. His homely and naive young maid, Davies, shot him to death on his front porch with his own gun, defending her honour.
Though the murder trial forms the core of this book, Gray does not reveal the surprising jury verdict until the last pages.
Compelling vignettes bind together this multi-faceted story. In the chapter “Legal Circles,” for example, we meet Hartley Dewart, the rich and highly sought-after fifty-four-year-old lawyer who took on the defence of Davies’ case, in a coup for her and her workingclass family.
“Those closer to the tall, lean, elegantly dressed lawyer had always known he had an irascible streak under the boyish charm, and he could be ornery, especially when he had a drink in his hand and a bee in his bonnet.” The bee in his bonnet, in this case, was unfinished business with the Massey family.
Other outstanding vignettes include Gray’s portrayal of John Ross Robertson, the owner of the “Tely” (Evening Telegram) newspaper that aimed at conservative readers. One of its reporters, Archie Fisher, favoured Davies and wrote many articles aimed at disproving her possible insanity.
In The Massey Murder, a book that also offers a rich selection of evocative historical photographs, Gray has dusted off the year 1915 in Toronto and made it come to life. The abundance of historical facts and gritty characters she has unearthed will easily engage readers eager to know more about Canada’s intriguing history.
— Anne Cimon (Read bio)
Anne Cimon is a Montreal poet and freelance journalist.