Charlotte Gray’s ‘Massey Murder’ gives voice to servant in 1915 crime case

TORONTO – Researching the case of a young female servant who shot and killed a member of Toronto’s prominent Massey family after he tried to kiss her in 1915 proved particularly challenging for renowned Canadian non-fiction writer and historian Charlotte Gray.

That’s because the 18-year-old woman at the heart of her book “The Massey Murder: A Maid, Her Master, and the Trial That Shocked a Country,” which is on the short list for Monday’s RBC Taylor Prize, was among members of society who didn’t have a voice back then.

“She was a servant and servants are invisible,” Gray, a member of the Order of Canada, said in a recent interview.

“Servants are always there in the past, but they’re never there in the written record. They don’t write diaries and letters very often, and if they do they don’t survive.”

Still, Gray was determined to tell the true-life story because she’s “always been interested in the invisible people in our history.”

“Not necessarily the prime ministers and the generals and the great explorers, but the people who were actually working the land or holding the placards in the Winnipeg General Strike, you know?” said Gray, who was born in Sheffield, England and moved to Canada in 1979.

“Who were the ordinary people who we don’t read about?”

Published by HarperCollins, Gray’s engrossing book is a contender for Monday’s $25,000 Taylor Prize against titles including “The Dogs are Eating Them Now: Our War in Afghanistan” by former Globe & Mail foreign correspondent Graeme Smith, which recently won the $60,000 Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for non-fiction.

Also in the running is “The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America” by Thomas King of Guelph, Ont., which recently won the $40,000 British Columbia National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction.

The Taylor Prize short list is rounded out by “The Once and Future World: Nature As it Was, As it Is, As it Could Be” by Vancouver’s J.B. MacKinnon, and “Arthur Erickson: An Architect’s Life” by Vancouver-based David Stouck.

“The Massey Murder,” Gray’s ninth book which was also a finalist for the B.C. National Award, details the killing of Charles (Bert) Massey by Carrie Davies on his front porch in February 1915.

A poor immigrant from Bedfordshire, England, Davies arrived in Toronto at age 16 after her married sister moved to Canada and paid her way across the Atlantic.

Though there were no diary entries to be found from Davies, Gray was able to assume a lot about her based on material about girls similar to her who’d crossed the pond for wartime employment opportunities.

“They were actually going into real wage jobs in department stores and soon they’d be going into work for munitions factories. There were all kinds of new jobs and new opportunities opening up for women and Carrie didn’t take any of them,” said Gray.

“So automatically I knew that she was a fairly timid young woman, and then there were a couple of interviews with her that I’d found in newspapers where I realized that she was a bit clueless, actually. She was very young, very vulnerable but very unsure of herself.”

Davies was also providing financial support to siblings back home who were reeling from the death of their father.

“Her mother was going blind and there were all these children back home in Britain that she felt terribly responsible for. She kept sending such little amounts as she could.”

Massey, meanwhile, sold cars at a Studebaker dealership and hailed from a powerful family that had built its fortune manufacturing farm equipment. While popular in his social circles, he was also considered a cad.

Davies had worked for Massey and his wife Rhoda for two years in Toronto’s Annex area when she shot him with his own pistol.

She told a policeman she did it because he “disgraced” her character and tried to “ruin” her when he tried to kiss her while his wife was away.

In an attempt to avoid bad press, the Massey family tried to have the murder charges thrown out of court and get Davies sent to a mental institution.

But Davies’ lawyer, Herbert Dewart, portrayed her as being paralyzed with the fear of being ruined by her boss. He also ensured the jury was composed of men who were old enough to be Davies’ father and might be appalled by his behaviour.

The brilliant defence, as well as the way the war manipulated public opinion, ultimately led to a not-guilty verdict, said Gray.

“There could have been a completely different narrative and a completely different verdict about an irresponsible young woman playing with guns and having absolutely no respect for her employer.

“But the sense of sort of chivalry and honour and virginity being spoiled by a brute reflected the view of what was happening in Europe with the honour and chivalry of the Allies and of the nations that were resisting the Germans, being overwhelmed by the brutality of the Germans.”

Massey’s house is still standing and the family name is still prominent in Canada, with legacies including Massey Hall and Massey College.

The New York-based Gray said she visited Massey’s home, which is now separated into three apartments.

“I don’t know what I’ve done to the real estate values,” she said with a laugh.

Gray also visited Davies’ hometown and talked to Massey descendants, who include one of her good friends in Ottawa.

“I said, ‘Is there anything here that will offend anybody?’ and she said, ‘No, I think we’ll all find it very interesting,’” said Gray, who’s also met descendants of many others involved in the story.

“The descendants of Bert Massey’s brother who came to one of my readings were very interested in this story. They didn’t know a lot of it. The Massey family isn’t a particularly close family and most of them who I’ve met have said: ‘This is so interesting, thank you for telling us what happened, we’ve never known.’”

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