Master and Maid: The Charles Massey Murder

Description

337 pages
$19.95
ISBN 0-7725-1540-9

Author

Publisher

Year

1985

Contributor

Reviewed by Joan McGrath

Joan McGrath is a Toronto Board of Education library consultant.

Review

He was a member of the powerful Massey family (though an insignificant off-shoot, to be sure) and her employer. She was a humble little housemaid, not long over from England, and only 17 years old, although to obtain a much-needed job she had pretended to be a little older. On February 8, 1915, Carrie Davies shot Charles Albert Massey dead as he approached the front steps of his Toronto home. It was a field-day for scandal-mongers, and a nightmare for the righteous Masseys. They determined that the kindest way out would be to have the unfortunate young woman confined to an asylum for the insane, thus preventing any unseemly revelations in open court from causing the family embarrassment. Carrie’s defenders felt otherwise. They believed her to be neither insane nor a criminal. Several issues were at stake in this complex case: the unfair legal privilege of the wealthy Establishment; the sexual exploitation of helpless young domestics by their employers; and the determination of the feminist activists of the day that this trial should be fought squarely, not by special pleading over threatened virtue, etc. It all happened long ago. The actors are dead now, and one of them, Bert Massey, lies in an unmarked grave. A fascinating fictionalized but believable account of a distant historical cul-de-sac.

Citation

Jones, Frank, “Master and Maid: The Charles Massey Murder,” Canadian Book Review Annual Online, accessed November 3, 2024, https://cbra.library.utoronto.ca/items/show/35857.