On the evening of Monday, February 8, 1915, Carrie Davies rushed out of the house at 169 Walmer Road in Toronto, clasping a gun in her hand. She shouted at her employer, “You ruined my life,” and before he could react, she fired two shots. The second bullet struck him in the chest. Charles Albert Massie turned as if to run, but he fell to the ground and died within minutes.
Carrie was an eighteen-year-old English maid who had come to Canada two years earlier seeking a better life. She was born in England on April 28, 1897, the daughter of a British Army veteran wounded while fighting in South Africa. Education was compulsory in England, but like many young girls of her time, she left school as soon as she was able to find work and help support her family. In 1913, she decided to leave England and take up a position in Toronto.
The Canadian government had been actively encouraging young, hardworking, respectable unmarried women from poorer backgrounds to come and work in domestic service. When Carrie arrived, over 27 percent of the female workforce in Canada was employed in domestic service. She was offered a position in the household of Charles Albert Massie, known as Bert, who lived with his wife Rhoda and their teenage son at 169 Walmer Road. Bert was the grandson of Hart Massey, a prominent and extremely successful businessman who had built up the Massey manufacturing company, which produced agricultural equipment.
In 1891, the company merged with A. Harris Son and Company and was renamed Massey-Harris Limited, soon becoming the biggest agricultural equipment company in the British Empire. But Bert had not particularly benefited from the family wealth. He did not work in the family business, instead employed as a car salesman, and it was believed that his wealthy cousins Vincent and Raymond, who ran the company, had questioned his choice of career.
He was described as someone whose intentions were not always honorable and as a person who liked to socialize. Carrie was a responsible and trustworthy employee who completed all her tasks well and never gave her employers cause to complain. She rarely went out, preferring to save her wages and send money back to her widowed mother in England, who was bringing up Carrie’s three younger sisters. After the outbreak of World War I in 1914, that money became even more important.
On Sunday, February 7, 1915, Carrie started the day like any other Sunday, although Mrs. Massie was not home, having traveled to Connecticut to visit her family. Later, the young Charles Albert Massie went out, leaving Carrie alone in the house with Bert. In the two years she had worked for the family, he had paid her little attention, but a couple of days earlier, after drinking, he had approached her making lewd comments.
That Sunday, he had been drinking again. He approached her, awkwardly offered her a ring he said was in appreciation of her services, then put his hands around her waist and kissed her. Carrie freed herself, but moments later he asked her to come to his bedroom to make his bed. Concerned but obliged, she entered the room, and he once again grabbed her and threw her onto the bed.
She managed to push him aside, ran upstairs, and locked herself in her room. Not wanting to stay in the house, she went to see her married sister in the Cabbagetown neighborhood, her only relative in Canada. Her sister, wanting what was best for her, advised her to return to the house and continue her work. She reminded Carrie that although domestic service paid a relatively low wage, she lived in a nice house and could send money home to her mother.
Mrs. Massie would soon be back, and everything would return to normal. She also told her not to report the incident to the police, as there would be little point, it being Carrie’s word against that of a member of the renowned Massey family. Carrie was left wondering what to do.
She had been given an opportunity to work in Canada and did not want to let the Massies down, but she feared she would be ruined if Mr. Massie managed to force himself upon her. At 11:20 that night, she returned to the house. The next morning, Carrie got up, dressed, and went downstairs to prepare breakfast.
She managed to avoid Mr. Massie, who soon left for work. She remained agitated by what had happened. That evening, when Bert returned from work in the dark and cold, Carrie rushed out with the gun and shot him.
A paper boy witnessed the event. Concerned residents who heard the shots came out of their houses and tried to assist, but Charles Albert Massie died a few minutes later. The police arrived quickly. Upstairs in her attic room, they found Carrie Davies.
She told them she was about to go to the station to confess. An inquest was held. One witness, Beatrice Dennis, who lived nearby, said she had seen Massie turn toward his house and was nearly at his steps when she heard a shot. He tried walking back to the sidewalk, got about halfway, and another shot was fired.
He stumbled and fell. Carrie did not deny shooting him. In an emotional statement, she said that when she saw Mr. Massie coming down the road, she lost control of herself, everything became misty before her, and she only thought of him doing her harm and knew she would have to defend herself.
She said she could only think of the revolver hanging in the little boy’s room. The inquest concluded that Carrie had indeed shot Charles Massie, and she would face trial for murder. As she awaited trial, Carrie received hundreds of letters of support, many with donations, from Ontario, across Canada, and from England. Enough money was raised to hire a respectable lawyer named Harley J.
The newspapers were fascinated, and for weeks the case dominated headlines, even as hundreds of thousands of young Canadian men fought in Europe. The Toronto Daily Star seemed to support Carrie’s plight, portraying a young vulnerable girl far from her mother who was forced to defend herself against her employer. The paper helped organize donations for her defense. But not all newspapers supported her.
Those who knew the Masseys as a fine and upstanding family stood by them, arguing that Massie had been shot in a premeditated attack as he walked toward his front door after a hard day’s work. It was also written that Carrie had a history of seizures that at times made her behave as if insane, suggesting the crime might have occurred during temporary insanity. Her trial was held in the Toronto Women’s Court before Chief Justice William Mulock, with a jury made up solely of men. The case for the crown was led by prosecutor Ernest Edward Arthur.
He outlined how Massie had been walking toward his front door when he was shot dead by the defendant, and reminded the court that since Massie was deceased, the jury would not hear an alternative version of events. Carrie’s lawyer, Harley J. , offered a very different defense. He focused on the vulnerability of a young eighteen-year-old British woman raised in impoverished conditions who had traveled to Canada to fill a needed role in domestic service in one of the more privileged households of Toronto society.
He told the court that despite her poor background, she had been raised in a respectable manner reflecting the values expected of a young lady in 1915, and that she believed her employer should not force himself upon her. He told the jury that Canadians had placed upon themselves duties of trustees and guardians for girls who came from homes such as hers. He also called a doctor who testified that the defendant still had her virtue. J.
argued that the only reason Carrie shot Massie was in defense of her honor against a treacherous assailant. The prosecution argued this was not a spontaneous act brought on by emotion. They reminded the jury that Massie had been at work all day and had not made any inappropriate comments since the previous evening, while Carrie had taken her employer’s gun, loaded it, and waited until she saw him approaching the front door before coming out and shooting him. This suggested premeditation.
Harley J. was a skilled lawyer, portraying Miss Davies as the true victim of the crime, outlining her high moral values, her sense of duty, and her vulnerable position thousands of miles from her mother. When Carrie gave evidence, she told the court of the events leading to the shooting, appearing as a young, courteous, and defenseless servant girl who had defended herself against unwanted approaches from her master. In his summing up, J.
said Miss Davies felt the full weight of the attack made upon her, and described the shooting as an impulsive act as she desperately tried to prevent herself from becoming a fallen woman. After both sides gave closing statements and the judge summed up, the jury deliberated for only thirty minutes before returning a verdict of not guilty. The verdict was greeted with cheers and applause both inside the courtroom and among the people waiting outside. Judge Mulock looked at the defendant and said the jury had found that when she killed Mr.
Massie, she lost self-control and had no murderous intent. Newspapers reported that many involved in the trial were emotional when the verdict was read, concluding it was a triumph for traditional and moral values in a period of change in Canada. Following her acquittal, the newspaper frenzy soon died down as stories from the trenches in Belgium and France again dominated the front pages. Carrie was offered positions in other households but had no desire to return to domestic service.
She disappeared from public attention, eventually marrying a farmer, Mr. Charles Brown, and having two children. She devoted much of her time to charitable organizations and never again spoke about the events of February 8, 1915.
She died on October 5, 1961, at the age of sixty-four, and was buried in Hillcrest Cemetery in the town of Halton Hills, Ontario.
