VPRS 24/P0

Box 30 1855/100

Item 100

Mary Daffy 

27 October 1855

Committed self destruction while labouring under temporary insanity.

At the John o’Groat Hotel, Ballarat

Jury

Alexander Stewart

Stephen Cusack

Bernard Levinzer

John Dudley Jones

George Knot

Gorge Headley

James Hodge Gilchrist

William Benjamin Koppers

Harry Stanilaus Binney

Adam Beveridge

Edward Ashenden

John Cassidy

Death was caused by drowning herself in a water hole having a fit of great excitement caused by being disappointed in marriage by one Edward Doyle.

Witness George Woodhidge Phelps

Ballarat 27 October 1855

The deceased Mary Daffy had been a servant of mine up to about the first instant and had been in my service about two months. The deceased called at my house on the thirteenth instant about noon. I then informed the deceased that Edward Doyle to whom she was engaged to be married had left for Fiery Creek. Upon hearing which the deceased took away some two or three of her own old dresses and was absent a few minutes and on her return she told deponent “that she had put them in a hole where she soon would be herself”

The deceased then remained in my house about Half an hour after and then left the house without Bonnet or shawl in a severe rain storm and I never saw her alive afterwards but reported her missing to the police on the fifteenth instant after making every inquiry after her the previous two days. Edward Doyle had been putting off his marriage with the deceased for some weeks previous and I have since heard that Edward Doyle is a married man but don’t know it of my own knowledge. 

Witness Eugene Bourdet

Of Ballarat on 27 October 1855

I was informed about eight o’clock this morning by a man unknown to me that there was a woman found dead in a hole. I went immediately to the hole and saw the body of the deceased being taken out of the hole and laid on side of same. Her dress appeared to me to be quite whole and perfect.

Signed Eugene Bourdet

When I reached the hole there were several persons about it and saw the Police Constable assisted by another person taking the body out of the hole.