The strange death of a servant girl

Maggie McIntrye was found in the back room of widow Martha Reid’s home scratched up and thin, dressed only in a nightgown on May 16,1877.
It was a far cry from the plump girl who had gone to work for her only a few months before.
When detective Thomas Neil checked her it was obvious she was dead. There were only a couple of mattresses in the room and one window had no glass in it and she wore only a thin nightdress.
How and why she had died - aged only 17 - was a mystery and it went to an inquest - which in those days had a jury.
Maggie - Margaret - had gone to work for Martha Mary Harris Gill Reid as a servant on February 16, 1877 - and the last time her parents /Daniel and Ann had seen her she was healthy and plump
Several people told the jury having seen Maggie, spotting her looking thin, silent and cold looking. And never properly dressed for a Dunedin heading into a full winter.
John Blakeley who lived nearby saw her out on the street one winter’s evening picking up stones. She told him Mrs Reid had told her to do it. He told her to go inside but she continued picking up stones.
At least one mentioned that in February Maggie had looked healthy.
A week before her death a Sunday school teacher had seen her and worried she had been hit but satisfied himself it seemed to be ill-health. Another teacher was told Maggie was made to work without any shoes.
There was also circumstantial evidence that Maggie was being beaten.
Another girl Kate Telfer who had previously worked for Reid for a short time said she had never had enough to eat and had ended up sleeping on the floor. But her evidence was controversial - with Reid’s lawyer complaining that the treatment of other staff did not mean anything about Maggie.
Another witness had seen Reid hit Maggie.
Doctors disagreed on why Maggie had died. One has considered starvation while another thought meningitis was a possibility.
Reid for her part said Maggie had been ill and had been thin since she came to work for her.
The coroner said the jury had to consider why Maggie had made no attempt to escape the situation but the jury wasn’t having it and found that Mrs Reid would be guilty of manslaughter by neglect.
Reid was sent for trial in the Supreme Court and by then one of the doctors told of a brain bleed likely to have been caused by a blow to the head and that the cause of death was starvation.
Hundreds tried to get into the trial at the Supreme Court in Dunedin in July 1877.
Despite what seems like a great deal of evidence, the jury found her not guilty - the judge himself had said that Reid would not be guilty of manslaughter simply because she did not provide enough food and shelter, as the victim could have removed herself from the situation.
Reid, who had been born in England, promptly returned there soon after the trial and never came back to New Zealand.
Maggie is buried in the Southern Cemetery in Dunedin.​