The Maid in the Well

In the summer of 1906, the body of nineteen year old servant Eliza Jane Mackay was pulled from a fifty foot deep well beside a farmhouse on the bleak Pennine moors above Oldham.

Her throat had been cut. A razor was missing. And just hours earlier, she had walked out of her home in tears, saying, “If I don’t see you again, goodbye.”

An inquest quickly ruled her death a suicide “while of unsound mind” - a verdict that closed the case, but left a trail of unanswered questions behind it.

Was Eliza driven to take her own life?

Was she being bullied and shamed?

Or was there something far more dangerous at the heart of her final night?

In this episode of Manchester Murders, Susan Witterick revisits Eliza’s forgotten story, exploring the harsh realities of life for servant girls in Edwardian England, the hidden risks faced by young women with no power, and the persistent rumours that Eliza may have been carrying a secret someone wanted buried.

More than a century later, her death still refuses to stay silent.

This story was suggested to me by my friend Robert, who recently paid me the compliment of, having waded through my first few episodes, saying “I would listen now, even if it wasn’t you!”

This story is another one local to me and although I know the pub, I hadn’t heard the story before. At first I thought there wasn’t much to it. Girl found in well, ruled suicide, case closed.

But once I started to think about it, the conditions of the time, the things which weren’t said, I was intrigued.

I did try to obtain a copy of the inquest report from Oldham Archives – they were amazingly helpful but unfortunately it couldn’t be located. Maybe it’ll turn up somewhere though.