Liverpool Evening Express - Monday 31 July 1905

GRIEF AND SUICIDE. 

Suicide while temporarily insane, caused through excessive grief, was the jury’s verdict on Saturday at Cuckfield at an inquest on the body of Gertrude Elizabeth Edwards, who was found drowned the previous day in the Dog Kennel pond in Cuckfield-Park. 

It ‘was stated that deceased idolised a fellow servant who ended her life in Cuckfield-park a week previously. Both were in the service of Mr. R. A. Bevan, the banker. Jessie Lockroyd, a parlourmaid at Horsgate, said after the funeral of the lady’s-maid Edwards said the sad affair would be the death of her. 

On Friday she went to deliver a note, and was last seen in the churchyard, where her friend was buried. Later her hat was found pinned to the ground, and her body was eventually taken from the pond.