The Murder of Mary Drury

On the morning of Friday 6 February 1920, Daniel Bond, a foreman porter at Sandhills Station in Liverpool, made a grim discovery. On the track, about 120 yards from the signal box lay the torso of a man, dressed in a railway porter’s uniform. Bond shuddered, desperately hoping that it was not one of his colleagues. Accidents did happen to people working near the tracks, but it was always a terrible sight to witness. He carefully picked up the body and placed the remains into a sack. 40 yards further north, Bond found a severed head, the face so badly damaged that it was unrecognisable. He immediately summoned the police.

Schoolgirl Mary Drury

On the evening of Monday 2 February 1920, four days before the grisly discovery of a body on the railway tracks, 15-year-old Kathleen Mary Drury, known as Mary, was getting ready to go out. She said she was visiting a friend from the local Wesleyan School, 14-year-old Isabella Connell, who lived at 10 Park View in the Liverpool suburb of Waterloo, just half a mile from Mary’s home at 2 Gordon Avenue, where she lived with her parents. Earlier that day, however, she had told her schoolmistress that she would be visiting her uncle, Mr Jones of York Avenue, Crosby – a slightly longer journey of just over a mile.

Mary Drury, the fifteen-year-old schoolgirl from Waterloo, near Liverpool, who was found murdered on a local allotment in 1920. (Image: British Newspaper Archive)

Mary Drury was born in Hertfordshire, about 200 miles southeast of Liverpool, to Arthur Benjamin and Beatrice Lily Drury, who had married in 1901, three years before Mary’s birth. By 1920, Arthur, then 46, was working as a shipping clerk with the British and Argentine Meat Company, so it was likely the family had moved to Liverpool for job opportunities, as the city was the shipping capital of England. At this time, it was not uncommon for families to relocate for work. In the years following the Great War, Britain was still adjusting as many returning soldiers who had been demobilised, often referred to as being ‘bowler-hatted’, were struggling to reintegrate into civilian life. Large numbers were unemployed or suffering from war injuries, including shellshock, which would now be recognised as PTSD. Prime Minister David Lloyd George had promised to create a ‘land fit for heroes’, but unemployment and economic difficulties persisted. Industrial unrest was widespread, with frequent strikes at railways, docks, and mines. In Liverpool and the surrounding areas, the Police Strike of 1919 had led to riots and the dismissal of more than 900 officers, from which the Lancashire Constabulary was still rebuilding a year later. Rationing had only recently ended for many items, though sugar and butter were still restricted, and prices for other luxuries remained high. A legacy of the wartime food shortages was the government’s continued encouragement of cheap allotment rents, allowing ordinary families to grow their own vegetables in the post-war years. Mary’s father was among those who rented an allotment just off nearby Brook Road, close to Victoria Park, a public green space with landscaped gardens and play areas for children.

Illustration of Mary Drury walking through Waterloo, 1920. (Image: Prash Ganendran)

On the night of 2 February, Mary stopped briefly to speak to a girl she knew from school, before continuing alone in the direction of the Brook Road allotments, which involved passing through a quiet, sparsely lit area. A railway signalman named James Hyland also saw her near Brook Road, though at the time, he didn’t know her name. He noticed that she wore a tam O’Shanter (a type of woollen bonnet which originated in Scotland) and that she kept glancing back in his direction. That night, Mary never reached her friend’s house, nor her uncle’s. When she failed to return home, her father went out looking for her but to no avail.

Shocking Discovery

At around 8 a.m. the following morning, on Tuesday 3 February, a man on his way to work noticed a small shape slumped in a patch of waste ground adjoining the allotments, about 300 yards from the nearest houses. It lay in the hollow of a filled-in ditch, mostly shielded from the main road by a mound of earth. It was the body of a teenage girl.

At the mortuary, the body was identified as that of 15-year-old Kathleen Mary Drury. Dr Dunn carried out the post-mortem and found that her throat had been cut by a small knife, and severe injuries inflicted on her skull by a heavy blunt instrument. A torn piece of a white linen handkerchief had been stuffed into her mouth. Mary’s clothing was disarranged, but there was no evidence of sexual assault. Her diary was found in her pocket, and detectives hoped it might reveal a clue as to her movements in her final hours.

Chief Constable Harry Lane, Chief Superintendent Gregson, Superintendent J. Wilcock, and Detective Inspector Fyles, all from Lancashire County Constabulary, took charge of the investigation and offered a reward of £100, worth about £5,700 today, for information leading to an arrest and conviction. The sandhills and waste ground were searched, a water-trough on the allotments was drained, and personnel at several local army camps were questioned, but no weapon or concrete evidence was found. A young boy told police that at around 7:30 p.m. on the night of the murder, he had seen the silhouette of a man chasing a girl across the allotments, but in the moonlight, he could not make out any distinguishing features. Mary’s teachers described her as intelligent, modest, and well-liked by her classmates, and there appeared to be no reason why anyone would wish her harm. The torn scrap of white handkerchief could not be identified, though it seemed more likely to belong to Mary, as the delicate fabric would be unusual for a man. The other half was never located. The most promising lead came from railway signalman James Hyland, who reported seeing a girl matching Mary’s description walking near Brook Road the night before, repeatedly turning to look behind her. Shortly afterwards, Hyland saw a man he knew; a fellow signalman named Edward Leahy. Leahy had his cap pulled down over his eyes, but they bid each other a good evening as they passed.

The Deputy Coroner and the jury visited the crime scene the next day, on Wednesday 4 February. Her bereft father, Arthur, described his daughter as quiet and well-behaved, noting that she was usually in bed by 9 o’clock and had no boyfriends. She wore no jewellery and carried only a souvenir 1920 penny, so he was certain that robbery could not have been the motive. Arthur was astonished by testimony from Mary’s schoolfriend Isabella Connell, who told the court that just before Christmas 1919, Mary had lent Edward Leahy two shillings and had intended to ask for its return. On two occasions, Isabella had seen Mary talking to Leahy at the allotments, as his plot was next to her father’s. Another schoolgirl admitted that she had seen Mary with Leahy on several occasions and that Mary had once asked her to cover for her if her mother ever asked if the girls had been out together on an evening when she had been with him. The inquest was adjourned while police continued interviewing persons of interest, including Edward Leahy.

Edward Leahy, who took his own life days after murdering fifteen-year-old Mary Drury in Waterloo, near Liverpool, in 1920. (Image: British Newspaper Archive)

Railway Signalman Edward Leahy

Edward Leahy, aged 31, was from the small coastal town of Crosby, just a mile away from Waterloo. His job as a signalman required him to operate a signal box, controlling train movements using levers that adjusted signals and track points. He communicated with neighbouring boxes via bell codes or telegraph to keep detailed train records and prevent collisions. It was a demanding job that required constant attention during long shifts, making it a well-respected working-class occupation, though a lonely one, with little interaction with colleagues. Leahy had worked as a signalman for at least 9 years and had been married to a woman named Susanna Russell for 5.

On the evening the inquest was adjourned, Superintendent Gregson interviewed Edward Leahy. Leahy admitted that he knew Mary, though he claimed he didn’t know her name and had only learned it after reading about the murder in the newspaper. He said she had occasionally spoken to him at his allotment, but he seemed agitated when he denied any closer association. When asked to account for his movements on the night of the murder, Leahy said he had gone for a walk at 7 p.m. and returned about an hour later. Police examined his clothes and found dark red stains on his coat sleeve, which Leahy quickly explained was rust from one of the levers in his signal box. He also had a pocketknife in his possession, of the sort which Dr Dunn believed could have caused the wound on Mary’s throat. When Superintendent Gregson took the coat into evidence for further examination, Leahy asked, ‘You don’t suspect me, do you?’ Gregson calmly replied, ‘We are just making enquiries at this time.’

Just two days later, railway porter Daniel Bond found the body of a man on the tracks at Sandhills Station, who was identified as Edward Leahy. Earlier, Leahy had left his post in the signal box after receiving a call from the Constabulary enquiring as to his whereabouts and had then been struck by an electric train. At his inquest, his father could identify him only by the trade union card found in his pocket, and the jury concluded that he had committed suicide by throwing himself under the train. Police searched Leahy’s room and took his diary into evidence, but no further clues emerged.

Mary Drury’s funeral was held at St Luke’s Church, Great Crosby, on Saturday 7 February 1920, attended by many family members, schoolfriends, and neighbours. The inquest into her death resumed on 20 February, and extracts from her diary were read aloud, though the coroner chose not to publish the contents in full, describing them as ‘sordid’ and suggesting an intimate relationship between Mary and Edward Leahy. Home Office Pathologist Dr Bernard Spilsbury confirmed that the stains on Leahy’s coat were not rust, as he had claimed, but human blood, and two hairs found on the coat matched samples from the victim. Bloodstains on Mary’s own clothing also corresponded with those on Leahy’s.

Later, Mary’s aunt, Mrs Jones, who was casually acquainted with the defendant, told the court that Leahy had visited her house on 5 February, the day before his death. He had told her nervously, ‘I have been suspected.’ He added regretfully, ‘Oh, they have taken my overcoat.’ A work colleague also came forward, recalling that Leahy had casually remarked two years earlier that if the police were ever after him, he would commit suicide. Another female friend of Mary’s testified that Leahy had once approached her and asked how Mary was, then wrote the answer down in a notebook. This cast doubt on his assertion that he didn’t know her name and suggested he may even have been stalking her. After 7 minutes of deliberation, the coroner’s jury returned a verdict of wilful murder by Edward Leahy.

While the evidence strongly pointed towards Leahy, his motive remained unclear. Could the small loan of two shillings, which Mary asked to be repaid, really have been enough to lead to an argument that ended in violence? Or might he have intended a sexual assault and gagged her to silence her, only to kill her when she resisted? Or perhaps, if their acquaintance was more intimate, as Mary’s diary suggested, could rejection or an ending of their relationship have provoked him to strike out in anger?

His suicide on discovering he was under suspicion, coupled with the evidence of human blood and the victim’s hairs on his clothing, strongly suggest his guilt, but could there be any room for reasonable doubt? Either way, without a confession, the reason for the murder of Kathleen Mary Drury remains unknown; a tragic piece of history in which a 15-year-old girl’s life was senselessly ended in the post-war shadows of Liverpool.

As part of my research, I was able to trace a living relative of Isabella Connell, the schoolfriend of victim Mary Drury. He is related by marriage rather than by blood and was unaware of Isabella’s connection to the murder case, but he was kind enough to provide me with some additional information about her life. From this, we know that she served as a nurse during WWII and died in Berkshire in 1987 at the age of 82, perhaps having never forgotten the tragic death of her friend Mary.

Researched and written by Prash Ganendran, 06/11/25

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