From the Kentish Gazette, 3 September 1844.

SUICIDE OF A LADY AT ELTHAM.

Throughout the whole of Tuesday this little village was in a state of the greatest excitement in consequence of the following melancholy affair:—

Shortly after 12 o’clock as a young man named Bently was crossing some fields of his master’s, he discovered a fashionable tuscan bonnet, trimmed with blue and white satin ribbon, lying amongst the rushes on the bank of a small but deep pond, which, on picking up, he found contained a pocket and a number of letters. These he took to his master, who sent for Serjeant Osborn, 13 R, of the Eltham police, who proceeded to the pond, and from a number of female foot prints being round it he concluded that some one was in the water. There being no drags in the village, he was compelled to wait until a smith had made a brace of hooks, with which, after a short period, he drew out the body of a person, apparently a woman about 30 years of age, but, from the circumstance of there being a great quantity of hair upon the chin he imagined it was a man in woman’s clothes. The body was conveyed to the “Crown Inn,” Court-yard, Eltham, when it proved to be that of a woman, and, evidently had not been long in the water; as a handkerchief in the hand was quite dry in the palm. She was elegantly attired in a pale green plaid silk gown and cap to match, trimmed with black blond. Her linen was marked “M. W. J.” She had also a valuable gold watch, name “Harlfriend, 157, Regent-street.” On a subsequent examination of the pocket, it was found to contain a considerable, sum in gold and silver, a letter addressed to her mother, “Mrs. Jackson, Hanover-street.” several addressed to “Miss Jackson,” and others to her friends at Bath, and Berwick, taking a farewell of them. There was also a will bequeathing property, to which she is entitled, to the amount of some thousands. The body has since been identified as being that of Mary Ward Jackson, aged 30, a lady of unsound mind, who had escaped from the house of a person appointed to take care of her at Fulham.

A coroner’s inquest has been held on the body, and a verdict returned of “Insanity.”

The jury highly commended Bently for his activity and honesty after finding the bonnet and its contents.