COPY.
Enclosure No. 4.
48
Honourable Colonial Secretary.
Miss Mary Mc Gregor arrived here from Tientsin
Я
on 5.1.36 on board the S.S. "Chekiang". She stayed at
the Hotel Cecil for a few hours and then moved to the
Peninsula Hotel Room No.247. On evening of 8.1.36 she
was found in her room, door of which was locked, in an
unconscious condition. Medical aid was obtained and after
treatment she was removed that same evening to the Kowloon
Hospital where it was diagnosed she was suffering from a
large dose of one of the barbiturate series. She died at
15.20 hours on 9.1.36 without regaining consciousness.
The post mortem and analytical examinations
revealed that she died from an over dose of veronal. In
the hotel room were found five letters, one addressed to
the Police, one to Mrs. K. Badger, Lincolnshire, England,
one to Mr. A.R. Willcox Birmingham, England, one to Mrs.
H.A. Bird c/o Mrs. J.P. Robinson, 6 Gun Club Hill, Kowloon
and one to the Manager, Peninsula Hotel. The letters to
England and the one to Mrs. Bird have been forwarded. All
five letters pointed to suicide.
An examination of deceased's effects, proved
her to have been a Queen's Army Schoolmistress with the
British Forces in the Tientsin area and that she resigned
from that post as from the 1st January, 1936, but was
allowed to leave Tientsin on 23.12.35.
From a number of letters left behind, all from
Mr. H.A. Bird, the present District Manager of the Navy,
Army and Air Force Institute in Hong Kong, it appears that a
friendship arose between Mr. Bird and the deceased when the
former held a similar position in the Navy, Army and Air Force
Institute in Tientsin. This friendship ripened and from the
strain of the letter grew into love. Mr. Bird at the time
was a married man and was taking steps to have his marriage