Portal:London/Featured biography/17



Elizabeth Canning (married name Treat; 1734–1773) was an English maidservant who claimed to have been kidnapped and held against her will in a hayloft for almost a month. She ultimately became central to one of the most famous English criminal mysteries of the 18th century.

She disappeared on 1 January 1753, before almost a month later returning to her mother's home in Aldermanbury in the City of London, emaciated and in a "deplorable condition". After being questioned by concerned friends and neighbours she was interviewed by the local alderman, who then issued an arrest warrant for Susannah Wells, the woman who occupied the house in which Canning was supposed to have been held. There Canning identified Mary Squires as another of her captors, prompting the arrest and detention of both Wells and Squires. Local magistrate Henry Fielding became involved in the case, taking Canning's side. Further arrests were made and several witness statements were taken, and Wells and Squires were ultimately tried and found guilty—Squires of the more serious and potentially deadly charge of theft.

However, the trial judge and Lord Mayor of London Crisp Gascoyne was unhappy with the verdict and began his own investigation. He spoke with witnesses whose testimony implied that Squires and her family could not have abducted Canning, and he interviewed several of the prosecution's witnesses, some of whom recanted their earlier testimony. He ordered Canning's arrest, following which she was tried and found guilty of perjury. Squires was pardoned, and Canning sentenced to one month's imprisonment and seven years of transportation.

Elizabeth Canning's case pitted two groups of believers against one another: the pro-Canning Canningites, and the pro-Squires Egyptians. Crisp Gascoyne was openly abused and attacked in the street, while interested authors waged a fierce war of words over the fate of the young, often implacable maid. She died in British America in 1773, but the mystery surrounding her disappearance remains unsolved.