Elizabeth Canning (married name Treat; 17 September 1734 – June 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 and returned almost a month later 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. At Wells' house in Enfield Wash, Canning identified Mary Squires as another of her captors, prompting the arrest and detention of both Wells and Squires. London 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 capital charge of theft.
However, Crisp Gascoyne, trial judge and Lord Mayor of London, 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.
Canning's case pitted two groups of believers against one another: the pro-Canning "Canningites", and the pro-Squires "Egyptians". 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 Wethersfield, Connecticut in 1773, but the mystery surrounding her disappearance remains unsolved.
History
Background
Canning was born on 17 September 1734 in the City of London, the eldest of five surviving children born to William (a carpenter) and Elizabeth Canning. The family lived in two rooms in Aldermanbury Postern (a northern extension of Aldermanbury that formerly ran from a postern gate on London Wall to Fore Street; it no longer exists) in London. Aldermanbury was a respectable but not particularly wealthy neighbourhood. Canning was born into poverty. Her father died in 1751 and her mother and four siblings shared a two-room property with James Lord, an apprentice. Lord occupied the building's front room, while Canning's family lived in the back room. Her schooling was limited to only a few months at a writing school, and aged 15 or 16 she worked as a maidservant in the household of nearby publican John Wintlebury, who considered her an honest but shy girl. From October 1752 she lived at the neighbouring home of a carpenter Edward Lyon, who shared Wintlebury's opinion of the young maidservant. Canning was described as a plump 18-year-old, about tall with a face pitted by smallpox, a long, straight nose, and wide-set eyes.
Disappearance
Canning disappeared on 1 January 1753. With no work that day, she spent time with her family and made plans to go shopping with her mother after visiting her aunt and uncle (Alice and Thomas Colley), but changed her mind and instead remained with them for the evening. At about 9 pm, accompanied by her aunt and uncle for about two-thirds of the journey, she left to return to her lodgings in Aldermanbury.
When she failed to return to her lodgings at Edward Lyon's house, her employer twice went looking for her at her mother's home. Mrs Canning sent her other three children to Moorfields to search for her, while James Lord went to the Colleys, who told him that they had left Elizabeth at about 9:30 pm near Aldgate church in Houndsditch. The next morning Mrs Canning also travelled to the Colleys' house, but to no avail as Elizabeth was still missing. Neighbours were asked if they knew of her whereabouts, and weeks passed as Mrs Canning searched the neighbourhood for her daughter, while her relatives scoured the city. An advertisement was placed in the newspapers, prayers were read aloud in churches and meeting houses but other than a report of a "woman's shriek" from a hackney coach on 1 January no clues were found as to Elizabeth's disappearance.
Reappearance
Canning reappeared at about 10 pm on 29 January 1753. At the sight of her daughter, whom she had not seen for almost a month, Elizabeth Canning fainted. Once recovered she sent James Lord to fetch several neighbours, and inside only a few minutes the house was full. Elizabeth was described as being in a "deplorable condition"; her face and hands were black with dirt, she wore a shift, a petticoat, and a bedgown. A dirty rag tied around her head was soaked with blood from a wounded ear. According to her story she had been attacked by two men near Bedlam Hospital. They had partially stripped her, robbed her and hit her in the temple, rendering her unconscious. She awoke "by a large road, where was water, with the two men that robbed me" and was forced to walk to a house, where an old woman asked if she would "go their way" (become a prostitute). Canning had refused, and the woman cut off her corset, slapped her face and pushed her upstairs into a loft. There the young maidservant had remained for almost a month, with no visitors and existing only on bread and water. The clothing she wore she had scavenged from a fireplace in the loft. Canning had eventually made her escape by pulling some boards away from a window and walking the five-hour journey home. She recalled hearing the name "Wills or Wells", and as she had seen through the window a coachman she recognised, thought she had been held on the Hertford Road. On this evidence, John Wintlebury and a local journeyman, Robert Scarrat, identified the house as that of "Mother" Susannah Wells at Enfield Wash, nearly distant.
Her reappearance and subsequent explanation (including the assumption that she had been held at Wells's house) were the following day printed in the London Daily Advertiser.