English maidservant who claimed to have been kidnapped
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". She was visited by the apothecary, but with her pulse faint, and so weak she could scarcely speak, she vomited up the medicine he gave her. He administered several clysters until satisfied with the results, following which Canning was taken by her friends and neighbours to the Guildhall to see Alderman Thomas Chitty, to ask that he issue a warrant for Wells's arrest.
Enfield Wash.
Chitty issued the warrant and on 1 February Canning's friends took her to Enfield Wash. Despite her poor physical condition, Canning's supporters wanted her to identify her captors and the room she claimed to have been held in. Although worrying she might die before then, they took the risk of moving her. Wintlebury, Scarrat and Joseph Adamson (a neighbour) were the first to arrive, on horseback. They met the warrant officer and several peace officers, and waited for Susannah Wells to appear. Wells' house had served a variety of functions, including that of a carpenter's shop, a butcher's, and an ale-house. The old woman kept animals in the house and occasionally had lodgers. She had twice been widowed; her first husband was a carpenter and her second had been hanged for theft. She had also been imprisoned in 1736 for perjury. Sarah Howit, her daughter by her first husband, had lived there for about two years. Howit's brother John was a carpenter like his father, and lived nearby.
When at about 9 a.m. Wells entered her house, the officers immediately moved to secure the building. Inside they found Wells, an old woman named Mary Squires, her children, Virtue Hall, and a woman they supposed was Wells' daughter. Another woman, Judith Natus, was brought down from the loft to be questioned with the rest. The warrant officer who searched the loft was puzzled when he discovered that it did not resemble the room described by Canning, nor could he find evidence of her having jumped from the window. The rest of the party, who had by then arrived in a hired coach and chaise, were similarly surprised.
Canning, who had arrived in the chaise with her mother and two other people, was carried into the house by Adamson. There she identified Mary Squires as the woman who had cut off her stays, and claimed that Virtue Hall and a woman presumed to be Squires' daughter had been present at the time. Canning was then taken upstairs where she identified the loft as the room in which she had been imprisoned —although it contained more hay than she recalled. Boards covering the window appeared to have only recently been fastened there. With such damning evidence against them, the suspects were taken to a nearby justice of the peace, Merry Tyshemaker, who examined Canning alone, and then those from Wells's house. Squires and Wells were committed, the former for removing Canning's stays and the latter for "keeping a disorderly house". George Squires and Virtue Hall, who both denied any involvement in the kidnapping, were set free; Canning and her supporters were allowed home.
Fielding's investigation.
Assault in 18th-century England was viewed by the authorities not as a breach of the peace, but rather as a civil action between two parties in dispute. The onus therefore was on Canning to take legal action against those she claimed had imprisoned her, and she would also be responsible for investigating the crime. This was an expensive proposition and she would therefore require the help of her friends and neighbours to pursue her case. An additional complication was that rather than send such matters to trial, justices preferred to reconcile the parties concerned. Therefore, although it was the state in which she returned to them on 29 January which most offended Canning's friends, it was the theft of her stays—valued then at about 10 shillings—that was the most promising aspect of the case. The theft could be tried under a capital statute, making the assault charge less worthy of legal attention.
While Canning's medical treatment continued, her supporters, mostly men, prepared the case against Squires and Wells. They took legal advice from a solicitor, a Mr Salt, who advised them to consult the Magistrate and author Henry Fielding. Fielding was 45 years old, and after years of arguments with other Grub Street authors and a lifetime of drink, was approaching the end of his life. Since "taking the sacrament" four years earlier and becoming a Justice of the Peace for Middlesex and Westminster, he had, with "volcanic energy", concerned himself with the activities of criminals. In December 1751 he had published "Amelia", a story of a young woman dragged into vice and folly by her abusive husband. Although the book was poorly received, with his experience of criminology Fielding believed he understood the depths to which humans could descend. Thus when Salt divulged the case to him on 6 February Fielding's curiosity was piqued, and he agreed to take Canning's sworn testimony the next day. Although Fielding was disinclined to believe a simple servant-girl he was impressed with her modesty and genteel manner, and issued a warrant against all the occupants of Wells's house, "that they might appear before me, [and] give Security for their good Behaviour". Virtue Hall and Judith Natus were thus seized, but George Squires, his sisters, and Wells's daughter Sarah Howit, had by then left the house and remained at large.
Early press reports.
The "London Daily Advertiser", a Grub Street publication, reported on 10 February:
 ;templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" / ;The house of that notorious woman well known by the name of Mother Wells, between Enfield Wash and Waltham Cross, was immediately suspected; and from many Circumstances appears to be the dismal Prison of the unhappy sufferer, whose melancholy Situation since her miraculous Escape is worthy of Compassion and Charitable contributions of all public-spirited people, and anyone who has any regard for the Safety of their Children and Relations, who are equally liable to the same inhuman and cruel Usage...all these circumstances being duly considered, it is not doubted but a Subscription or Contribution will soon be raised, to enable the Persons who have undertaken to detect this notorious Gang