Elizabeth
Canning, a serving girl of 18 years of age, went, with the consent of
her master, to visit a relation on New Year's Day 1753. She did not
return, nor was anything heard of her for 28 days, at the end of which
time Canning appeared at her mother's house in an emaciated and wretched
condition. Canning said that while returning home on the evening of
New Year's Day, she was attacked in Moorfields by two men who robbed
her, then conveyed her by force to the house of a woman named Susannah
Wells, on Enfield Wash.
Canning
asserted she had been held there against her will for 28 days, living
on a few crusts of bread and a pitcher of water. Canning also accused
a local gypsy woman, Mary Squires, of robbing her of her stays (or corsets)
during this period. (Charmingly, one witness described Squires as "a
wandering heap of dirty clothes".)
Squires
and Wells were arrested, tried, and convicted to be hung. But suspicions
grew about the truth of Canning's testimony. In the resulting investigation,
Squires was pardoned and Canning was sentenced to 7 years' transportation.
(Wells had already escaped a hanging by having her hand branded instead.)
The
case attracted much attention, and Canning much sympathy. When Canning
was transported to New England members of the public presented her with
£100, and others set up a trust fund for when she returned to
England. Canning endured her years in New England in relative comfort.
She returned to England a free woman in 1761, but then went back to
New England where she married a Quaker named Robert Treat. They subsequently
had five children and their descendents continue to live in American
to this day.
While
there is no space to go into the intricacies of Elizabeth's Canning's
strange absence and subsequent trial here, numerous books have been
written about it since. One such is Barrett R Wellington's The Mystery
of Elizabeth Canning, New York, 1940.
