Elizabeth Canning (1735-1773) was an Englishwoman who claimed that she had been abducted and tried to force to become a prostitute. She ended up being convicted for perjury.

On January 29 1753 maidservant Elizabeth Manning reappeared in her mother's house near Aldermanbury in London after she had been missing for a month. She told her master, cabinetmaker Edward Lyon, that she had been kidnapped.

Canning claimed that she had been abducted at January 1 when she was walking back from visiting her aunt and uncle. She was forced into a carriage that had taken her to a brothel in Enfield. Here the madam of the brothel, "Mother" Susannah Wells, had tried to force her to become a prostitute. When she refused, old crone Mary "The Gypsy" Squires had cut off her stays and she had been locked up into an attic with bread and water. After almost a month, she had pulled down a board that was nailed on the inside of the window, escaped and walked back to her mother's house.

Lyon told the story to his friends in his pub. On February 1, a posse lead by the pubkeeper took Canning to Enfield. Mother Wells and Squires were arrested and handed to local magistrate.

Novelist Henry Fielding, who, at the time, was a magistrate in Middlesex, took Canning's deposition on February 7. He was asked to interrogate girl named Virtue Hall, a prostitute from Wells' brothel. At first Hall claimed that she had never seen Canning, not to mention witnessed Squires robbing her, but Fielding forced her to support Canning's story lest she be sentenced as a felon.

Trial against Squires and Wells began at the Old Bailey a month later. Squires said that she had been in Dorset at the time Canning had claimed she had robbed her and a local priest could prove it. Wells was sentenced to branding on the thumb. Squires was sentenced to be hanged for stealing Cannings' stays. John Gibson, William Clark, and Thomas Grevil, who had testified that they had seen Squires in Dorset, were to be tried for perjury.

Chief magistrate and Lord Mayor of London, Sir Crisp Gascoyne , however, was dissatisfied with the verdict. He appealed to George II. The king granted first the stay in execution and eventually a pardon. In May 1754 Canning was indicted for perjury and jailed in Newgate prison. The three men who had testified for Squires were also pardoned when no one appeared to testify against them.

Many people, many contemporary luminaries among them, tried to have their say of the matter. Some vandals broke the windows of the coach of Sir Crisp Garcoyne and mocked him with a name "The King of Gypsies". Soon people all over Britain had been divided to two factions: "Canaanites" who supported Canning and "Egyptians" who supported Mary Squires. Those who disbelieved Canning suggested that she might have been in hiding because of illegitimate pregnancy or abortion.

Both sides published number of pamphlets in which they criticized and ridiculed the other side. Fielding wrote one to defend Canning and himself when his opponent Dr John Hill mocked him and defended Squires. Sir Crisp Gascoyne also defended his views and Squires. One caricaturist made a print in which the Squires was riding a broomstick, as if in only that way she could have been in two places at the same time. Even Voltaire commented on the case and contrasted the English system of law with the French one.

Canning was found guilty of perjury and sentenced to penal transportation to American colonies for seven years and forbidden to return during that time on the pain of death. Some of her influential supporters in the East India Company arranged her trip so that she was taken to America in comfort instead of in a convict ship. She sailed for America in July 31 1754. Elizabeth Cooke, wife of a Governor of the Bank of England, arranged £100 trust that was to be paid to Canning when she'd return.

Canning kept quiet about the case in her later life. In American colonies, she moved to Wethersfield, Connecticut and lodged with a minister Elisha Williams. She married John Treat, a great-nephew of a Governor of Connecticut and had five children. She died 1773 at the age of 38.

Further speculations and writings

Later historians and writers have had their own views about the case. Austin Dobson added an entry about Canning to the 1886 edition of The Dictionary of National Biography as a "malefactor".

Various writers, including Arthur Machen, Agatha Christie and George Borrow, have referred to the case. Josephine Tey's The Franchise Affair is based of the Canning case, although placed in the 20th century.

Non-fiction about the case includes:

• Lillian de la Torre (pseudonyme of Lillian Bueno McCue ) - Elizabeth Is Missing (1947)
• John Treherne - The Canning Enigma (1989)
• Judith Moore - The Appearance of Truth: The Story of Elizabeth Canning and 18th Century Narrative (1994)