page_title: Elizabeth Canning
section_title: Trial of Squires and Wells
hierarchical_section_title: Elizabeth Canning / History / Trial of Squires and Wells
caption_attribution_description: Portrait of Mary Squires, probably 19th century
context_page_description: Elizabeth Canning 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 returning 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.
context_section_description: Squires, charged with assault and theft, and Wells, with "well-knowing" what her accomplice had done, were tried on 21 February at the Session House of the Old Bailey. The Lord Mayor of London Sir Crisp Gascoyne presided over the court with a panel of other justices, including Martin Wright (Justice of the King's Bench), Nathaniel Gundry (Justice of the Common Pleas), Richard Adams (Baron of the Exchequer since 1753; formerly Recorder of London), and William Moreton (appointed Recorder of London in 1753). The gallery was packed with interested spectators.  The charge of theft was extremely serious; the value of Canning's stays (about 10 shillings) meant that if she was found guilty, Squires would almost certainly be hanged at the Tyburn Tree.
  As she arrived at the court Canning was cheered by the large crowd gathered outside the building. Inside, she testified that she was taken by two men "to the prisoner Wells's house" at about 4 am on the morning of 2 January. In the kitchen, the old woman (Squires) was sat in a chair and asked her "if I chose to go their way". Canning's refusal had prompted Squires to cut off her stays, slap her face, and push her up the stairs into a darkened room. She told the court she "saw nothing brought up[, but w]hen day-light appeared, I could see about the room; there was a fire-place and a grate in it, no bed nor bedstead, nothing but hay to lie upon; there was a black pitcher not quite full of water, and about twenty-four pieces of bread ... about a quartern loaf". She claimed to have escaped by removing a board from a window at the north end of the loft, climbing out, and jumping down to the soft clay below. She fled along a lane behind the house, through some fields, and on finding a road set out for London. When asked if she had seen or spoken to anyone on the way back, she replied that she had not, explaining that she had shied away from contact for fear of meeting somebody from the house she had escaped from. Canning was cross-examined by William Davy, who questioned her recollection of events in the house. Asked why she had not attempted escape earlier she replied: "Because I thought they might let me out; it never came into my head till that [Monday] morning." Squires, who had been quietly muttering to herself in the dock, shouted "I never saw that witness in my lifetime till this day three weeks".
  Next to appear on the stand was Virtue Hall, who recounted much of her earlier statement to Fielding. Squires again interrupted, asking "What day was it that the young woman was robbed?" The answer came back, from the court: "She says on the morning of the 2nd of January", and Squires replied "I return thanks for telling me, for I am as innocent as the child unborn". Susannah Wells used the opportunity to ask how long Squires and her family were supposed to have been at the house, and was answered by Hall "They were there six or seven weeks in all; they had been there about a fortnight before the young woman was brought in". Amongst others, Thomas Colley and Mrs Canning also gave testimony. Canning's former employer, John Wintlebury, told the court how he had deduced that it was Wells's house where Canning had been held. Mary Myers and James Lord also claimed to have heard Canning say "Wills or Wells", as did Robert Scarrat, a hartshorn-rasper and previously a servant in nearby Edmonton who had visited Wells's house on previous occasions.
  Although both were subpoenaed as witnesses neither Fortune nor Judith Natus were called to the stand, the attorney responsible later explaining that the mob outside may have intimidated several witnesses. Susannah Wells's neighbours were turned away by the mob and her daughter and half-brother were quickly recognised and stopped. However, three witnesses found in Dorset by George Squires, to testify for his mother, passed by unrecognised. The first, John Gibbons, said that the Squires had visited his house in Abbotsbury "with handkerchiefs, lawns, muslins, and checks, to sell about town" from 1–9 January. This was corroborated by his neighbour, William C
caption: A 19th-century portrait of Mary Squires, as printed in The Newgate Calendar
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