1-624-730 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

'A True Draught of Eliza Canning', 1753. 'A View of the Front and Back of S Well's House at Enfield where E Canning desposed she was confined from 1st to 30th January, 1753. R.R the great Road to Hertford. L..l Lane. O. the window thro' which she said she escaped. W.W. the loft her pretended prison.' In 1753, Elizabeth Canning claimed to have been kidnapped and held at a house in Enfield. She also said that her kidnappers tried to force her to become a prostitute. She supposedly escaped, and on her evidence people were arrested, tried and convicted. Later, doubts began to be expressed about her story. The prisoners were released and Canning was charged with perjury, convicted and sentenced to transportation for seven years. Illustration from Social Caricature in the Eighteenth Century ... With over two hundred illustrations by George Paston [pseudonym of Emily Morse Symonds], (London, 1905).