Elizabeth Langley (née Cass; 1863–1956) was an English seamstress and dress designer whose mistaken arrest for prostitution in 1887 became a minor cause célèbre. Early life Cass was born in Grantham, Lincolnshire, and grew up in Stockton-on-Tees. After working as a seamstress, she moved to London to be a dress designer early in 1887. She was employed by Mrs Mary Ann Bowman, and lived on her premises at 19 Southampton Row. Mistaken arrest On 28 June 1887 Cass went out in the late evening to do some shopping at Jay's Shop at 243–253 Regent Street (a respected retailer of silk and millinery, holding a Royal Warrant). The week had seen Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee, and London was thronged with people enjoying a month of record sunshine. Jay's was closed, and the pavement was full of people. As she pushed her way through the crowd on Oxford Street to go home, she was suddenly arrested by PC DR 42 Endacott, of Tottenham Court Road Police Station. She was taken to the police station and charged with solicitation and prostitution, and the next morning she appeared at Great Marlborough Street Police Court before Robert Milnes Newton, one of two Stipendiary Magistrates. PC Endacott gave evidence of the arrest and testified that he had seen her three times before in Regent Street late at night soliciting for prostitution. Cass's employer, Mrs Bowman, was called in her defence and testified that she had been in London only a few months, and had never before been out late at night. Further, she was a respectable woman of perfect character in a good job. Bowman was unshakeable in her evidence, giving the magistrate no option but to find Cass not guilty. But he added the following warning: The clear implication is that the magistrate believed Cass to be guilty, but had persuaded Bowman to perjure herself to secure her acquittal. On 30 June Bowman wrote to the Metropolitan Police headquarters to complain about the police's action in the case. The day after, Llewellyn Atherley-Jones, Liberal MP for North-Western Durham, first raised the case in Parliament. Atherley-Jones, a barrister by profession, took up Cass's case and on 5 July he asked the Home Secretary Henry Matthews to order an inquiry. Matthews, noting that no conviction resulted, gave what seemed to Atherley-Jones to be a flippant answer and Atherley-Jones then decided he would seek to raise the matter