Elizabeth Fry

Elizabeth Fry (May 21, 1780 — October 12, 1845) was a prison reformer, social reformer and philanthropist.

Fry was born Elizabeth Gurney at Earlham in Norfolk, England to a Quaker family. Motivated by the gospel, she took an interest in her teenage years in the poor, the sick, and the prisoners. She married Joseph Fry at age 20.

A visit to Newgate prison in 1812, accompanied by her sister-in-law, horrified her. She returned the following day with food and clothes for some of the prisoners. Although she was unable to further her work for nearly 4 years because of difficulties within the Fry family, including financial difficulties in the Fry bank, she returned in 1816 and was eventually able to found a prison school for the children who were imprisoned with their parents.

In 1817 she was a key member of an organisation working on behalf of female prisoners and their children and she became well known in society. She made efforts to improve the treatment of prisoners deported to Australia. Her influence extended as far as France, Prussia and Russia. In 1818 she gave evidence to a House of Commons committee on the conditions prevalent in British prisons, becoming the first woman to present evidence in Parliament.

She also helped the homeless, establishing a "nightly shelter" in London after seeing the body of a young boy in the winter of 1819/1820. Her work was restricted after her husband became bankrupt in 1828. She died at Ramsgate in 1845 and was buried in the Friends's burial ground at Barking.

In 2002 she was depicted on the Bank of England five pound note.


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Published: 2004:11:28

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free ocumentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".

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