Elizabeth Fry

Elizabeth Fry (May 21, 1780 — October 12, 1845) was an English prison reformer, social reformer and philanthropist. She was the driving force in legislation to make the treatment of prisoners more humane. She was supported in her efforts by a reigning monarch and has been depicted on British currency.

Fry's prison work

Prompted by a family friend, Stephen Grellet, Fry visited Newgate prison. The conditions she saw there horrified her. The women's section was overcrowded with women and children, some of whom had not even received a trial. They slept on the floor and did their own cooking and washing in the small cells in which they slept.

Related Topics:
Stephen Grellet - Newgate prison

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She returned the following day with food and clothes for some of the prisoners. 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. Fry returned in 1816 and was eventually able to found a prison school for the children who were imprisoned with their parents. She began a system of supervision and required the women to sew and to read the Bible. In 1817 she helped found the Association for the Improvement of the Female Prisoners in Newgate.

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Thomas Fowell Buxton, Fry's brother-in-law, was elected to Parliament for Weymouth and began to promote her work among his fellow MP's. In 1818 Fry gave evidence to a House of Commons committee on the conditions prevalent in British prisons, becoming the first woman to present evidence in Parliament.

Related Topics:
Thomas Fowell Buxton - 1818 - House of Commons

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Fry and her brother, Joseph John Gurney, took up the cause of abolishing capital punishment. At that time, people in England could be executed for over 200 crimes. Early appeals to the Home Secretary were all rejected, until Sir Robert Peel became the Home Secretary, they finally got a compassionate audience. They persuaded Peel to introduce a series of prison reforms that included the Gaols Act 1823. Fry and Gurney went on a tour of the prisons in Great Britain. They published their findings of inhumane conditions in a book entitled Prisons in Scotland and the North of England.

Related Topics:
Home Secretary - Sir Robert Peel - Gaols Act 1823

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