Elizabeth Fry (née
Gurney) (21 May 1780 – 12 October 1845) was an
EnglishEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
prison reformPrison reform is the attempt to improve conditions inside prisons, aiming at a more effective penal system.-Theory:A precise definition refers to attempts to change the penal system, typically from one model of penology to another. Reverting to an earlier model is frequently also characterized as...
er, social reformer and, as a
QuakerThe Religious Society of Friends is a religious movement, whose members are known as Friends or Quakers. The roots of this movement are with some 17th century Christian English dissenters, but today the movement has branched out into many independent national and regional organizations, called...
, a
ChristianA Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic, religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, who Christians believe was the Messiah prophesied in the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible, and the Son of God.The term "Christian" is also used adjectivally to...
philanthropistA philanthropist is someone who engages in philanthropy; that is, someone who donates his or her time, money, and/or reputation to charitable causes...
.
Fry was a major driving force behind new legislation to make the treatment of prisoners more humane, and she was supported in her efforts by the reigning monarch. Since 2002, she has been depicted on the Bank of England £5 note.
Birth and family background
Elizabeth Gurney was born in Gurney Court, off Magdalen Street,
NorwichNorwich is a city in Norfolk, East Anglia which is in Eastern England. It is the regional administrative centre and county city of Norfolk...
, Norfolk,
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
to a
QuakerThe Religious Society of Friends is a religious movement, whose members are known as Friends or Quakers. The roots of this movement are with some 17th century Christian English dissenters, but today the movement has branched out into many independent national and regional organizations, called...
family. Her family home as a child was Earlham Hall, which is now part of the
University of East AngliaThe University of East Anglia is a public research university in Norwich, England. It was established in 1963, and is a founder-member of the 1994 Group of research-intensive universities. The University was ranked 20th in the The Times Good University Guide 2008, and joint first for student...
. Her father,
John GurneyJohn Gurney may refer to:* Sir John Gurney , English judge* John Gurney , proprietor of Gurney's Bank and father of Joseph John Gurney...
, was a partner in
Gurney's bankGurney's bank was a well-respected family-run bank headquartered in Norwich, England. It merged into Barclays Bank in 1896.-History:The bank was founded in 1770 by John and Henry Gurney, sons of John Gurney , who passed the business to Henry's son, Bartlett Gurney, in 1777...
. Her mother, Catherine, was a part of the Barclay family, who were among the founders of Barclays Bank. Her mother died when Elizabeth was only twelve years old. As one of the oldest girls in the family, Elizabeth was partly responsible for the care and training of the younger children, including her brother
Joseph John GurneyJoseph John Gurney was a banker in Norwich, England and an evangelical Minister of the Religious Society of Friends , whose views and actions led, ultimately, to a schism among American Quakers.-Biography:...
.
Awakening of social concern
At 18 years old, the young Elizabeth was deeply moved by the preaching of William Savery, an American Quaker. Motivated by his words, she took an interest in the
poorPoor is an adjective related to a state of poverty, low quality or pity.People with the surname Poor:* Charles Henry Poor, a US Navy officer* Charles Lane Poor, an astronomer* Edward Erie Poor, a vice president of the National Park Bank...
, the
sickSick may refer to:* Having a disease* Experiencing illness* Sick , a humour magazine* "Sick" * SICK: The Life & Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist, a 1997 documentary film...
, and the
prisonA prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Other terms are penitentiary, correctional facility, and jail , although in the United States "jail" and "prison" refer to different subtypes of correctional facility...
ers. She collected old clothes for the poor, visited those who were sick in her neighbourhood, and started a
Sunday school"Sunday school" is the generic name for many different types of religious education pursued on Sundays by various denominations.-Development:The first Sunday school may have been that opened in 1751 in St. Mary's Church, Nottingham...
in the summer house to teach children to read.
She met
Joseph FryJoseph Fry was a tea dealer and an unsuccessful banker. He was the husband of Elizabeth Fry, prison reformer.-Parental family:...
(1777 – 1861), a banker and also a Quaker, when she was twenty years old. They married on 19 August 1800 at the Norwich Goat Lane Friends Meeting House and moved to St Mildred's Court in the
City of LondonThe City of London is a small area within Greater London, England. It is the historic core of London around which the modern conurbation grew and has held city status since time immemorial. The City’s boundaries have remained almost unchanged since the Middle Ages, and it is now only a tiny part of...
. They had eleven children in all born between 1801 and 1822, including Katherine Fry (1801-1886), who wrote a
History of the Parishes of East and West HamWest Ham is a district of the London Borough of Newham in London, England. In the west it is a post-industrial neighbourhood abutting the site of the London Olympic Park and in the east it is mostly residential, consisting of Victoria terraced housing interspersed with higher density post-War...
(1888). Elizabeth Fry was recorded as a
MinisterA Recorded Minister was originally a male or female Quaker who was acknowledged to have a gift of spoken ministry.The practice of recording, in a Monthly Meeting Minute, the acknowledgement that a Friend had a gift of spoken ministry began in the 1730s in London Yearly Meeting, according to...
of the
Religious Society of FriendsThe Religious Society of Friends is a religious movement, whose members are known as Friends or Quakers. The roots of this movement are with some 17th century Christian English dissenters, but today the movement has branched out into many independent national and regional organizations, called...
in 1811.
Joseph and Elizabeth Fry lived in Plashet House in
East HamEast Ham is a place in the London Borough of Newham. It is a built-up district located 8 miles east north-east of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London.-History:...
between 1809 and 1829, then moved to Upton Lane in
Forest GateForest Gate is a residential area in the London Borough of Newham.Its name is derived from a southern gate of Epping Forest which once stretched continuously down from Epping...
. One of their daughters, called Betsy, died at the age of five.
Fry's prison work
Prompted by a family friend,
Stephen GrelletStephen Grellet was a prominent French Quaker missionary.He was born Étienne de Grellet du Mabillier in Limoges, the son to a counsellor of King Louis XVI. Raised as a Roman Catholic he was educated at the military College of Lyons, and at the age of seventeen he entered the body-guard of Louis XVI...
, Fry visited
Newgate prisonNewgate Prison was a prison in London, at the corner of Newgate Street and Old Bailey just inside the City of London. It was originally located at the site of a gate in the Roman London Wall. The gate/prison was rebuilt in the 12th century, and demolished 1777...
. 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 did their own cooking and washing in the small cells in which they slept.
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 Reformation of the Female Prisoners in Newgate. This led to the eventual creation of the
British Ladies' Society for Promoting the Reformation of Female Prisoners, widely described by biographers and historians as constituting the first "nationwide" women's organization in Britain.
Thomas Fowell BuxtonSir Thomas Fowell Buxton, 1st Baronet was an English Member of Parliament, brewer, abolitionist and social reformer....
, Fry's brother-in-law, was elected to Parliament for Weymouth and began to promote her work among his fellow MPs. In 1818 Fry gave evidence to a
House of CommonsThe House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 646 members, who are known as "Members...
committee on the conditions prevalent in British prisons, becoming the first woman to present evidence in Parliament.
Fry and her brother, Joseph John Gurney, took up the cause of abolishing
capital punishmentCapital punishment or the death penalty, is the execution of a person by judicial process as a punishment for an offense. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences....
. At that time, people in England could be executed for over 200 crimes. Early appeals to the
Home SecretaryThe Secretary of State for the Home Department, commonly known as the Home Secretary, is the minister in charge of the Home Office of the United Kingdom, and one of the country's four Great Offices of State...
were all rejected, until Sir Robert Peel became the Home Secretary, when they finally got a receptive audience. They persuaded Peel to introduce a series of prison reforms that included the
Gaols Act 1823The Gaols Act of 1823 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that provided for improvements in the treatment of prisoners in the United Kingdom. The idea of prison reform was promoted in the early 1800s by Elizabeth Fry and her brother Joseph John Gurney. In particular, Fry was...
. 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.
Fry's other humanitarian work
Fry also helped the homeless, establishing a "nightly shelter" in
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
after seeing the body of a young boy in the winter of 1819/1820. In 1824, during a visit to
BrightonBrighton is a town in the city of Brighton and Hove in East Sussex on the south coast of Great Britain...
, she instituted the Brighton District Visiting Society. The society arranged for volunteers to visit the homes of the poor and provide help and comfort to them. The plan was successful and was duplicated in other districts and towns across Britain.
After her husband went bankrupt in 1828, Fry's brother became her business manager and benefactor. Thanks to him her work went on and expanded.
In 1840 Fry opened a training school for nurses. Her programme inspired
Florence NightingaleFlorence Nightingale, OM, RRC was an English nurse, writer and statistician. She came to prominence during the Crimean War for her pioneering work in nursing, and was dubbed "The Lady with the Lamp" after her habit of making rounds at night to tend injured soldiers...
, who took a team of Fry's nurses to assist wounded soldiers in the
Crimean WarThe Crimean War was fought between the Russian Empire on one side and an alliance of the British Empire, France, the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Sardinia on the other. The war was part of a long-running contest between the major European powers for influence over territories of the declining...
.
Fry's reputation
Fry became well known in
societySociety or human society is the manner or condition in which the members of a community live together for their mutual benefit. By extension, society denotes the people of a region or country, sometimes even the world, taken as a whole....
. Some people criticized her for having such an influential role as a woman. Others alleged that she was neglecting her duties as a wife and mother in order to conduct her humanitarian work. One admirer was Queen Victoria, who granted her an audience a few times and contributed money to her cause.
Death
Her whole life was dedicated to the poor until she died from a
strokeA stroke is the rapidly developing loss of brain function due to disturbance in the blood supply to the brain. This can be due to ischemia caused by thrombosis or embolism or due to a hemorrhage...
in Ramsgate, England, on 12 October 1845. Her remains were buried in the
FriendsThe Religious Society of Friends is a religious movement, whose members are known as Friends or Quakers. The roots of this movement are with some 17th century Christian English dissenters, but today the movement has branched out into many independent national and regional organizations, called...
' burial ground at
BarkingBarking is a suburban town in East London, England in the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham. A retail and commercial centre situated in the west of the borough, it lies east of Charing Cross...
. Over a thousand people stood in silence during the burial.
Memorials
Two plaques commemorate her birthplace, at Gurney Court, off Magdalen Street,
NorwichNorwich is a city in Norfolk, East Anglia which is in Eastern England. It is the regional administrative centre and county city of Norfolk...
, and her childhood home of Earlham Hall. There is also an Elizabeth Fry Road in Earlham. There is another plaque at St. Mildred's Court,
City of LondonThe City of London is a small area within Greater London, England. It is the historic core of London around which the modern conurbation grew and has held city status since time immemorial. The City’s boundaries have remained almost unchanged since the Middle Ages, and it is now only a tiny part of...
, where she lived when she was first married, which in turn is commemorated in St. Mildred's Road in
EarlhamEarlham can refer to the following places:*Earlham Hall, a historic home in England*Earlham, Iowa*Earlham College, a liberal arts college in Richmond, Indiana*Earlham Cemetery, a historic cemetery adjacent to Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana...
.
On the campus of The
University of East AngliaThe University of East Anglia is a public research university in Norwich, England. It was established in 1963, and is a founder-member of the 1994 Group of research-intensive universities. The University was ranked 20th in the The Times Good University Guide 2008, and joint first for student...
, there is a modern building named in her honour, it is home to the university's
School of Social Work and PsychologyThe origins of the School of Social Work and Psychology at the University of East Anglia, Norwich can be traced back to 1975 when Professor Martin Davies was brought from Manchester to design and launch a new Graduate Programme in Social Work. As a result UEA welcomed its first 12 social work...
and is used many other schools for general teaching.
Her resting place at the former Society of Friends Burial Ground, off Whiting Avenue in Barking, Essex, was restored and on 8 October 2003, a new commemorative plinth made of marble was officially unveiled.
Elizabeth Fry is also depicted on two panels of the
Quaker TapestryThe Quaker Tapestry consists of 77 panels illustrating the history of Quakerism from the 17th century up to the present day. The idea of Quaker Anne Wynn-Wilson, the tapestry has a permanent home at the Friends Meeting House at Kendal, Cumbria, England....
, panels E5 and E6.
In February 2007 a new plaque was placed in her honour on the Friends Meeting House in Upper Goat Lane,
NorwichNorwich is a city in Norfolk, East Anglia which is in Eastern England. It is the regional administrative centre and county city of Norfolk...
.
The
Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry SocietiesThe Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies is an association of groups operating under the Elizabeth Fry Society banner. The groups work on issues affecting women and girls in the justice system...
honours her memory by advocating for women who are in the criminal justice system. They also celebrate and promote a
National Elizabeth Fry Week in
CanadaCanada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
each May.
Since 2002 Fry has been depicted on the reverse of £5 notes issued by the
Bank of EnglandThe Bank of England is the Central Bank of the United Kingdom and one of eight banks legally authorised to issue banknotes in the UK. Only Bank of England notes have the status of legal tender, and only within England and Wales; they are accepted in Scotland and Northern Ireland along with other...
. She is shown reading to prisoners at Newgate Prison. The design also incorporates a key, representing the key to the prison which was awarded to Fry in recognition of her work.
There is an Elizabeth Fry Ward in Basildon Hospital in
BasildonBasildon is a town located in the Basildon District of the county of Essex, England.It lies east of central London and south of the county town of Chelmsford...
,
EssexEssex is a county in the East of England region of the United Kingdom. The county town of Essex is Chelmsford.-History:In pre-Roman Britain the territories of Suffolk and Essex were home to the Trinovantes tribe, which had grown wealthy through intensive trade with the Roman Empire, contemporary...
.
External links