Elizabeth
Fry - History
See
also : A Brief History of the Elizabeth
Fry Society
The penal reformer and philanthropist Elizabeth
Fry, nee Gurney, was born on May 21, 1780 in Norwich, England. She was the fourth
of the twelve children of John Gurney and Catherine Bell. Her parents were both
descendants of old Quaker families. Elizabeth was to have a remarkable life.
Elizabeth
became a strict Quaker in 1799, and her religious belief became the pillar of
her life. On August 19, 1800, she married Joseph Fry (1777-1861), a shy but warm-hearted
young man from a family of orthodox and wealthy Quakers. The couple had eleven
children of whom the youngest was born in 1822. Despite her busy family life,
Elizabeth Fry did a lot of social work. IN 1811, she was acknowledged as a Quaker
minister ( Quaker ministry was non-professional, open to men and women, and dependent
on inspiration).
Early in 1813, Elizabeth Fry visited the women's section
of Newgate Prison in London for the first time, and was shocked by the appalling
conditions in which the female prisoners and their children were kept. It was
not until Christmas 1816, however before she had the time and energy to devote
herself to the welfare of the female prisoners, the beginning of a life long involvement.
Fry's
first innovation was the establishment of a little school for the children of
the prisoners. She and her lady-collaborators then introduced a system of classification
of the prisoners, prison dress, constant supervision by a matron and monitors
(chosen from among the prisoners), religious and elementary education, and paid
employment. The result was a remarkable transformation of the daily life, the
outward appearance, and the conduct of the prisoners. To give the work a more
permanent basis, in April 1817 the Ladies' Association for the Reformation of
the Female Prisoners in Newgate was founded, which extended in 1821 into the British
Ladies' Society for Promoting the Reformation of Female Prisoners. This appears
to have been the first nationwide women's organization in Britain.
Kindness
The
essence of Elizabeth Fry's religiously inspired thinking about prisoners (male
and female) was that they were fellow-human beings. Their treatment, therefore
should be bases on 'the principles of justice and humanity'. Prisons rather than
contributing to the physical and moral degradation of prisoners, had to become
'schools of industry and virtue'. In order to 'amend the Character and change
the Heart' of the prisoners, they should be treated with kindness -Fry's watchword
- instead of the cruelty and neglect that were common. Her other guiding principle
was that women prisoners should be 'under the care of women, -matrons, turnkeys,
visitors - and preferably in prisons of their own. She explained her views in
her 1827 handbook, Observations on the Visiting, Superintendence, and Government,
of Female Prisoners.
National figure
Contemporaries
were deeply impressed by the changes in Newgate, so much so that Elizabeth Fry
soon became a national figure, and was asked to give evidence before a Committee
of the House of Commons, 'the first woman other than a queen to be called into
the councils of the government in an official manner to advise on matter of public
concern' (in the words of her biographer Janet Whitney).
Beginning
in 1818, Fry made a number of journeys through England, Scotland and Ireland,
combining her work as a Quaker minister with prison reform. She visited prisons
and suggested measures for improvement to the local authorities. Wherever she
could, she established ladies' committees for visiting female prisoners. Two related
causes taken up by her were capital punishment, and the treatment of female prisoners
on board the convict ships to New South Wales, Australia, which she managed to
improve substantially.
Symbol for
compassion
Elizabeth Fry significantly
contributed to improving the treatment of prisoners, especially, but not exclusively
that of female prisoners. Consequently, several of her ideas became encoded in
the laws of England and other countries. In Europe, the USA, Canada, and Australia,
her name became a symbol of compassion for prisoners.
Of
great significance was her call on women to become active on behalf of those of
'their own sex', which stimulated 'woman's work for woman', and thus the organized
women's movement. The numerous biographies which have appeared in Britain and
elsewhere (she was one of Twelve Notable Good Women of the XIXth Century, among
the Heroines of Modern Progress, an Angel of the Prisons and a Quaker Heroine
) not only contributed to her status as one of the most celebrated women of the
nineteenth century, but ensured that her memory continued to inspire others.
Although
prison reform was her main cause, she also established a Maternal Society in Brighton
in 1813, District Societies to help the poor, a Servants' Society, libraries for
the coastguard of England , and the Institution for Nursing Sisters in London
(also known as the Fry Nurses) in 1840: the first attempt to modernize nursing
in Britain. She also supported her brother-in-law Thomas Fowell Buxton in his
campaign against slavery.
Declining
health
After several years of declining
health, Elizabeth Fry died after a stroke in Ramsgate on October 13, 1845, and
was buried on October 20, 1845 in the Friends' Burial Ground at Barking.
Quoted
from:
http://www.elizabethfry.net
------------------------------------------------
See
also: A Brief History of the Elizabeth
Fry Society
