Elizabeth Fry

Biography

Elizabeth Gurney was born in Earlham in the county from Norfolk in England, in a family Quaker. Moved by the reading of the Gospels, it was interested as of its adolescence in the poor, the patients and the prisoners. At 20 years, she married Joseph Fry.

In 1812, it was horrified by what it saw at the time of a visit to the prison of Newgate. The following day, it went back there, bringing food and clothing to the prisoners. Then, after one period of family difficulties (in particular of financial problems at the Fry bank), it turned over to the prison in 1816 and created there a school for the children imprisoned with their parents.

In 1817, it became member-key of an organization helping the captive ones and their children, and started to be known. She worked with the improvement of the prisoner salary off-set towards the Australia. Its influence extended until in France, Prussia and Russia. In 1818, it returned account in front of the House of Commons of the living conditions in the British prisons, becoming thus the first woman to be testified in front of the British Parlement.

She helped also the homeless person, establishing a “ shelter nocturne ”, after having seen the corpse of a young boy, during the winter 1819 - 1820.

Its work was restricted by the bankruptcy of her husband in 1828, but that did not prevent it from continuing. In particular, it went in particular to France where, in 1839, it accepted the official authorization to visit all the prisons to make a detailed description of it.

She died in Ramsgate in 1845 and was buried in the “ Cemetery of Amis ” (i.e. Quakers) of Barking.

In 2002, the Banque of England reproduced its effigy on the tickets of five books.

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