Fry, Elizabeth ___ 1780-1845 ___ British ___ reformer

BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY
Elizabeth was born at Norwich into the prosperous Quaker family of John and Catherine Gurney, a banker and merchant. Thanks largely to her mother, according to biographers, Elizabeth received an unusually good education for a girl. In 1800 she married Joseph Fry, a London merchant, with whom she had a dozen children. From around 1813, she began visiting Newgate prison, and, in 1817, formed an association to help female prisoners. Separation of the sexes, female supervision for women and adequate provisions for religious and secular instruction, were among its aims. Its success led to Fry being called to give evidence to a parliamentary committee, and, subsequently, to the use of similar methods in other prisons. She also campaigned in Scotland, Ireland and across Europe for prison reform. She kept a diary - 'a little friend to my heart' - intermittently throughout her adult life.
A biography link
Wikipedia bio

DIARY DATES, CONTENT DESCRIPTORS
1797-1845 ___ domestic religious self health family prison

WEB TEXT LINKS
googlebooks
about
much about and full etext

ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT LINKS
Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) Library
Norfolk Record Office
 

SOME PUBLISHED TITLES
Memoir of the Life of Elizabeth Fry
Life of Elizabeth Fry
A Tale of Two Journeys - The Fry diaries: France and Belgium in the early 1800s
 

May 2005, June 2008, April 2013
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IMPORTANT NOTES AND CAUTIONS: 1) The first line of basic information may be incomplete in several ways: some historical figures have different names (titles, pen-names); their birth and death dates may be unknown or uncertain (g - guess, c - circa); similarly, their occupations may be unknown, or they may have had other jobs; and, for early diarists, I've used 'British' a bit too freely. 2) The biographical summary may not be accurate. It was compiled quickly from various sources, mostly on the internet, and the facts were not checked anywhere near as rigorously as they would have been if they'd been intended for publication in a printed form. 3) The journal dates and descriptors (which are in no particular order) must be treated with caution: since I have not examined the diaries myself, the descriptors are only guesses based on bibliographies, anthologies and internet biographies. 4) For the biography and etext links, I have ignored any sites with charges, and I have avoided, wherever possible, those with pop-ups or too much advertising. I have limited myself to providing three etext links where there is some variety between them. 5) For the original manuscript links, I have limited myself to providing a maximum of two (although, for a few diarists, their original diaries are held in more than two places). 6) I have provided the titles - chosen randomly - for up to three printed editions of the diaries.