women and prison reform [View all]

[iverglas]

Next in a series of women's contributions to historical social reform movements.

Elizabeth Fry

Elizabeth (Betsy) Fry (21 May 1780 – 12 October 1845), née Gurney, was an English prison reformer, social reformer and, as a Quaker, a Christian philanthropist. She has sometimes been referred to as the "angel of prisons".

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 2001, she has been depicted on the Bank of England £5 note.

I actually had no idea Fry was that long ago. That is a very early example of social reform, and of a woman's involvement in it.

In Canada, we have the John Howard Society and the Elizabeth Fry Society, for men and women, respectively, involved in the criminal justice system. When I was in law school -- back in the early 70s, before the days of legal aid clinics and when duty counsel in the courts were just starting -- I worked with the local E Fry chapter and ran a program that had volunteers attending assignment court to reach out to women appearing on criminal charges to make sure they had counsel and identify any other supports they needed. My feminist law student sisters at the time weren't much interested in that kind of grunt work in the trenches; they had careers to think of. (Hey, I can, um, bitch about second-wave feminists too.)

E Fry today is an overtly feminist organization. It was founded in Canada in 1939 by Agnes Macphail, a member of Parliament for the Progressive Party, which is one of the groups that eventually morphed into my current party, the New Democratic Party. She was elected in 1921 as Canada's first female MP. Macpahil needs a thread of her own.

But back to Betsy:

At the age of 18, young Elizabeth was deeply moved by the preaching of William Savery, an American Quaker. Motivated by his words, she took an interest in the poor, the sick, and the prisoners. She collected old clothes for the poor, visited those who were sick in her neighbourhood, and started a Sunday school in the summer house to teach children to read.

Sunday School was the only education available to most children in England in the early 1800s, as the children of the poor worked the same hours and days as their parents, in agriculture, in domestic service, as apprentices, and of course later in the mills. The Quakers were active in adult education later in the century; I have a photo from the 1890s of my great-grandfather in Nottinghamshire with a class-sized group of men beside a sign saying something about a Quaker adult ed class, although I can't imagine he was not literate as his family was fairly prosperous, and he wasn't a Quaker.

This would be about 1812:

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 did their own cooking and washing in the small cells in which they slept on straw. Elizabeth Fry wrote in the book Prisons in Scotland and the North of England that she actually stayed the nights in some of the prisons and invited nobility to come and stay and see for themselves the conditions prisoners lived in. Her kindness helped her gain the friendship of the prisoners and they began to try to improve their conditions for themselves.

... 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 Buxton, 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 Commons committee on the conditions prevalent in British prisons, becoming the first woman to present evidence in Parliament.

These early women social reformers were obviously passionate and totally committed to their causes. Fry also managed to have 11 kids between 1804 and 1822, all but one of whom survived childhood.

And of course, there were critics ...

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. Another admirer was Robert Peel who passed several acts to further her cause including the Gaols Act 1823 (unfortunately this act did not have much enforcement as most laws of this kind were at the time)

(Peel is credited with establishing the first regular police force, "bobbies".)

I wonder whether having a woman on the throne from 1837 to 1901 contributed to women finding a voice in Victorian England.

Elizabeth Fry also helped the homeless, establishing a "nightly shelter" in London after seeing the body of a young boy in the winter of 1819/1820. In 1824, during a visit to Brighton, 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.

The US has a woman prison reformer of almost equal renown, I think?