FRY, ELIZABETH, an eminent female philanthropist and preacher of the society of Friends, third daughter of John Gurney, esq. of Earlham hall, near Norwich, was b. May 21, 1780. Her active and untiring exertions in the cause of suffering humanity, unparalleled in one of her own sex, acquired for her in her lifetime the name of " the female Howard." When not more than 18 years of age, she established a school for 80 poor children in her father's house, with his entire sanction. In 1800, at the age of 20, she married Joseph Fry, esq., of Upton, Essex, then engaged in business in London, to whom she had a family of eight children. In the year 1813, the deplorable condi tion of the female prisoners in Newgate attracted her attention, and she resolved upon visiting them. Alone and unprotected, she entered the pait of the prison where 160 of the most disorderly were immured, and addressed them with a dignity, power, and gen tleness which at once fixed their attention. She then read and expounded a portion of Scripture, many of those unhappy beings having on that occasion heard the word of God for the first time. It was not, however, till about Christmas, 1816, that she corm menced her systematic visits to Newgate, being then particularly induced thereto by the reports of the gentlemen who, in 1815, originated the " Society for the Improve. iqent of Prison Discipline." She instituted a school within the prison walls, provided work for the females, and the means of Christian instruction, and established a corn mittee of ladies for the reformation of female prisoners. The almost immediate result
was order, sobriety, and neatness, in the place of the riot, licentiousness, idleness, and filth, which had previously prevailed. In 1818, her exertions were directed to making provisions for the benefit of female convicts sentenced to transportation. For the relief of females in foreign prisons, she made frequent continental journeys. She also inter ested herself in the abolition of slavery, the .advancement of education, and the distribu tion of Bibles and tracts. Her labors for the improvement of British seamen, by furnishing the ships of the coast-guard and the royal navy with libraries of religious and instructive books, received the sanction and assistance of government. To the poor and helpless, her charities were unbounded. As a preacher among her own sect, she was held in high estimation; and site often engaged in gospel missions, not only through out England, Scotland, and Ireland, but to various countries on the continent, Site died at Ramsgate, Oct. 12, 1845, aged sixty-five. Soon after her death, a public meet ing was held in London, the lord mayor in the chair, for establishing, as the best mono ment to her memory, "The Elizabeth Fry Refuge," for affording temporary food and shelter to destitute females, on their discharge from metropolitan prisons. Compare Memoirs of the Life of Elizabeth Fry; 2 vole. (Lond. 1847), published by her daughters.