Becoming Elizabeth Fry: a family perspective

Cathy Maxwell is Elizabeth Fry’s great-great-great-granddaughter, and her talk draws on family archives to present a portrait of England’s celebrated social reformer.

Elizabeth Fry is best known for her work in Pr*son reform, celebrated on the Five Pound note with an image of her reading to female prisoners in Newgate Pr*son. Her influence was much wider, however: in education, poor relief, nursing, supporting prisoners transported to Australia, the anti-slavery movement, and many other fields.

Twelve of the nurses who served in the Crimea with Florence Nightingale were ‘Fry’s Nurses’. But how did family shape Elizabeth Fry’s ideas? Who were her influences? How was she so influential herself, both among the poorest in society and the ruling elites across Europe? In short, how did she become ‘Elizabeth Fry’?

Cathy Maxwell explores these questions, drawing on Elizabeth’s own diary as well as the extraordinary journal written by her eldest daughter, Katharine. She traces Elizabeth Fry’s history, from her childhood as the daughter of wealthy Quakers in Norwich, to her death in London in 1845 as the renowned and inspiring activist we celebrate today.