I think my feelings that night...were the most exalted I remember...suddenly my mind felt clothed with light, as with a garment and I felt silenced before God; I cried with the heavenly feeling of humility and repentance.
-Memoir of Elizabeth Fry
On February 4, 1798, this vain youth attended meeting for worship wearing purple boots and scarlet laces. That meeting was attended by a visiting American Quaker minister, William Savery, whose ministry touched the girl's heart. She wrote about her reaction, "I have felt there is a GOD." Later, when visiting London, she had the opportunity to hear Savery's ministry again.
Touched by God through plain Friends, Elizabeth struggled with the way she lived her life. Her interest in amusements wained. Although her family was not very sympathetic to her changes in religious attitudes, she found herself coming to use the traditional Quaker plain language and adopting plain dress. She started a Sunday school in the family home at Earlham Hall.
In the summer of 1799, Joseph Fry, a shy plain Friend from a wealthy Quaker family, came to visit her family. Taken with Elizabeth, he asked her to marry him. At first she refused, but Joseph grew on her and she married him the following year. The couple had eleven children.
Following in her mother's footsteps, Elizabeth began to visit a workhouse for the poor to teach the children. She also became respected for her vocal ministry in worship, and was recorded as a minister in 1811 by her Quaker meeting. However, the demands of motherhood occupied most of her time, and in 1812 she wrote in her diary, "I fear that my life is slipping away to little purpose."
The Angel of Newgate Prison
Elizabeth Fry reading to prisoners in Newgate prison, 1823 Courtesy of Department of Education, Arts & Libraries London Borough of Barking & Dagenham |
Once again at a key moment in her life a visiting Quaker minister from America plays an important role. In 1813, Stephen Grellet came to ask for her help. He had visited some prisons, and was horrified by the conditions in the women's prison at Newgate. Hundreds of women and their children were crowded into the prison, many sleeping on the floor with nightclothes or bedding. Elizabeth immediately sent out for warm material and enlisted other women Friends to help make clothing for the infants.
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