Elizabeth Fry was an early nineteenth century English Quaker philanthropist and promoter of prison reform. What very sad observation did she make on visiting London’s Newgate prison on March 4, 1817?

Answer: An Elizabeth Fricker was in a state of torment and distress as she awaited her execution for robbery. There were also six men to be hanged, one, whose wife was heavily pregnant, was due to be executed as well. In addition, seven young children were also to be hanged.

Two years earlier, a British Parliamentary Commission into factory conditions interviewed an Elizabeth Bentley about her work in a Leeds mill. Aged twenty three, she said she began working at the mill when she was six. She worked from five in the morning until nine at night with forty minutes off at noon for lunch.

She recounted how workers would be strapped if they were late or slackened in their relentless workload. The questioner asked if her deformity was a result of the work she did. Permanently bent over, she said that it began when she was thirteen. Now destitute in the poorhouse, when asked how she felt about the suffering and cruelty she had endured, the commissioner noted, “she was too much affected to answer the question”.

Source: Reportage by John Carey

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