A Memoir of the Life and Ministry of Ann Freeman, a Faithful Servant of Christ, compiled from her Diary and Letters by Henry Freeman.

Second edition. 8vo., original maroon cloth, printed paper label to the spine, recently re-backed in red buckram, new endpapers, uncut. London, Darton and Harvey.

Inscribed on the original front free endpaper 'Charlotte Christy from her affectionate friend Elisabeth Fry. 1st No 1828'. An important Quaker text, inscribed by a great Quaker to a fellow Quaker. Fry married into a wealthy north of England family in the cotton business, and took an active part in her husband's business, philanthropical and political affairs.

Elizabeth Fry has some claim to being one of Victorian England's most remarkable figures, in an age of remarkable Britons. She made important contributions to Prison reform, help for the homeless, and the improvement of nursing, while caring for her large family - she had 11 children, and had the ear of Queen Victoria, and Robert Peel.  After her first visit to Newgate prison, she was appalled by what she saw, and told a fellow Quaker "All I tell thee is a faint picture of reality; the filth, the closeness of the rooms, the furious manner and expressions of the women towards each other, and the abandoned wickedness, which everything bespoke are really indescribable." She formed the Association for the Improvement of the Females at Newgate, and was able to transform the condition of the prison. June Rose wrote in her Quaker Tapestry booklet on Fry 'Through her personal courage and involvement, Elizabeth Fry alerted the nations of Europe to the cruelty and filth in the prisons and revealed the individual human faces behind the prison bars. Her own passionate desire to lead a useful life disturbed the placid, vapid existence of women in Victorian England and changed forever the confines of respectable femininity. The name of Elizabeth Fry broadened the appeal of the Quaker faith . . . Over two hundred years after her birth, she seems a brave and modern woman, battling with the injustices of her time.'

 

Stock Code: 218804