Original version

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa Schedule

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa

The Forum

Documentaries

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

The programme that explains the present by exploring the past

The programme that explains the present by exploring the past.

BBC World Service Australasia

BBC World Service Online

BBC World Service schedule for American satellite radio and the Caribbean

BBC World Service Americas and the Caribbean

BBC World Service

BBC World Service South Asia

BBC World Service News Internet

BBC World Service Europe and the Middle East

BBC World Service West and Central Africa Schedule

BBC World Service West and Central Africa

BBC World Service East Asia

The Forum: Elizabeth Fry: 'The angel of prisons'

Elizabeth Fry, 1816, Oil Painting by Jerry Barrett

01/10/2020 GMT

Elizabeth Fry: 'The angel of prisons'

BBC World Service - The Forum, Elizabeth Fry: 'The angel of prisons'

How a nineteenth century Quaker philanthropist shook up the prison system

How a nineteenth century Quaker philanthropist shook up the way prisoners were treated in England and beyond.

Life behind bars in English prisons in the early nineteenth century was, to put it mildly, grim. Prisons at the time were often damp, dirty and over-crowded. Common punishments included shipping convicts to colonies like Australia - and many crimes carried the death penalty. And the poor suffered most of all, because they couldn’t buy privileges like extra food rations. Into all this walked a woman known as the "angel of prisons", Elizabeth Fry. She was one of the major driving forces behind a new way of thinking about prisons – one that stressed that improving conditions for prisoners and treating them with humanity would lead to better outcomes and lower re-offending rates. A Christian philanthropist from a large Quaker family, her ideas were taken up across much of Europe, and she became something of a celebrity in Victorian England.

Joining Rajan Datar to discuss her work and legacy are: 

Averil Douglas Opperman, author of a biography of Elizabeth Fry called 'While It Is Yet Day'; Criminal barrister, Harry Potter, author of 'Shades of the Prison House – A History of Incarceration in the British Isles'; And Rosalind Crone, historian and author of 'The Guide to the Criminal Prisons of Nineteenth-Century England'.

Produced by Jo Impey for the World Service.

Image: Painting by Jerry Barrett depicting Elizabeth Fry reading to prisoners at Newgate, 1816
Image credit: Henry Guttmann / Hulton Archive / Getty Images

Accessibility links

Programme Index

The Forum

Elizabeth Fry: 'The angel of prisons'

Genres

Formats

Brand

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa

About BBC World Service