The Grave of Elizabeth Fry - Barking St Margaret's to Barking Quaker Burial Ground. 23/3/22

I decided to redo this video! after discovering more about her life + correcting my error of thinking she was blind👇

Barking Quaker Burial Ground - seeing the grave of Elizabeth Fry & her Husband Joseph Fry. Join me on a walk from the Church of Barking St Margaret's "to which she had links", to The Quaker Burial Ground in Barking, where Elizabeth & her husband Joseph are buried.
........................................................................
Elizabeth Fry (née Gurney; 21 May 1780 – 12 October 1845), sometimes referred to as Betsy Fry, was an English prison reformer, social reformer, philanthropist and Quaker. Fry was a major driving force behind new legislation to improve the treatment of prisoners, especially female inmates, and as such has been called the 'Angel of Prisons'. She was instrumental in the 1823 Gaols Act which mandated sex-segregation of prisons and female warders for female inmates to protect them from sexual exploitation. Fry kept extensive diaries in which the need to protect female prisoners from rape and sexual exploitation is explicit.

One admirer of Elizabeth's was Queen Victoria, who granted her an audience a few times before she was Queen and contributed money to her cause after she ascended to the throne. Another admirer was Robert Peel who passed several acts to further her cause including the Gaols Act 1823. The act was largely ineffective, because there were no inspectors to make sure that it was being followed.

Elizabeth Fry died from a stroke in Ramsgate, England, on 12 October 1845. Her remains were buried in the Friends' burial ground at Barking. Seamen of the Ramsgate Coast Guard flew their flag at half mast in respect of Mrs Fry; a practice that until this occasion had been officially reserved for the death of a ruling monarch. More than a thousand people stood in silence during her burial at Barking & also at the Ramsgate memorial.