Fry, Elizabeth Gurney, 1780-1845; Prison reformers -- Biography
After Mrs. Fry's death an interesting report was issued by the
Inspector-General of Prisons in Ireland, relating to the Grange Gorman
Lane Female Prison, Dublin. Mrs. Fry had taken special interest in this
prison, it having been the first erected _exclusively for women_ in the
United Kingdom, and intended, if found successful, to serve as a sort of
model for other places. The experiment had proved entirely successful
and satisfactory; matron, warders and chaplain all united in one chorus
of praise. Major Cottingham, the Inspector-General, wrote:--
Although I made my annual inspection of this prison on February
18th, 1847, as a date upon which to form my report, yet I have had
very many opportunities of seeing it during past and former years,
in my duties connected with my superintendence of the convict
department. The visitors may see many changes in the faces and
persons of the prisoners, but no surprise can ever find a
difference in the high and superior order with which this prison is
conducted. The matron, Mrs. Rawlins, upon whom the entire
responsibility of the interior management devolves, was selected
some years since, and sent over to this country by the benevolent
and philanthropic Mrs. Fry, whose exertions in the cause of female
prison reformation were extended to all parts of the British
Empire, and who, although lately summoned to the presence of her
Divine Master, has nowhere left a more valuable instance of her
sound judgment and high discriminating powers than in the selection
of Mrs. Rawlins to be placed at the head of this experimental
prison, occupied alone by females; and so successful has the
experiment been, that I understand several other prisons solely
for females have been lately opened in Scotland, and even in
Australia. In this prison is to be seen an uninterrupted system of
reformatory discipline in every class, such as is to be found in no
other prison that I am aware of.
The matron alluded to in the above extracts gratefully acknowledged that
Mrs. Fry's plan had completely succeeded in every respect, while she was
equally grateful in owning that to her instructions and wise maternal
counsel she herself owed her own fitness for that special branch of the
work.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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