Mrs. Fry gave her mind not only to teaching the prisoners and trying to lessen their sufferings, but to studying the whole question of prison reform. She wished to see things so changed that prisons might become places where criminals should not only be punished but helped to become better. She travelled all over the country, sometimes with her husband, sometimes with her brothers, who were also zealous workers in prison reform, visiting the different prisons. Journeys were sometimes undertaken also to visit Friends’ Meetings and speak at them; but wherever she went she always tried to inspect the prison, to form ladies’ committees to visit the prisons, and to persuade the authorities to improve their arrangements. She tried to be of use to other people also. There was a great deal of smuggling in those days, and there had to be many stations of coastguards to watch for smugglers. Mrs. Fry was sorry for the dull and lonely lives led by many of these men, and with the help of her friends provided for their use libraries of books at all the coastguard stations. She went to Ireland also to visit the prisons with her brother, who was deeply interested in the same work, and later they visited Jersey. Whenever she was in London, she paid a weekly visit to Newgate, and she sometimes visited the men as well as the women. The Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, was full of admiration for her work, and helped her to get improvements made in the care of the women and children on the convict ships.