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Mrs. Fry gave the great man a bit of fright by quietly explaining thus: “Sir, if thee kindly allows me to pray with the women, I will go inside.”

The Governor asked her to say it again. She did so, and a bright thought came to the great man: he would grant her request, writing an order that she be allowed to go inside the prison whenever she desired. It would teach her a lesson and save him from further importunity.

So little Mrs. Fry presented the order, and the gates were swung open and the iron quickly snapped behind her. She spoke to the women, addressing the one who seemed to be leader as sister, and asked the others to follow her back into the courtway away from the sound of the street, so they could have prayers. They followed dumbly. She knelt on the stone pavement and prayed in silence. Then she arose and read to them the One Hundred Seventh Psalm. Again she prayed, asking the others to kneel with her. A dozen knelt. She arose and went her way amid a hush of solemn silence.

Next day, when she came again, the ribaldry ceased on her approach, and after the religious service she remained inside the walls an hour conversing with those who wished to talk with her, going to all the children that were sick and ministering to them.

In a week she called all together and proposed starting a school for the children. The mothers entered into the project gladly. A governess, imprisoned for theft, was elected teacher. A cell-room was cleaned out, whitewashed, and set apart for a schoolroom, with the permission of the Governor, who granted the request, explaining, however, that there was no precedent for such a thing. The school prospered, and outside the schoolroom door hungry-eyed women listened furtively for scraps of knowledge that might be tossed overboard.

Mrs. Fry next organized classes for these older children, gray-haired, bowed with sin–many of them. There were twelve in each class, and they elected a monitor from their numbers, agreeing to obey her. Mrs. Fry brought cloth from her husband’s store, and the women were taught to sew. The Governor insisted that there was no precedent for it, and the guards on the walls said that every scrap of cloth would be stolen, but the guards were wrong.

The day was divided up into regular hours for work and recreation. Other good Quaker women from outside came in to help; and the taproom kept by a mercenary guard was done away with, and an order established that no spirituous liquors should be brought into Newgate. The women agreed to keep away from the grating on the street, except when personal friends came; to cease begging; to quit gambling. They were given pay for their labor. A woman was asked for as turnkey, instead of a man. All guards were to be taken from the walls that overlooked the women’s department. The women were to be given mats to sleep on, and blankets to cover them when the weather was cold. The Governor was astonished! He called a council of the Lord Mayor and the Aldermen. They visited the prison, and found for the first time that order had come out of chaos at Newgate.

Mrs. Fry’s requests were granted, and this little woman awoke one morning to find herself famous.

From Newgate she turned her attention to other prisons; she traveled throughout England, Scotland and Ireland, visiting prisons and asylums. She became well feared by those in authority, for her firm and gentle glance went straight to every abuse. Often she was airily turned away by some official clothed in a little brief authority, but the man usually lived to know his mistake.

She was invited by the French Government to visit the prisons of Paris and write a report, giving suggestions as to what reforms should be made. She went to Belgium, Holland and Germany, being received by kings and queens and prime ministers–as costume, her plain gray dress always sufficing. She treated royalty and unfortunates alike–simply as equals. She kept constantly in her mind the thought that all men are sinners before God: there are no rich, no poor; no high, no low; no bond, no free. Conditions are transient, and boldly did she say to the King of France that he should build prisons with the idea of reformation, not revenge, and with the thought ever before him that he himself or his children might occupy these cells–so vain are human ambitions. To Sir Robert Peel and his Cabinet she read the story concerning the gallows built by Haman. “Thee must not shut out the sky from the prisoner; thee must build no dark cells–thy children may occupy them,” she said.