[PRISON REFORM] Elizabeth Fry, Quaker, reformer and philanthropist: autograph letter, signed. Upton (Ramsgate), July 1838.

Manuscript in ink, 1 1/2 pp., written on the first two sides of an octavo bifolium of wove notepaper (180 x 110 mm); headed ‘Upton, 7/18 1838’, and addressed simply ‘My dear Friend’, the note is written entirely in the hand of Elizabeth Fry and is signed by her at the foot ‘Affectionately & gratefully thy friend, Elizth. Fry‘; original folds, some minor paper adhesions at one edge from where the document was once mounted in an album, otherwise very well preserved.

A previously unpublished letter by English prison and social reformer, philanthropist and Quaker Elizabeth Fry (1780-1845), sometimes referred to as “The Angel of Prisons”. Replying to an unidentified Quaker woman (either she, or her husband, was evidently a portrait artist – see below), Fry declines an invitation to an engagement which was also to be attended by her good friend, the radical poet, feminist and fellow Quaker, Amelia Opie.

Provenance: Autograph album compiled by Jane Emma Murphy (Balcombe) (1854-1924), socialite, philanthropist and suffragist, “The Briars”, Mornington, Victoria (later St. Kilda, Melbourne); à Beckett family, Melbourne (by descent).

Transcription of the letter:

‘My dear Friend,

In reply to thy very kind invitation, I may say that pleasant as I fully believe it would be to me to meet my valuable friend A. Opie as well as to be with thy husband & thyself, I fear that I can not suitably accept your invitation – from the same cause in part that I could not sit for my picture – My engagements are so very pressing and numerous that I can afford very little time for visiting my dear friends. Pray remember me very kindly to thy husband and Believe me, 

Affectionately & gratefully thy friend, Elizth. Fry‘