📍Earlham Hall, Earlham Road, Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK
1786 – 1800“I grew up at Earlham Hall, outside Norwich, in a wealthy Quaker banking family, the fourth of twelve children of John Gurney and Catherine Bell. Earlham was a large old house set in parkland by the River Yare, and we Gurney girls were famous for our high spirits, our riding, dancing, singing and scarlet riding habits rather than plain Quaker grey. My mother taught us to love nature and books, but she died when I was twelve, and I helped to care for my younger brothers and sisters. I was a nervous, sensitive child, afraid of the dark and of the sea, and I kept a diary in which I examined my own feelings honestly. In 1798, when I was seventeen, I heard the American Quaker William Savery preach in Norwich, and I went home weeping. From then on, my faith became serious. I began to visit the poor and the sick around Earlham, collected old clothes for them, and opened a little Sunday school at the Hall, teaching some seventy local children to read in our laundry. In 1800 I married Joseph Fry and moved to London, and later I began visiting the women's side of Newgate Prison, where I found women and children living in filth. I founded schools, work and Bible readings for the prisoners and campaigned to reform prisons across Britain and Europe. The compassion that began among the poor families around Earlham shaped my whole life. Earlham Hall is now part of the University of East Anglia, and my face appeared on the Bank of England's five-pound note.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today