Oral Languages, forming a Comprehensive Digest of Phonology,’ 1799, 8vo. The volume contains more than two hundred alphabets, including eighteen varieties of the Chaldee and thirty-two of the Greek. Many of the characters were expressly cut by Fry for his book. On the admission of George Knowles in 1799, the firm took the name of Fry, Steele, & Co. At the commencement of the present century the modern-faced type supplanted the old-faced. ‘Specimens of modern cut printing types from the foundry of Messrs. Fry & Steele’ are given in C. Stower's ‘Printer's Grammar,’ 1808, 8vo. About this time Fry reassumed sole management of the business. In 1816 a ‘Specimen of Printing Types by Edmund Fry, Letter Founder to the King and Prince Regent,’ was published. The firm soon after became Edmund Fry & Son, on the admission of his son, Windover. Fry cut several founts of oriental types for the university of Cambridge, the British and Foreign Bible Society, and other bodies. In a ‘Specimen’ printed in 1824 the name is changed back to ‘Edmund Fry’ at ‘the Polyglot Foundry.’ In 1828 he endeavoured to dispose of his business, and issued a descriptive circular (see Reed, pp. 310–12). It was purchased by William Thorowgood of Fann Street, and the stock removed in 1829. It has since been in the hands of Thorowgood & Besley, then R. Besley & Co., and now Sir Charles Reed & Sons. In 1833 twenty designs for raised type for the blind were submitted to the Royal Scottish Society of Arts, who had offered a prize for the best example. Among them was one from Fry, to whom the gold medal was awarded a couple of years after his death (Transactions, 1837, i.), which took place at Dalby Terrace, City Road, London, at the age of eighty-one, on 22 Dec. 1835.
Fry was one of the most learned of the English typefounders, but retired with a very small competence. He was a member of the Company of Stationers. He was married twice: first to Jenny, daughter of Nicholas Windover, of Stockbridge, Hampshire, of whose issue one son only survived, Windover Fry (1797–1835); secondly to Ann Hancock, by whom he had a son, Arthur (1809–78). A portrait of Fry, painted by Frédérique Boileau, was shown at the Caxton Exhibition in 1877 (Catalogue, p. 336). A silhouette has been reproduced by Reed (Letter Foundries, p. 298) and Fry (Memoir, p. 16).
[Information from Mr. W. E. Fry; T. B. Reed's Old English Letter Foundries, 1887; T. Fry's Memoir of Francis Fry (not published), 1887; T. C. Hansard's Typographia, 1825; Joseph Smith's Descr. Cat. of Friends' Books, 1867, vol. i.; Gent. Mag. 1836, new ser. v. 557–8.]
FRY, ELIZABETH (1780–1845), prison reformer, born at Earlham in Norfolk, 21 May 1780, was third daughter of John Gurney, banker in Norwich, and member of an old quaker family. Her younger brothers included Daniel Gurney [q. v.] and Joseph John Gurney [q. v.] Elizabeth in youth joined in social gaieties. Under the preaching and influence of an American named Savery she became deeply impressed by the gospel. Her earliest work was to visit the poor at Earlham and in Norwich, relieving the sick, and forming a class for the instruction of the children. At the age of twenty she married Joseph Fry, who appears to have been of a much colder and more commonplace nature than his wife. Their family was large. Amid all her public labours she never ceased to devote herself to their welfare; it was a great disappointment to her that some of them left the Society of Friends.
Soon after her marriage she was much exercised by the question whether or not she was called to the ministry among her people. Naturally she had an intense aversion to such a work, but on the death of her father, when she was twenty-nine, she was constrained to take part in the public service, and thereafter experienced such ‘incomings of love, joy, peace,’ that she no longer doubted, and was accordingly soon after recognised as a minister. She spoke with marvellous effect. The pathos of her voice was almost miraculous, and melted alike the hardest criminals and the most impervious men of the world. Cool observers who had witnessed the effects of her appeals in Newgate prison could hardly describe the scene without tears.
Her connection with prisons began practically in 1813. As a child of fifteen she had been deeply interested in the house of correction at Norwich, and had prevailed on her father to allow her to visit it. At the instigation of some of her friends who had come to know of the state of things at Newgate, and particularly of William Forster (1784–1854) [q. v.], she now turned her attention to the condition of the female prisoners. The state of things was appalling. Nearly three hundred women, with their children, were huddled together in two wards and two cells; some of them convicted, some not yet tried, innocent and guilty, misdemeanants and felons, all tumbled together; without employment, without nightclothes or bedclothes, sleeping on the bare floor, cooking and washing, eating and sleeping in the same apartment. A tap in the prison gave them the opportunity of supplying themselves with drink. Even the governor was afraid to trust himself in the place, and when the quakers were
